These marchers may love the environment, but the environment did not love them back on Saturday. The rains were enough to dampen the enthusiasm of even the most ardent green-earther. Nevertheless, the assembly for the International Day of Climate Action did not go unnoticed! Flickr user JBrazito snapped photos of the march from Malcolm X Park to the White House.

But why march to the White House? The veto point for climate-change action — and maybe the whole future of the third planet from the Sun — is the Capitol. If the U.S. Congress doesn’t pass a climate bill in advance of the UN assembly to draft a successor to the Kyoto protocol in Copenhagen this December, global support for the new climate legislation is going to be diminished — maybe even out of the cards. The play for the climate activist (really all people who make use of the planet’s oceans and atmosphere) is to but pressure on representatives to act more quickly to pass a climate bill than they have to pass a health-care bill.

Then again, a largely symbolic march — complete with anti–Iraq war protester! — is an end in itself, so the White House is as good as any destination.