April 30, 2017 08:27 AM UTC

"Snow Globe" Climate March Draws Thousands

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Hayley Sanchez reports, a little April snow can’t get Colorado down:

Dressed in snow boots and ski clothes, demonstrators chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go,” and “This what democracy looks like.” The messages on some signs dripped in the wet snow but others’ stayed legible and said, “The U.S. must deal with climate change,” and “I’m with her” with arrows pointing to a picture of the Earth…

Denver’s march was just one of 300 sister marches planned across the world and in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, and Washington, D.C., where more than 100,000 protested in near-record heat. People also used the demonstration to protest President Trump’s environmental policies on his 100th day in office.

“Where do I even start?” said Kate Paradis, a resident of Boulder, thinking about how concerned she was about Trump’s new policies and holding a giant banner with her husband, David Paradis, that read, “We stand with Standing Rock.”

“These giant corporations and the fossil fuel industry, the GOP and politicians, they’re all working together,” she said. “Trump was right when he said (Washington, D.C.) was corrupt, but he’s not helping us get out of the swamp. I feel climate change is urgent and if we don’t take action now, we’re doomed.”

Several thousand demonstrators arrived in Civic Center Park yesterday morning despite about six inches of snow on the ground. Locals are of course well aware that it routinely snows in April in Colorado, even after one of the mildest winters anyone can remember as we had on the Front Range this year. Nonetheless, climate science deniers coast to coast used the supposed irony of a “climate march in the snow” to distract from, among other things, the hundred thousand or so who marched in sweltering 90-degree heat in Washington yesterday.

This is where we remind everyone again that the weather on any given day does not tell you enough about the climate, or climate change, to crack wise–especially a day of weather in Colorado. It can snow in April in Colorado and climate change is a reality. There is nothing mutually exclusive about it.

Also, turning out in bad weather is a sport for Coloradans. Ask any Broncos fan.