President Alberto Fernández led the act for the 150th anniversary of the National Meteorological Service (SNM) and said that, just as the founder of that entity, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, “dreamed”, they are looking for “an Argentina where education and the development of science, never stop”.
In addition, the president stressed that, by investing in science and technology, the country becomes “owner of the necessary tools to be able to grow.”
The head of state participated in the celebration accompanied by the defense minister, Jorge Taiana, and the director of the SMN, Celeste Saulo, who emphasized the historical and future importance of the organization that, since 1872, collects and analyzes data of the climate in Argentina.
?️ “As Sarmiento dreamed, I want an Argentina where education, knowledge, the development of science and technology never cease, but are State policies”. President @alferdez at the ceremony for the 150th anniversary of the @SMN_Argentina. pic.twitter.com/i9kGgVyjjF
– Alberto Fernández Press (@alferdezprensa) October 4, 2022
For the second consecutive day, Fernández spoke of the need for state policies that ensure the continuity of efforts related to education, science and technology, so that “they are not aspirations of a president” but rather transcend the different efforts.
In his speech, the president recalled that that first office for the climate “it was the third in the world” and pointed out “the central idea” of Sarmiento for making knowledge “the central element of the development of his society.”
“If we get more scientists to enter the service, more doctors to rank this task, if we achieve all that, we will live in a better society”Alberto Fernandez
For this reason, he said that the hero was “a true visionary” and affirmed that the current government bets “every day” on “scientific and technological development.”
In this sense, he recalled the signing of an agreement “to build the rockets that are going to take satellites beyond the atmosphere”, he underlined the potential of these systems to “anticipate climate issues that concern us all and that have come to the world to complicate our lives”.
In addition, he dedicated a paragraph of his speech to the impact of climate change and stressed that “being able to know is the secret of the future.”
Then, he announced the incorporation of a supercomputer, the largest in the country, to the SMN and the access of new professionals to the team.
“If we manage to get more scientists to enter the service, more doctors to rank this task, if we achieve all of this, we will live in a better society,” he concluded.
For her part, Taiana highlighted the “idea” and “projection” that the Argentine government had to create the first service “in the hemisphere” in the 1870s and said that this “vocation for science” is what “has maintained the SMN and that today has more force”.
Taiana maintained that the entity is key to working in Antarctica, and pointed to the Orcadas base as the “beginning of the Argentine presence” in the white continent: “We are not going to let anyone take that award away from us.”
“Climate change is a challenge that modifies the correlation of forces between countries and is going to affect the form of production. If we don’t understand that, we have no chance of development”he added.
In her turn, Saulo said she felt “privileged and moved” by the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of an entity “committed to society.”
He then reviewed the history of the SMN from its first steps in the second half of the 19th century, with the constitution of one of the first climate study offices in the world, to the computers of the 20th century and the satellites of the 21st.
“I could not find, in recent history, in the last 50 years, documentation that accounts for a process of competitions and upward mobility like the one we have underway. There is no progress without science and there is no science without scientists” said about the current situation.
The director pointed out, on the other hand, the need to expand the current monitoring network to continue monitoring global warming, which, thanks to the centenary data collection, is confirmed with an increase of 2 degrees in Orcadas, where the SMN has an uninterrupted presence. since the beginning of the 20th century.
Founded in 1872 by then President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the SMN provides information and meteorological forecasts, climate forecasts and alerts, based on continuous monitoring of the atmosphere and scientific knowledge.
