An estimated 10,000 demonstrators marched from Cathedral Hill Park to the Minnesota State Capitol on Earth Day this past Saturday. The march was one of over 600 worldwide to support science education and funding research. Speakers at the rally that followed included climatologist Mark Seeley and Rep. Betty McCollum.
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
[cms_ad]
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
MinnPost photo by Corey Anderson
Related
Fantastic Signs!
So many GREAT signs, both in Saint Paul and nationwide!
Love “Hey you rubes—hands off my Test Tubes”—
I’m sending the image of that one to the Rube(s) in My Family now
Turning scientists into another Democrat special interest group is a GREAT way to make sure 45-55% of Americans support research funding in a given election. I’ve always thought the best thing for my work would be to make it into a wedge issue.
I would love to see the logic on an alternative
Andrew,
Can you explain another alternative to getting the message out? (that would not be a wedge issue).
It is a serious request.
I feel certain (but cannot prove) that no GOP MN Representatives would have come and spoken or marched.
So is lying down and hoping things will change on there own the correct way to react to massive cuts in funding?
At the march there were multiple signs asking people to call their Reps and Senators, good. What else should people who are alarmed do?
I can’t remember if these same science lovers in the
early 70’s were walking around in heavy coats protesting because “scientists” had determined that global cooling was going to kill us all. A mere 50 years ago these same scientists said we were entering a cooling period (along with irreparable O-zone holes) that was man made also. Living in N. Minnesota thru those brutal winters in the 60’s & 70’s, I was a liberal and bought into global cooling. Now I don’t buy into the latest trend to get folks worked up and raise money for special interest groups.
Posting is invalid on several counts
1. I was just entering the use of science professionally (corporate job) in the early 70s, and do not remember this heavy emphasis at all. I have read multiple de-bunkings of this general point as well, with documentation cited.
2. Protests about global cooling? Really! Protesting what, exactly?
3. The ozone holes were and are real, but I do not recall the notion they were irrepairable and thiat is why the call – agreed to by corporate scientists, to find alternatives to Freon 12 etc was made. The ozone hole was not directly related to either global warming or cooling.
4. “These same scientists” have been working for 50 years? So if they were 30 years old then (more likely older than that to be published on this subject) they would be marching here at over 80 years old.
5. One mistake hardly cancels a related issue, simply because it was a mistake, in anybody’s logic.
Your data point is correct; your conclusion is wrong.
As this chart shows (https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/), the % of CO2 in the air has skyrocketed since the period you described. CO2 levels vacillated over thousands of years in a band between about 180-300 parts per million: never higher, never lower, but in the last 50 or so years it has skyrocketed to over 400 parts per million, enough to affect the climate of the world, and likely will keep climbing. The problem is recent and serious.
You can see its effects in Minnesota, where fall ends later, spring starts earlier, and winters are less severe. As an older person, you will remember that winter weather often started in November: how many snowy Thanksgivings did you have? Now winter mostly starts in December. In the spring, March high school tournament snowstorms have turned into rain events (1″ rain can equal up to 10″ of snow). Also in Minnesota, traditional agriculture zones are shifting north. How many winters has the the snow stuck through the winter? There was one bad one a few years ago, during a La Nina event, but otherwise the snowpack is thin and doesn’t last.
50 Years?
The connection between CO2 and global warming was first made by Nobel Prize winning chemist Svante Arrhenius in 1896 – that’s 120 years ago. At that time there were few coal burning power plants or gasoline driven cars, so the impact was considered minor. Indeed, Arrhenius thought that the long term trend was toward cooling, and thought that the greenhouse gas might counter that. He did not expect the vast explosion of fossil fuel use that has since occurred.
Completely false
Conservatives have gotten a lot of mileage out of a single article, which was in Newsweek and not any kind of scientific journal. The idea that global cooling was seen then like global warming is today is pure nonsense. It’s a straight up lie.
If you are interested in science or just simply care about facts, this kind of lie is obvious. But people aren’t interested. They don’t care. They are willing to repeat lies without question. That is why the science protests are needed.
I just wonder how many of the young “scientists” marching in St. Paul could explain the science of a greenhouse effect… Or guarantee that the Sun’s activity will not decrease in the next hundred years… By the way, isn’t the “rube” word a microaggression?
Scientists
Given that these are people who are interested in science, I expect that most of them could give good explanations. But you obviously don’t need to be an expert in every field of science to believe in it and to defer to the actual experts. The fact that there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists in a field (like climate science) is enough that people should take what they say seriously.
I have my doubts
My wild guess is that most people participating in this demonstration are not interested in science but rather in politics. On the other hand, there was time when “an overwhelming consensus among scientists in a field” was that the Sun revolves around Earth… I also liked that you used the word “believe” which is an attribute of faith, not science…