This is from Frank Sonntag <@FrankSonntag@fediscience.org on Mastodon>, posted yesterday:
When @VictorVenema@fediscience.org and I set up the precursor to fediscience in 2018 we did so to offer a safe alternative to Twitter for climate scientists.
With fediscience we extended this to scientists of all fields, a decision that thankfully led to a more diverse and interesting community.
Science in the US is under attack by the government and climate science and scientists in particular will likely be hit hard by an ideological clique that is not going to pull any punches.
This will lead to people loosing their jobs outright; or having to decide between compromising their principles or leaving by their own choice.
Whilst I still have hope that this an overly pessimistic view, and that this is a temporary situation I have been mulling over how to help.
Activities related to environmental science are still going to happen, be it at a state level in the US and elsewhere in the world.
What I would like to propose for discussion is to build a network of scientists and related professionals that can take on contracts to do jobs in their fields of expertise.
With such a network it should be possible to build teams that go out and apply for tenders, something an individual may not be able to do. Or come up with product ideas that can be worked on together.
This is all a bit vague and high level, but this is microblogging for you.
I'd like to hear what people think of this idea in general and if there is interest to start a real discussion about if and how this could work.
