The science March is coming up, and the climate March.

And It's really great that scientists are mobilizing, and feeling good & rallying together.

BUT

This whole science March is got me wondering if we’re doing the right thing, I mean, is protesting the effective thing for us all to be doing? Are we just preaching to the converted? Or are we making the situation actually worse, making science more of a political issue than it already is.

[SCIQ INTRO]

The March is great - don’t get me wrong, I 100% think that it’s awesome that scientists having their voices heard. but I think if we want to make actual change, then we need to do more than just march the streets, and sign petitions - even though those things make us feel like we are doing something, it makes us feelgood.

So I was thinking - in the real world - change seems to happen in three ways

1. Money (PAC)
We all want to get money out of politics, I know, but it’s there, so let’ s not pretend it’s not the reality - money rules the system.

And Everyone knows what PACs are – Political Action Committees that essentially raise money for a political campaign –A SUPER PAC for science would give us the ability to raise funds without any legal limit on donation size, and then run unlimited political spending in support of any candidate or candidates, that we chose.

So imagine if we had a Science Super PAC that throws its money behind candidates who stand up for science. There’s already PACs for the Environment, like Ocean Champions which donates thousands of dollars to Congress People who support ocean protection.

But there’s soooo much money in science that we could be using for this purpose. There is private money, there is institutional money, just think of all the cash in biotech firms, or at Harvard’s research facilities. If they gave just one tenth of 1% of that money to a Science Super PAC, you’d have a really powerful pot of money to help get the right people elected.

And I’m not just talking about getting scientists elected, although that’s important and I will talk about in point number 3. There’s also so many science-friendly government people already sitting in congress or in the state or local councils that need our support. And the support of the science community. and One of those is Ben Kallos, who came on ScIQ and talked about how he uses the scientific method to make policy decisions. He’s not a scientist, but he’s the type of guy that we need to get re-elected. Having more people like Ben Kallos in government means scientists can spend less time protesting and more time pipetting!

2. Lobby Group (AAAS)

If an oil company wants something, they hire lobbyists to go to congress and talk to politicians until they get what they want.
But scientists don’t really do lobbying much at all, even though we have giant chunks of public money that we apparently need to be defended at the moment. We just kinda take out public funding for granted, and assume that every year Taxpayers are just gonna be happy to give us 3% of all that tax revenue.

No, we need to hire lobbyists to defend that income. And those lobbyists would have a huge bargaining chip, when they go to capitol Hill. Because scientists and engineers make up around 5% of the US population, there’s over 6 million voters, who are scientist employed in the US right now. Imagine if they organized themselves into a union and voted as a block. That’s 6 million votes, how incredibly powerful that would be. Imagine sending a lobbyist to Congress and being able to say, look, you can support Alternate Facts if you like, but me and my 6 million voters will be making sure you never get elected again.

This video is presented by Jayde Lovell, Directed by Mizanur Rahman and Edited by Sarita Liu at YouTube Space NY.

SCIQ ON THE YOUNG TURKS
Produced by Jayde Lovell and Bec Susan Gill. ScIQ is a partner of the The Young Turks Network.

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