Over the last few years it feels like young people have taken over the climate movement.
They’re out striking, suing national governments, occupying congressional offices, and taking
to the streets.
And according to polls, they care more, with 70% of young adults saying they worry about
global warming compared to 56% of people over 55.
But of course - climate action isn’t new - people have been marching, protesting, and
demanding change since the 60s and 70s. People who were grandparents now were fighting for
the climate when they were young people, and many are still at it today.
It made us wonder: What’s changed since the early days of the environmental movement?
How are the stakes different today? And what’s the best way to speak up about climate change?
To answer these questions, we talked to climate activists old and young… :
Jamie: My name is Jamie Margolin. I'm an 18 year old climate justice organizer, co-founder
of international youth climate justice movement, Zero Hour. I'm a film student at NYU, ... and
just a girl who is trying to solve the climate crisis. The best I can, even though it's not
something that one person can do.
Geri: I’m Geri Freedman... I am a national co-chair of an organization called Elders
Climate Action … committed to mobilizing elders to raise their voice and take action
on climate change.
Like today’s youth, some older climate activists grew up in a time full of social change and
activism. Geri: I'm 69 years old. ….” “We all
kind of grew up in the sixties and seventies and the civil rights movement. We were not
strangers to activism. Um, there was [the] civil rights movement, Vietnam, the women's
movement, the early startings of the environmental movement,
Geri: I in fact, was, um, co-chair of my
earth day committee, my university.
Of course - these moments aren’t the origin of environmental activism in the United States.
For example, indigenous people have been
continuously fighting for their land and clean air and clean water since colonists first
arrived. But nationally, in the 60s and 70s, the modern
environmental movement started taking off in a new way. What happened?
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring
- revealing to the world the serious environmental and health concerns of pesticides. And after
decades of cities choked with smog and pollution, the Clean Air Act became law in 1963.
Then in April of 1970 20 million people across the US took to the streets for the first earth
day. A few months later the Environmental Protection Agency was born.
The modern environmental movement had arrived
with a splash. And then people went in very different
directions for the next 20, 30, 40 years.” Joe:
And unfortunately, those early efforts weren't enough.
While there aren’t as many rivers catching on fire now-adays as there were then,thousands
of people across the US still don’t have clean drinking water, for instance, and many
are still forced to live next to polluting power plants.
And climate change, of course, is still
happening, on a far worse scale than it was half a century ago. Which has brought older
environmental activists back into the fold to work alongside and for younger people.
Geri: I, you know, look in my grandchildren's eyes and I know that I have to take action.
We have very little time and we'll do whatever I can in my time to, um, resolve and push
for policies that are really going to make this planet habitable and whatever ways we
can.” But older activists aren’t just worried
about the planet they’re leaving for their grandchildren.
The worst effects of climate change like worsening
droughts, heatwaves, and storms are also a direct threat to older people right now.
But for young people like Jamie, this has
been the reality for their whole lives… an abnormal normal.
Jamie: it's kind of just been something that's always there. That's always been looming.
I guess the moment when I really was pushed for the action was more around the 2016 election
with the election of Donald Trump…. the people who were being put in power with people
who were actively causing this problem and making it worse. And so I realized like, Oh,
we can't even trust our leaders to take action on this. And so that was really what pushed
me to become a climate justice organizer, as opposed to just a girl who was worried
about climate change.” Regardless of if you’re new to caring about
the climate or you’ve been at this for decades, one of the most important aspects of climate
action is getting others on board - because solving global-scale problems obviously takes
massive cooperation. How do the generations approach action on a massive scale?.
Geri: You know, we're a huge, huge voting
bloc, a huge percentage of the population. And so we can have impact both, you know,
in, in ways that we vote and in ways that we spend our money, and allowing and letting
elders know that they have a voice. Geri: I think the younger generations have
a greater capacity for immediate kinds of communication that we are not as successful
with because of that generational gap…. We are happy to have the youth be up front
and out there because they are the ones that now, you know, it's, it is about them.
Watching the news and reading social media the past few years, young climate activists
have made a huge mark. Generation Z has gotten so much attention - it kinda seems like they’re
doing something new or special… but what do they think?
Jamie: People always ask me that question.
What is unique about this generation's approach to the climate crisis? And it's always an
interesting question because every generation has had their young environmental heroes.
I mean, thinking about the indigenous people who have been on the front lines, fighting,
fighting the climate crisis for so long.
I really don't like how the question is framed
often between like, Oh, the young people are good and the old people are bad. When in reality,
it's not about old versus young. It's about people who, people in the forces who are destroying
our planet and life on earth and people in the forces who are fighting for it. And I'm
not going to be like, Oh, I'm doing so much better than older generations. Like to the
face of an indigenous elder in the Amazon who has been fighting to protect the Amazon
for their whole lives…. I respect the work that came before me. And I think it's important
that we honor the work that came before us. And - it isn’t like young people and older
folks are existing in two entirely different universes.
The water protectors at Standing Rock, for
example, are a multi-generational coalition of tribes from across North America.
As different as these generations seem, they have a lot in common. And one place where
most people who talk about climate agree is that there isn’t one way to talk about climate:
Jamie: You have to frame the conversation differently for each group or person that
you're talking to. I'm not going to talk to a politician the same way. I talked to a group
of elementary schoolers ... what are the issues in their state that I should relate to? What
are their voters care about that I should relate this to? … The climate crisis is
so broad and wide and affects so many people in so many different ways that you have to
find a way to cater the conversation towards that person
Geri: we really can't change the minds of climate deniers that it's, you know, they're
not prepared to listen to the science, so why, why should we focus that energy on, on
the climate deniers, but rather those people who either really don't have major opinion
or in the middle of the road, or have been sitting back and kind of knowing that this
is happening, but not really knowing how they can act.
If you want to talk about climate, you might feel like you have to know everything, or
be perfect, that's a lot of pressure. But really, all you have to do is care.
Jamie: A lot of people don't like being around people who are known as environmentalists
because they think that "oh this is going to be a guilt trip
Honestly, I just use a plastic straw to have boba.
Me have this does not single handedly destroy the world
Wow, you're such a hypocrite. You're an environmentalist.
And you have Boba with, with, with plastic and plastic straw. Like, yes, yes I did. And
why are you mad at me? Get mad at the fossil fuel industry for literally lying to everyone,
knowing they were causing this issue, pressing communities, poisoning people, killing people,
causing this mass destruction… They're trying to get us to blow out our little matches while
they're taking a blow torch to everything. Geri: You know, sometimes people say, well,
you know, the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. I don't believe that youth are the latest
of today. Um, and so for them to be upfront and us to support that as is fine, and it's
critical that we do that, um, lend our skills where, where we have them.
Jamie: It also puts an incredibly awful amount
of pressure. Like the young people will save us. The young people are unique and special
and they're going to solve the climate crisis when it's like, I'm tired. I'm trying to adjust
to classes. I'm here. Like I'm like, I'm trying to live my life… I mean, it's really hard
to find a semblance of normalcy right now. And it's so overwhelming being a young person
fighting for climate justice. And so when leaders and other people just then heap even
more on your shoulders and be like, save us.”
Jamie: In reality, we're just doing the best we can and it's not our job to solve this
issue. The youth will not save you. We will do the best that we can, but we all have to
save ourselves. And frankly, the people in power, the people with money, the people with,
with political power, like they should be the ones leveraging all of that for action.
For someone like me, part of a generation in between old and young, a generation that
was born into a changing climate, but that for the most part only became aware of it
later in life, a generation who are both parents and children at the same time,
it’s refreshing and encouraging to see generations young and old are more alike than they are
different when it comes to facing down climate change and putting a stop to it.
We all have a lot to learn from our elders, and those younger than us, and plenty of work
to do together. But that’s just my point of view. What wisdom
or voice does your generation, young or old, have to add to the climate conversation? Let
us know what you think in the comments.