Donald Trump Protests To Continue With March For Science, People’s Climate March

Donald Trump protests are set to continue through the month of April in Washington, D.C., and other cities, following the April 15 Tax Day marches in which protesters demanded the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns and the fighting in Berkeley on the same day at a pro-Trump rally.

Upcoming protests against Donald Trump’s environmental policies include the March for Science on Saturday, April 22 and the People’s Climate March on Saturday, April 29. Berkeley, California, is also expected to be the scene of protests once again when Ann Coulter speaks at UC Berkeley on April 27, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Although the Coulter speech is not a Donald Trump event as such, it is likely to attract both pro-Trump and anti-Trump activists as past events in Berkeley have done.

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters are expected to attend the March for Science at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Earth Day, April 22. According to the Guardian, the march was originally organized on social media by Jonathan Berman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, after a Reddit conversation with other scientists about the effects of Donald Trump’s policies on climate change and other issues. Since then, the march has been endorsed by approximately 100 different organizations of scientists, as well as science celebrities such as Bill Nye “the Science Guy.”

The People’s Climate March is a recurring protest focused on climate change and other environmental issues. In 2014, approximately 400,000 protesters attended a previous People’s Climate March in New York City, according to the Huffington Post. Although the marches in previous years were not focused on Donald Trump, the People’s Climate March on April 29 is being promoted specifically as an anti-Trump protest on the event website, which stresses the role of opposition to Donald Trump’s environmental policies in the broader anti-Trump “resistance” movement.

“At the end of April, Donald Trump will have been in office for 100 days. We need to mark that day with a massive demonstration that shows that our resistance is not going to wane or fade away.”

For protesters who cannot attend the marches against Trump in D.C., both the March for Science and the People’s Climate March have scheduled sister marches in multiple cities all over the United States. The environmentalist theme of this current round of protests was spurred by Donald Trump’s support for fossil fuel projects, such as the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipeline projects, as well as Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and statements by EPA head and Trump appointee Scott Pruitt that carbon dioxide is not the cause of global warming, as reported by the Guardian.

Although the March for Science has been endorsed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, not all scientists are in support of the protest. The Guardian quotes geologist Robert Young of Western Carolina University as saying that although he is also concerned about Trump’s policies, protesting on Earth Day “plays into conservative and climate skeptic thinking that scientists are just environmentalists.” Organizing their own protest is a significant departure from form for the scientific community, which prizes neutrality and objectivity as core principles of the scientific method.

However, Donald Trump made several comments on the campaign trail that concerned or upset many scientists, describing climate change as a hoax and calling for fewer environmental protections. Since becoming president, Trump has followed up on these comments by appointing climate skeptic Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, and with proposals to cut the budget for the National Institutes of Health by $5.8 billion. The Annals of Internal Medicine, a journal published by the American College of Physicians, called on doctors to join the march in an editorial titled “Alternative Facts Have No Place In Science,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

Although opposition to Donald Trump is a major theme of the March for Science, participants are not solely focused on President Trump. Marchers will also voice their opposition to the anti-vaccination movement and what they see as a popular climate of anti-intellectualism and disregard for evidence in every area of public policy.

[Featured Image by Reed Saxon/AP Images]