“The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth… Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics,” trailblazing scientist and writer Rachel Carson presciently admonished in 1953 as she made the case for protecting science, nature, and thus humanity itself from greedy and destructive political agendas. “The scientific way of thinking,” Carl Sagan wrote in his final published masterwork, “is … an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.”