Posted on 04/19/2017 2:51:05 PM PDT by mdittmar
Of all the attacks on our civil society, the attacks on evidence-based science pose perhaps the greatest existential threat. Decisions being made about climate science and environmental protection at this critical time will shape the future of our planet.
Advances in research are produced by the twin pillars of dedicated scientists and an activated citizenry who demand that the best science be applied to today’s most pressing problems. Because scientists produce the facts that expose the lies currently being purveyed, the tip of the spear is pointed at the heart of science-based policy and research.
But the imminent threat also presents an extraordinary opportunity for the scientific community to unify around a message of resistance, one in which organized labor has a critical role to play. Unionized scientists are well-positioned to fight back against the false narratives being pushed by the administration and to advocate collectively for continued funding of crucial basic research. Science professionals need a workplace free from fear of corporate power and political malfeasance influencing their results. We are the protectors of truth and facts, and in that way we all are in service to the public. With scientific integrity, we speak truth to power.
Budget cuts are the beginning of the attack. For example, the Donald Trump administration is proposing a 31% cut in funding and 21% cut in workforce at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on top of less-heralded budget cuts over the past three years. Such low funding levels have not been seen since the 1970s, prior to the enactment of most of our national environmental laws. Enforcement is also targeted, crippling the EPA’s ability to protect human health.
Is this a good way to save money? Investments in environmental protection pay huge dividends for the country. For example, air pollution reductions will avoid 230,000 premature deaths and produce total benefits valued at $2 trillion in 2020, according to a 2011 study. This benefit exceeds costs by more than 30-to-1, to say nothing of the human suffering.
Scientists have long held the view that with enough data and evidence we will be able to convince skeptics that climate change is real, that humans are responsible and that immediate action must be taken. It is increasingly clear that this approach has not worked.
For the nearly 7,000 postdoctoral researchers at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab represented by UAW Local 5810, having a union ensures strong workplace protections as well as a powerful, nationwide platform for advocacy when research comes under threat. And the collective power of the union is not limited to the workplace.
With a diverse membership that includes both higher education and the manufacturing sector, the UAW has been a leading advocate for climate change policies that both create healthy communities and address economic and racial inequities. And at the EPA, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 20/Engineers and Scientists of California (ESC) has rallied in opposition to the cuts and will continue to speak out, including in San Francisco at the March for Science.
Make no mistake. As organized scientists, we are in solidarity with our union brothers and sisters who have lost jobs and real income steadily over the past several decades. We support the creation of jobs in clean energy sectors and in green infrastructure projects.
It is time for scientists and the citizenry who depend on science to embrace our responsibility to advocate for sound policies. Our very lives and livelihood are now dependent on stepping collectively forward into the realm of political advocacy and action.
Together we will March for Science on April 22, in opposition to the damage that the current administration seeks to do to research and in solidarity with scientists, researchers, and concerned citizens who remain resolved, undeterred, and organized in the face of these threats.
Carly Ebben Eaton is a postdoctoral scholar and executive board member of UAW Local 5810. Kathy Setian was a project manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a steward of IFPTE Local 20, Engineers and Scientists of California. She will be a speaker at the April 22 March for Science in San Francisco.
Yawn, more libtards wanting taxpayer money.
The progturds have so many marches that nobody really pays any attention anymore.
Oxymoron
If you’re a post-grad at the University of California you’ll be “represented” by the UAW (that’s right, the United Auto Workers). You don’t get a choice in the matter, that’s between the university and the union. In addition you’ll get an unethical high-pressure pitch to take the next step and join the union.
Will they wear vagina hats recently popularized in libtard marches to identify them as the pussies that they are?
Eff them and their subsidized jobs
Let them live in the real world
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
So the feds policing the environment remains unconstitutional imo.
“Of all the attacks on our civil society, the attacks on evidence-based science pose perhaps the greatest existential threat.”
And so we are given further PROOF that Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Unions are cancer!
What type of Scientists are these? Microwave Food developers?
Evidence based science like oh say... X AND Y CHROMOSOMES!!!???
“Scientists have long held the view that with enough data and evidence we will be able to convince skeptics that climate change is real, that humans are responsible and that immediate action must be taken. It is increasingly clear that this approach has not worked.”
That is the very definition of pseudo-science. One can accumulate any amount of data supporting, virtually, any theory. The thing that gives science its strength is that only one conter-example is enough to sink the theory. Science *is* skepticism.
And the UAW in particular? Give me a break!
OK. I see the problem.
Exactly. Same with doctors and many other professions.
“Of all the attacks on our civil society, the attacks on evidence-based science pose perhaps the greatest existential threat.”
By “attacks” they mean asking to see some real evidence.
The THEORY of evolution is quite real, as are the evolutionary processes it describes.
In science, the word "theory" does not mean "guess" or "supposition" as it does in ordinary, non-scientific language. Rather, "theory" refers to a conceptual framework that ties together the known facts on a subject and provides a basis to form testable hypotheses (which are educated guesses) about further facts which are not yet known.
For example, the theory of evolution tells me that because two species had a common ancestor millions of years ago, their genes are very similar but not exactly the same because they have been evolving separately. Therefore, if I know that gene RING exists in species A, I can hypothesize that it exists also in species B. Then I can do the experiments to look for it (and will probably find it).
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