March for Science – Chicago
I’ve been obsessed with greening my life lately. I try to post to Facebook several ideas people can do to make small changes in their lives to help the world. These are things like buying your clothes secondhand (or making them!), washing your clothes appropriately to keep them lasting longer, using dryer balls instead of dryer sheets, using a reusable coffee cup and water bottle instead of disposable ones (especially using ones made of materials other than plastic), using cloth diapers and menstrual pads instead of disposables, using cloth and wax wraps or silicone reusables instead of plastic wraps, using cloth zippered sandwich bags instead of plastic ones, going meatless one day a week, using natural cleaning supplies like vinegar and water… the list is endless.
And, the thing is, I have adapted every single item on this list in the past few months. It is surprisingly easy to make these changes en masse, especially with the advent of services like MightyFix and Amazon. (Yes, before you say it, I know about the carbon footprint of shipping items, but no one is perfect, ok? Better that than plastic, in my opinion, especially when companies are greening their shipping practices more and more.)
So it made sense to me – in light of Trump cutting funding for the EPA and denying climate change and threatening to renege on the Paris Agreement, etc. – to join in the March for Science in Chicago last weekend.
I’m no scientist. I have scientist genes somewhere in there, and I find science fascinating; heck, I’ll even go out of my way to encourage young girls into STEM fields, but I’m a humanities girl through-and-through. However, science is not only vital; to me, it is inextricably linked with the search for (and consequent recent denial of) truth.
So I marched as a science ally, if you will. We packed up Emily, grabbed a parking spot on SpotHero, donned our Pussyhats, and went.
The energy was great. The signs were hilarious. The costumes were fantastic. (Emily particularly loved the dinosaur.) And, like the Women’s March, it was just so good to be around people who felt the same way.
We even ran in to the pastor of our church and his wife, and one of my favorite undergrad professors.
This was the first march I took Emily to, and the first one Tim and I had done together. I was nervous about the large crowds coupled with a toddler that has a penchant for running away, but it turned out great. I’m glad she was a part of it with us, and I’m proud to pass on our activism to her generation – though, hopefully, they won’t need it.
