Three months after the largest demonstration in US history, Saturday’s March for Science again brought droves of people into the streets to celebrate their values and protest the Trump administration and its policies.
Tens of thousands marched for science in more than 600 cities on 6 continents
“This recast Earth Day revived the democratic feel of the original.”
And like the Women’s March, the demonstrations happened not just in front of the symbols of political power in Washington, DC, but in cities and towns across the country and around the world. In all, organizers say people marched for science on Earth Day in more than 600 cities and towns across six continents.
While the crowds were far smaller than the record-breaking Women’s March in January, many of the March for Science events attracted thousands of participants. Reuters reports that some 15,000 joined the march in Washington, DC, while 12,000 participated in Los Angeles and 2,000 turned out in Oklahoma City.
Their messages and chants varied from calls to protect the Environmental Protection Agency’s funding to the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” (You can read my colleague Brian Resnick’s dispatch from the Washington march to get a sense of what scientists and science enthusiasts there had to say to Trump.)
Historians said the March for Science was distinctly different from other Earth Day events celebrated in the US.
“Breaking 46 years of precedent, it was more about the ways we know nature — science — than about nature-saving,” environmental historian Christopher Sellers of Stony Brook University told me. “Odd as it would have seemed just a few years ago, this recast Earth Day also revived the democratic feel of the original.”
But Sellers notes, “For the first time in a generation, the main event wasn’t heavily scripted and did not need a slate of celebrity entertainers to draw its audience. Braving the drizzle in DC, an overflow crowd came not just to listen but to march.”
We rounded up photos and videos from marches in London, San Francisco, New Orleans, Dallas, Raleigh, Greenland, Berlin, Sydney, Tokyo, Dublin, and Uganda. Have a look:
