Yesterday was our state's March for Science. As with other marches, this event was supposed to bring attention to attempted budget cuts for science funding and environmental agencies.
Our sign
It references proposed riders that Congress has added to unrelated bills that attempt to greatly weaken the USFWS' abilities to gather the best science available or repeal the extremely popular bill altogether. They call this "modernizing" although the ESA is highly successful. The bottom half includes photographs of species that recovered under the ESA.
Other signs
We chose a rather serious message for our sign, but other people chose more humorous routes or insults.
Common ones:
-Persist, resist
-Science, not silence
-I like big brains, and I cannot lie
-Make America Smart Again
-I'm with her (pointing at Earth)
-There's no PLANet B
-Planned Parenthood
-Nye/Tyson 2020
Turnout
While we were not able to get a very good picture of the crowd, here are various pictures of the crowd size as people were coming in. We believe there may have been several hundred people. Note: we were at the edge of the plaza so this is not very accurate.
Rally
At 10:30, there were some speeches by 4 people, who were scientists, researchers, or in some way promoting science. A lawyer from Defenders of Wildlife even came. Here is a short clip from the speech (don't mind the video, only the audio is important).
stuff.wlmp |