A walk for weather & climate science
From May 23 to June 3, I walked up to 52 miles per day, delivering nearly 300 letters from concerned weather and climate scientists directly to seven members of Congress. Follow along below! :)
By Syl Foisy · June 12, 2026
All opinions expressed in this article are personal.
My PhD experience has been anything but typical, featuring an eviction in May 2025, and bouncing between temporary desks and online meetings ever since. As such, it felt logical that I take my work to the road… or more accurately… the sidewalk… for an epic quest to share the importance of federally funded weather and climate research.
April 22 to May 22
A few days after the stream, CBC's What On Earth ran a segment on it, and pulled a clip from some of the early banter Andrew and I had. Specifically, a moment 14:23 into the recording, where I say: Shoutout Accuweather, shoutout Penn State. Let's get some 100 emojis in the chat for 100 hours!!
Needless to say, I've heard this one said back to me endless times by the friends I shared the clip with.
On April 25th, I received a message on my phone unlike most. Andrew Williams, whom I fondly co-hosted the opening of the Weather & Climate Livestream with last year (and who many have rumored to be my long-lost brother :), had noted in the organizing chat a few alarming facts:
With these facts in mind, Andrew suggested the need for a followup to last year's 100 hour Weather and Climate livestream, which had been seen by nearly 200,000 humans, and resulted in 30,000 calls to members of Congress detailing why climate and weather science is worth funding.
After a few organizing meetings discussing the urgency of taking action again, I pitched walking from NYC to DC as a way to generate publicity, half jokingly. For some years now, I have been obsessed with the pedestrianism craze that overtook the US in the 1870s, where folks would routinely walk across the country, and around race tracks up to 500 miles in a single week. To my surprise, the idea generated some excitement...
The organizing team graciously helped shape the idea into a physical manifestation of the Livestream's goal; instead of calling Congress, I would hand deliver real paper letters to members of Congress. And to make matters more epic, a livestream would still be planned to allow for maximum participation from the scientific community, coinciding with the final 50 hours of my walk to the Capitol...
... a completely and utterly unreal opportunity.
Thrilled, I spent a good deal of time preparing and imagining what such a walk could shape up to be; how to best craft a narrative that would complement delivering letters to Congress. While an amazing crew of organizers were helping shape details for the 50-hour Livestream logistics (shout-out Andrew Williams, Jonah Bloch-Johnson, Paulina Czarnecki, Stella Heflin, and Clare Singer!), letter collection (shout-out Virginia Schutte!), and letter handoff strategy (shout-out Haley Crim and Marc Alessi!), the walk itself was largely up to me to plan.
After chatting with some lovely friends and family, I settled on three main objectives:
• Talk with as many weather and climate scientists as possible about the work they do
• Talk with as many non-scientists as possible about the work they value
• Have merch in hand to thank those who talk with me
With these objectives set, I then began the actual planning process. To begin, I reached out to 92 scientists along my planned route (a route in which my dear friend JLD, who walked across the country in 2017 helped me plan), of which I secured 16 in-person meetings. Emails were tricky, as I had to provide the time I would be arriving... something that relied heavily on the assumption my walk wouldn't be delayed! My solution was to provide a 2 hour window, a Whatsapp groupchat for day-of coordinating, and the disclaimer that the time was subject to my trip not being delayed.
I then purchased -- in part through a generous anonymous donation -- 500 stickers, 25 vintage pins, and 20 embroidered hats. Having all this merch under my watch for a few days before I left for DC felt extremely powerful, I won't lie. :D
As the organizing pieces around the walk began to fall into place, I realized another very important factor regarding all the ambition going into this project: I couldn't do it alone. Incredibly, two fellow Livestream organizers volunteered to join me on the full journey: Miriam Nielsen, a climate science postdoc and hall of fame video maker (@zentouro), and Virginia Schutte, an award-winning freelance science communicator (@vgwschutte). Miriam even volunteered to bring a full-amenities, tricked out, camping van (that would quickly become known as the "content bus") where we could cultivate walk and Livestream related content along the 12 days...
...I remember thinking: Is this real life?!
Finally, I wrote on a slip of paper my own personal goals for the walk (corny, I know!). I have had experience with social media, but not so much with talking to the camera, so this was new ground for me. I wrote the words: wonder, excitement, positivity, and fun on a slip of paper, which I tucked into my wallet. I would aim to embody these words throughout the following 12 days of adventure.
Manhattan, NY
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Met Allegra LeGrande and Hikaru Hayakawa.
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Met Alan Robock.
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Met Nadir Jeevanjee, Mitch Bushuk, Timothy Merlis, and Bernadette Woods Placky.
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Met Rebecca Beadling.
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Met Charles Schutte.
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Met Andra J. Garner and Lauren Kipp.
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Met Kelsey Malloy.
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Met Ross Salawitch and Rob Levy.
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Press conference on the steps, with seven members of Congress.
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[Reflection and forward look: what the walk changed, what you hope it sparked, and where the fight for science funding goes from here.]
It turns out most of the paparazzi shots from my walk came from space. (lol!) This one's from MODIS — a refrigerator-sized camera aboard NASA's Terra satellite, 438 miles up and moving at 16,800 mph. MODIS captured this on June 2nd, my second-to-last day. To learn more about the mission, see the interview with Rob Levy at Stop #22. You can also download your own Terra images for free here! :)
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