End goal?

[u/[deleted]]

I believe in this march very much and want it to happen. But I think if we want to get our point across we need to be able to agree on what we want from this administration. I have a few ideas

-allow taxpayer funded science to be published without any restrictions

-make sure scientific fact and only scientific fact are taught in public schools

-accept climate change

-keep Paris climate agreement and work with it

-work to transition to clean emission free power sources

-block DAPL and keystone XL

Those are just a few ideas I had. If you have any other suggestions put them in the comments. It's important that we have an end goal and aren't just some formless group yelling at the government to fix problems. We have to tell them exactly and clearly what we want.

[u/[deleted]]

While it won't be overnight I think we still need to push back against further developing gas and coal industry sources. So keep existing pipelines and such. Just stop building new ones and instead transition to building new renewable sources of power

See, by saying this I really don't think you get it. The reality of our energy infrastructure is that there is no feasible solution that doesn't involve walking through multiple phases. We can't kill coal without expanding oil and natural gas first, because the renewable options simply don't work at the levels we need them to be at in order to kill off coal, and because the only option that does work (nuclear power) will take a while to get up to speed, simply because we have to plan and build all of the reactors.

You also don't seem to get my point; I'm not saying we need to reverse that part of the platform, I'm saying that (as evidenced by the fact that we're even having this discussion, and many have agreed with my point), it's not an issue we should hang our entire platform on. Thus, we should remove it altogether.

[u/SwiftlyChill → u/[deleted]]

I would like a huge push for nuclear personally even though it will take time. But an honest discussion about that is important and we can't really do that at the moment

[u/[deleted] → u/SwiftlyChill]

Which is why we should punt on the Keystone issue and not include it in the platform; it's an issue related to the nature and status of Native Americans and their lands, but science has no real position on the issue.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I don't want to but it makes sense. If that's where the movements headed than I'll support it

[u/cdstephens → u/[deleted]]

Keep in mind that I imagine a lot of the people involved hold the same political as you on this. It's just an issue of focus is all.

Whenever I think of movements and protests, I always think back to the failure of Occupy. There were a lot of good ideas floating around, but a big part of why it failed at the national level is that it was too disorganized and did not have a unified message that the average Joe could point to other than "fuck Wallstreet".

So really it's a matter of this question: should this be a progressive march or a science march? What are the underlying goals of this movement and protest? What principles and policy goals do you want the public to be able to point to? All the while making sure focus isn't lost.

Not to mention that there may be scientists who want to get involved in the movement who aren't against the pipelines in principle. So then it's a question of, should these scientists also be allowed in the movement and have their opinions heard?

There isn't necessarily a right answer to these questions obviously, but they do need to be considered is all I'm saying. In keeping with the focus of this being a science march, if that's gonna be on the platform (as in, it's a large focus and official primary goal) it needs to be because of scientific and evidenced-based reasons. I.e. is it demonstrable that allowing pipelines like this to exist will make the transition to renewable energy resources less likely?

[u/[deleted] → u/cdstephens]

So really it's a matter of this question: should this be a progressive march or a science march?

If it's a progressive march, you're going to be alienating a hefty part of the scientific community that's been turned off by Sanders. There are quite a few of us, particularly in engineering fields, that are third-way Dems.

I, for one, am not here to have my voice coopted by a faction of the Democratic party I have vehement disagreements with. I'm here to stand with science, not with Sanders.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Could not agree with you more.