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Scientists rally in Boston to protest Trump's stance on climate change

Xinhua, February 20, 2017 Adjust font size:

Hundreds of scientists Sunday rallied at Copley Square in Boston, dubbed as the Rally to Stand Up for Science, demanding that the U.S. President Donald Trump administration recognize climate change.

"Science is under attack by a president who puts ideology before fact. It's time for us to fight back," Geoffrey Supran, a postdoctoral fellow studying energy modeling at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and science history at Harvard University, said in a video clip posted on Twitter.

The rally is a protest to Trump's stance on climate change, which he called a "hoax." The White House, shortly after Trump was sworn in as U.S. president, published his First Energy Plan, in which he said "harmful and unnecessary" policies such as the Climate Action Plan and embrace the shale oil and gas revolution will be eliminated.

At the rally, demonstrators held such signs as "Science Not Alternative Facts", "Make America Smart Again" and "Immigrants Make Science Great" and chanted "science is not silent."

Local media reports said restrictions on immigration, fear of talent drain and concerns about research funding reduction also loomed large at the rally.

The event was timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) which publishes the Science magazine. While the AAAS was not involved in the rally, many conference attendees headed to Copley Square for the rally.

"I've never seen anything like it in my entire career," said Rush Holt, head of the world's largest scientific membership organization.

The Facebook page for the event showed 2,000 people going to the rally, which was organized by over a dozen science activism groups, including the Natural History Museum, ClimateTruth.org, the Union of Concerned Scientists, 314 Action and MIT Alumni for Climate Action Leadership.

The event's Facebook page said the rally is "the first one since anti-science forces and climate deniers took office."

Last December, a few hundred scientists also held a rally outside the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco shortly after Trump's election. Science supporters say they plan to march in Washington DC and cities around the globe on Earth Day (April 22).

"We are going to work with our members and affiliated organizations to see that this march for science is a success," Holt said. Endi