January 21, two days after the inauguration of the new President in the United States and other countries of the world Women’s March held a large — scale civil action with a broad human rights agenda and the emphasis on the protection of women’s rights. It was the largest one-day protest in the history of the United States, only in Washington D.C. it was attended by about half a million people. The main reason for the protest was the figure of the new President: for presidential election campaign statements of the Republican candidate and some details of his biography repeatedly provoked a strong reaction — many found them in contempt of women. A symbol of Women’s March steel knitted pink beanie. The symbol of the next big protest March can be white lab coats: his campaign against the policies of the new President serves the American scientists.
The idea originated during the discussion on the website Reddit on January 23, quickly turned into a large movement currently for a group on Facebook, which discusses the upcoming March signed by more than 325 000 members. After much debate, scientists have decided to take to the streets on April 22 — Earth Day.
Trump signed on Friday a decree limiting the entry into the United States for citizens of some countries with a Muslim majority, has significantly increased the number of sympathizers is the idea of Scientific March. So why do researchers suddenly found themselves at the forefront of political protest in the United States?
The reasons for this have already accumulated quite a lot, but historically, the first and one of the most important — the attitude of Donald trump to the issue of climate change. Trump repeatedly sharply spoke about global warming, calling it “nonsense”, “hoax”, “the invention of the Chinese,” he has publicly promised, if elected, to withdraw from the Treaty on joint measures to curb climate change, the Paris agreement, ratification of which is not easily achieved, the administration of Barack Obama. Even in the so-called transition period, between election and inauguration, trump revealed that his doubts about the anthropogenic nature of climate change will take the form of specific administrative actions, and very quickly.
Indeed, on Monday, January 23, it became known about a temporary freezing of grant and contract activities of the Agency for environmental protection of the United States, the next day in a press there were messages that representatives of the environmental Agency, and the Ministry of agriculture banned public speaking and media communication. Then it became known that the leadership of the National institutes of health, USA — the largest American conglomeration of medical research institutions — a ban on official communication with government officials, including members of Congress. Finally on Wednesday it became clear that the new administration was removed from the official online resource of the White house and State Department almost all references state climate programs. Concerned scientists and environmental impacts some planned Donald trump steps, in particular by removal of restrictions on the extraction of shale oil and the construction of the wall on the border of USA and Mexico. According to ecologists, these and other decisions are made without regard to the possible impact on the environment.
This was enough to sow discontent in academic circles, as adopted by the new President on Friday, January 27, a decree limiting the entry into the United States for citizens of seven countries with a Muslim majority, did this dissatisfaction with large-scale. Matysik known and popular author in the scientific community of the blog, Columbia University Professor Peter Voight clearly and in the most severe terms stated the necessity of finding ways for the impeachment of Donald trump.
“The United States has never been in such a situation, in contrast to Europe and the tramp is valid now according to the scheme, we are familiar with the history of the 1930-ies. Today, the United States may have been one terrorist attack from a full fascist regime, only this time armed with nuclear weapons. This must be stopped immediately”, — he wrote in his blog.
Voight also urged his readers after him to sign a petition to repeal the new immigration restrictions. At that time, she managed to collect the signatures of more than 18 thousand researchers, including 50 Nobel laureates.
Scott Aaronson, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, one of the world’s most renowned experts in the field of theoretical computer science, also urged his colleagues to sign the petition and explained in his blog why the new immigration restrictions could harm the us directly to science.
“What are we to make? Indefinitely scientific departments of American universities are unable to invite graduate students from Iran — a country that along with China, India and some other has long been a source of top talent. (…) What will happen to the students from Iran who are already here? Yet nobody catches and deport. But their future is suddenly plunged into a fog — wrote Aaronson in his blog. — I have one request to trump: if you ever decide that the US should deport my graduate students run me first. I’m begging, come home to me, arrest me, deprive me of citizenship, collect my rewards, which was awarded in the White house and the State Department. I will consider it the highest honor.”
Professor Scott Aaronson told Radio Liberty why the policy of the new President provoked unprecedented protests from the scientific community:
— As far as I can tell, the scientific community in the United States almost unanimously opposed to the trump, and if among us there is disagreement, it concerns whether to count his ascent to power, just something very bad, or it’s time to call it an emergency. And the reasons for this protest so much that it’s hard to say which one is the main one. It is the belief of the trump, will, and emotions are more important than facts and logic, his childishness, vindictiveness and lack of curiosity, his attempts to silence climate scientists and support ridiculous conspiracy theories about climate change, its murderous plans against the Agency for environmental protection and the Ministry of energy (and shortly could be followed by other state bodies relevant to science), it support antiprivivochnaya pseudoscience, and now the decree for the restriction of immigration.
And the last thing personally for many of us American scientists. Many have students from Iran, many are working with colleagues from Muslim countries, and what will happen to them now is unclear. We should expect that the best foreign scientists will go somewhere to another country that we are no longer able to carry out in the United States representative to the conference because they will not be able to bring colleagues from certain countries, and so on and so forth. If the new immigration policy will not be canceled, it may undermine America’s global scientific leadership. Even those foreign scholars who are not directly affected by these restrictions, may refuse to come to us from solidarity with others. Yes, we scientists were among those opposed to trump, but we are not alone in the protest actions after his inauguration was attended by 3 million people, it was probably the most massive protest in American history.
— Trump’s attitude to global warming — is also a key issue?
— The issue of climate change is also very important. I support the scientific consensus that global warming poses a great threat to humanity. “Views” trump on this issue, if it can be called “views”, are to bury our heads in the sand. It is not only on purely emotional grounds denies the existence of the problem, but tries to dismiss or at least to silence scientists who are trying to find out how huge this problem is and how to act. I think needless to say that it will not solve the problem.
— Can scientists protest marches and petitions to change something in politics, Donald trump?
— I don’t think petitions and protest marches can directly affect the administration, appealing to its “consciousness”. And they can be useful, because it will raise the political stakes and make it more difficult for trump and his team, the implementation of even more radical steps and making them a place to retreat. But even regardless of this, the American scientific community has a moral obligation to the world and before history: we must show that we will not silently accept what is happening.
Scientists are people, known for its employment, will find that everything will soon be back in the lab and classrooms and protest activities rapidly damped?
— Don’t know if we have enough people with enough free time to keep the protest alive. But if trump will continue to act in the spirit of the immigration Ordinance, personally affecting us and our professional activities, he just will not leave us no choice.
— How scientific functionaries, administrative staff at American universities are ready to support the civil protest of scientists and teachers?
— Generally speaking, universities are cautious bureaucratic organization, especially, but not only, public universities. But we have seen some official statements, for example, from the Massachusetts Institute of technology or University of Texas at Austin, with words of support and concern to address students and staff that fall under the new restrictions. It is not surprising that direct criticism of trump and the approval of the protests in these statements was not. On the other hand, I know that some representatives of the upper administration of MIT in person at a student rally against the immigration Ordinance, demonstrating that his personal support. It is clear that in the coming months, University administrators are increasingly faced with the need to make difficult choices, and many of us will be closely watching their actions.
— How the American scientific community is United in rejection of the policies of the new administration?
Personally, I don’t know of any American scientist who would support the regime trump. In Silicon valley there is a known technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel, which in their complex and idiosyncratic reasons support trump, but til ‘ — not quite a scientist. Well, I read in the news that a physicist and a denier of global warming William Happer from Princeton met with Donald trump, and more I can’t think of anyone, at the same time on the opposite side of thousands of researchers. So I don’t think our community is threatened by a split. On the contrary, what is happening unites us, making us forget the old political disputes and to act together against a new threat, said Scott Aaronson.
The American academic community for the most part traditionally has a left-liberal attitude and supported the Democratic party, in this light, dissatisfaction with scientists from the new President, a representative of the Republicans is not surprising. However, this time the intensity has reached unprecedented levels, and scientists are not concerned about the overall agenda of the new administration, and very specific steps of Donald trump who have the most direct relationship to American science. Obviously, the new President will have to find a common language with the scientific community in the United States is a relatively powerful social group, which in its turn affects technological, economic, and military leadership of the United States.
It is worth noting that even in the midst of these certainly significant challenges, the American scientific community works immeasurably more comfortable conditions than Russia, still not recovered completely after the reform of the Russian Academy of science. At the end of January it became known that the cost of developing the Russian scientific-technological complex in the years 2017-2019 will be reduced in Russia to 25 billion rubles as compared to the planned figures, the cost of the program for the next three years will be about 200 billion rubles, which is about 70 billion rubles per year. The us budget is planned for research and development only one 2017, is $ 150 billion, about one hundred times more than in Russia.
