NCSE Stands Up for Science on Earth Day April 22, 2017
April 21, 2017 Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) joins leading science societies, research institutes, and universities along with scientists, educators, teachers, and many others, in a show of solidarity and strength for the value and purpose of science in supporting the March for Science.
The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. It unites a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.
Unbiased and apolitical science is integral to a healthy and stable democracy. And science contributes significantly to local and national economies. By example, the role that science plays in advances in health and medicine are near to impossible to quantify as the avoided costs are indeterminable. In 2010, the federal government invested approximately $26.6 billion in N.I.H. research; those investments led to $69 billion in economic activity and supported 485,000 jobs across the country. Consider the $3.8 billion taxpayers invested in the Human Genome Project between 1988 and 2003 that helped create and drive $796 billion in economic activity by industries that now depend on the advances achieved in genetics. These are just a couple of examples from an exhaustive list that marks the economic value of science.
“Science investments create jobs in new industries, such as nanotechnologies, driverless cars and renewable energy markets,” said Michelle Wyman, NCSE Executive Director. “Science also makes the technologies that keep our people and nation safe. It plays a role in every part of life as we know it today.”
NCSE strongly supports the March for Science. NCSE marks April 22, 2017, Earth Day and the March for Science, as an anchor for a sustained focus on the value of science and how it serves our communities, people, and nature.
Tomorrow and everyday, science matters and science serves.
Stay connected with NCSE following the March for Science