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The science behind the March for Science

MCCC student Amanda Roelant takes a seat during the march. Photo by Miranda Gardner.

Miranda Gardner

Staff Member

    MCCC students and professors marched against the silence on science.

    Student and biology laboratory assistant, Amanda Roelant marched to bring awareness to the importance of science.

    “We need to have it in our lives if we want to keep progressing,” she said. “There’s been a lot of problems in our government recently trying to hinder that growth.”

    Referring to the administration’s blackout that is silencing tax-funded research from the public and media.

    “We know we have our freedoms, we know we have our rights, and we will not be silenced,” Roelant said. “We will not stand for this blatant misuse of authority.”

Professor of mathematics Mark Naber has a PhD in physics, yet he still cannot convince his relatives that climate change is happening.

    “I can show them the data, explain the physics of why it happens, and the inner workings, but they refuse to accept it,” he said, “And they’re people that’ve known me their entire lives.”

    Science is no longer a tested truth or matter of fact, but another variable of politics. People think with their political brain and not their rational brain, Naber said. 

“Take a step back and ask yourself, do I know more than a scientist about a scientific issue,” he questioned.

    In the 1950s, China ignored its scientists and attempted to get rid of all the birds in the country. This caused a huge boom in the population of insects, which ate most of the crops, and resulted in over 6 million people starving.

    “Ignoring weather, changes in the climate, how it’s going to affect our food supply, production—its crazy,” Naber said.

    History has a way of repeating itself. The Obama administration worked to create the Clean Power Act, cutting carbon emissions, and pushed towards alternative energy, but a celebrity president washed it all away.

    During the Oil Embargo of the 70s, president Jimmy Carter started to create an atmosphere that moved away from fossil fuels and invested in renewable energies more aggressively.

    “He put solar cells on top of the White House as a symbolic gesture to help encourage people to move on,” Naber said.

    But when Carter ran for a second term, Ronald Reagan won.

    “He took the solar cells off the roof of the White House, he stopped tax credits to research into alternative fuels, and that has held us back,” Naber said. 

“He even went as far as to put a stop to us from moving to use the metric system and that’s why we are one of the few countries that uses inches, feet, and miles,” he said. 

This cycle seems all too familiar for Naber.

“This administration is Reagan’s administration on steroids,” he said.

We all have cell phones, computers, and internet. 

“That’s all possible because of science and applications of science,” Naber said. “To say this is enough now and ignore everything else is crazy.”

Roelant thinks it’s incredibly important to be aware of the natural world around us.

“You have to care about the things that are going on in the world because you’re a part of the world,” she said. “And you want to live in the best environment that you can because that’s all you have.”