[Captions are auto-generated] The light shines
through and it would be one of the
actions of millions and millions of
people,
Farchione Prokosch and our youth
organization, Sunrise Movement are
changing the politics of the climate
crisis. Sunrise gained national
attention for their sit in with Aoki
at Nancy Pelosi's office in twenty
eighteen and for confronting Diane
Feinstein in her office in twenty
nineteen, helping to put the Green
New Deal at the center of climate
discourse in America by prioritizing
the intersections of climate change
with race, poverty and criminal
justice, Sunrise is working to build
a more sweeping movement for change.
What was the moment that you decided
to start sunrays
movement and sort of at the tail end
of the Obama years?
A lot of young people were feeling
like there was a burgeoning and
growing climate movement.
We had tackled some big wins like
the Keystone XL pipeline and
secured the first major
international climate policy.
And at the same time, we were seeing
climate disasters worsening.
We were seeing all of these UN
climate reports getting worse and
worse. And we were realizing our
movements were absolutely
not truthful enough to
change politics as we knew it.
Rice was
created really as a metaphor
at the beginning of the Trump
administration.
It reflected this feeling that so
many young people felt of
really being in a dark time in
America, of seeing
what's privacy and what nationalism
this president, who was
calling the climate crisis
the Chinese hoax and
sunrise felt like the metaphor
that we needed in our lives, that
one day we would get through these
dark times and the sun
would rise again and
the light shining through.
And it would be one of the actions
of millions and millions of young
people.
What were you thinking or feeling
during your sit in at Nancy Pelosi's
office?
I remember just shaking
with the intensity of what was going
on. I think it was nervousness.
I think it was excitement.
I think it was a feeling
of power, an agency, a feeling
that we were coming together
to proactively send a message
about what the Democratic Party
should be and who should stand for.
I remember feeling really resolve,
and I remember asking the question
over and over again, what is
your plan to tackle
the climate crisis?
And knowing that that was the right
question
in my heart, if you have the ability
to replace Hail to the Chief with
any song you wanted, what
would it be? The only one that comes
to my brain is welcome
to the jungle. Like I said,
that might be because it's my
favorite song in the world, but I
just love it. It's like whenever
I'm feeling angsty or just
pissed about the world or
just like one of my sleaziness or
regain my confidence, I just put
that song on blast and jump around
and head back into it and it makes
me feel a lot better.
What's the biggest problem the
climate movement has right now?
We've really come out of the legacy
of a lot of environmental racism,
of this sense that environmentalism
is for middle
class, upper middle class, educated
white people.
And in many ways,
organizations past have excluded
and not built solidarity
with many of the black and brown
and indigenous and working
class and poor people who
have been driving this nation
forward on a lot of environmental
issues.
If the climate movement cannot
figure out how to
invest in and develop the leadership
of more black and brown people,
if we can't figure out how to speak
across race and class lines
and communicate
the story of the climate
crisis, not in terms of
carbon dioxide
or all of these inanimate things,
but about people's lived experiences
and the things that they need most
in their lives, I don't think we're
going to be able to win.
If a political genie allows you to
enact one but only one law,
what would it be?
I would try for as much
sweeping democracy reform
as possible
in an effort to
make elections far
more accessible and
democratic and
allow for us to legislate
and past the many, many pieces of
policy that I know we need to solve
the climate crisis.
In what
ways has Biden impressed you so
far? The ways that I have
seen him mirror the
language and the
frame of what a
lot of movement activists and
organizers have been saying for
years has been powerful.
The connection between jobs
and climate is a critical
intervention in
the ways in which jobs versus
environment have historically been
pitted against each other.
That being said, I think he
has a long way to go in
enacting the reforms
that he proposed on the campaign
trail and that we pushed and
took action to get him to
raise his ambition on.
In what ways has five?
Disappointed so far, just seeing the
immediate reduction
in the ambition that
he's willing to pursue.
I have seen Biden attempting to
negotiate with a GOP
that has proclaimed to be
climate deniers, that has
forcefully stated that they will
block him at every single turn.
And it's frustrating
when young people see that Democrats
have the majority and we
might not have it for a long time.
And it feels as though they might
squander it because
they are unwilling to use the power
that they have to get what we
need to secure a livable future
for all of us.
What do
young people understand about
America that politicians might
not? Young people today are
living at the logical
conclusion of
a busted economic
system that has
created astronomic economic
inequality that has
allowed for gun violence
and mass incarceration to explode,
that has allowed for the climate
crisis to grow unfettered.
Young people are just in the midst
of so many different crises
that are intersecting all at once.
And we don't live single
issue lives.
We care about ending mass
incarceration in the school to
prison pipeline. We care about
stopping climate change.
We care about stopping the detention
of migrants.
And I think that allows for us to
fight for a vision of the future.
That includes everybody, that
doesn't exclude people from
the solutions that we're fighting
for. And I think that's
the hardest thing about
going up to our politicians who
are several generations older than
us or other adults and and
hearing people say, well, the first
thing on the chopping block is
jobs and end
unionization, or seeing that the
first thing on the chopping block is
the provisions around racial
justice.
And I think our generation saying
absolutely not in this new
green economy that we build,
it must work for black
and brown people.
It must employ formerly
incarcerated people.
It must house every
person in this nation and guarantee
everyone the right to
a good job and housing.
And so I think this is one of the
key differences of our generation.
How much power does your generation
have in America and how will you get
more of it?
I think our generation has the power
to be the best storytellers,
to communicate in life time
what it will look like for us to
take on the responsibility of the
world and the generations
above US duty
to really leave us a world that is
salvageable, that we can thrive
and not just have to survive in our
generation, is passionate,
is tenacious, is learning
so much on the Internet and
in classrooms and
figuring out politics in a way
that honestly, like I
never did when I was a teenager,
like some of these folks are doing
every single fight to create
progress in America, and the past
has the power to move us
forward. And that
is something that cannot be
squandered. And I still a of kids
who feel sad or demoralized.
And I think our greatest threat
is that people don't realize the
immense power that we can have
together and organize.
I will say I think we need a lot
more power in America.
I don't think Sunrise has it yet.
I don't think other organizations
have it yet.
I think we need the power
like in the New Deal, to be
able to make thousands
of strikes happen.
That holds business
as usual until we get the
action that we need for our people.
I think we need the ability
to organize in communities
across America.
I think we need the ability to train
tens of thousands of young people
and do deep political education
and bring so many more young people
into the fold and give them the
tools to empower their communities.
We've got a long way to go, but I'm
ready for that fight and I hope you
people join me.