When reading this story, “Guess Who’s Coming to Protest,” in the Christian Science Monitor, I was struck, not by the fact that normal everyday people are picking up the cause of environmentalism, but by the fact that they don’t want to be called environmentalists. It reminds me of the “I’m not a feminist, but” rhetoric.

Words are powerful. Some people hesitate to use a label because they don’t want brand themselves as one thing and accept all of the baggage that comes along with the label. I’ve never been one to hesitate over the feminist or environmentalist labels, but then I realized a while back that I don’t have to put stickers on my suitcase, or necessarily tote all of the bags along with me.