This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I was sitting in a bar in Washington, D.C., waiting for a poster party to start before the March for Science, when I overheard two guys and the bartender trying to figure out exactly what the march was supposed to accomplish.
I had to sort of agree with them; a march for science would seem to be as necessary as a march for motherhood or a march against man-eating sharks. It should be obvious that science is a good thing. And yet, there I was, getting ready to make a poster for a protest march.
The march itself was interesting: It was cold and rainy, yet people came by the thousands to fill the Washington Monument grounds, then march to the Capitol building. Most of the signs had some bad pun. Some people re-knitted their pussy hats from the Women's March into brain hats. References to Star Trek and Futurama abounded. The favorite chant was "What do we want? Evidence-based science! When do we want it? After peer review!" Lab coats abounded even though they were not a good choice for the weather; one guy was dressed as Beaker from the Muppets. A local entrepreneur made a bundle selling plastic garbage bags to the marchers who hadn't brought rain gear. All in all, the crowd was happy, well behaved and trying to have a good time despite the weather.
However there was a serious side to all this. People were there because they were upset at what President Trump and the Republican Party were doing to the EPA. The denial of climate change was a sore point among the participants. The lack of a presidential science advisor, the replacement of a an eminent scientist as secretary of energy with a hack politician who didn't even know what all the Department of Energy does, the requested major drop in funding for the National Institutes of Health, the projected 10 percent drop in the rest of science funding (no details yet, but if domestic discretionary funding goes down by 10 percent to make up for a $65 billion boost to the Pentagon, science funding will go down with it), all these were a source of anger to the people gathered there. "I can't believe I have to march in favor of facts," said one sign. "When even the introverts feel they have to march, you know we have a problem," said another.
I had showed up in Washington a day early in order to visit with our congressional delegation, with mixed results. They were all back in Utah for the break (not so good timing on the part of the protest organizers) but a staffer at Rep. Mia Love's office was willing to talk to me. We discussed what she was doing as part of the Bipartisan Climate Change Caucus, which turned out to be not much yet. The caucus is new, membership is still not stable and, as there is no political will for a real climate change policy among the Republican leadership, the caucus is concentrating on small things that are a good idea even if one does not believe climate change is an issue. Ten years ago these would have been a good start, now they seem to be too little too late. But it is all the caucus can do at this time. Sen. Orrin Hatch's office did call back to me but they wanted to have a phone conversation immediately; I demurred saying I wasn't prepared yet, then tried to make my points via an email to the staffer who had called. I never heard back. Sen. Mike Lee's office made no attempt to contact me. But then, I wasn't expecting much from them, I just felt that this is what you do when you go to Washington to protest; try to talk to your congressmen.
And so, I marched. I could no longer feel that voting, reading the news and talking to my friends was enough. I could no longer just stick to my job and let others worry about the politics. I marched.
It was a start.
Robert Cady, Holladay, is the field physicist for the Telescope Array Cosmic Ray Observatory at the University of Utah. He is also a river runner, backcountry skier and homebrewer. His opinions are not necessarily those of the Telescope Array or of the University of Utah.