“We’re Wide Awake”: Young Climate Organizers Reflect on Global Justice Crises

Climate scientists are terrified. And today’s kids are not okay.

The unfolding climate emergency is here and now and is expected to get much, much worse. Climate scientists are already shocked and horrified by what we’re seeing with climate breakdown and the rate of changes underway that are unprecedented in human history. “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory,” experts wrote in the opening of the 2023 “state of the climate” report.  

“Everything we are seeing right now is truly alarming in terms of how rapidly climate impacts are accelerating,” Rachel Cleetus, a climate and energy policy expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told me in a recent interview. “We’re seeing heat records being broken of course, but when you look at the data it’s not just one piece of data but many. The oceans are so hot right now, and that means the hurricane season which is predicted to be very active could be really destructive. Everywhere you look the impacts on marine life, coral reefs, these unprecedented spates of billion-dollar disasters that the US is experiencing but also that we’re seeing around the world, this is just a reality now.”

A Guardian survey of hundreds of the world’s leading climate experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed that the vast majority believe the world will blow though agreed upon targets for limiting global heating. These scientists are dismayed by the utter lack of political will to take their warnings seriously and they fear a grim future is in store, Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington reported in a new important piece published this week. “I’m relieved that I do not have children, knowing what the future holds,” one scientist said; another sharply criticized the failure of world leaders: “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.” Other experts told the Guardian that what gives them any shred of hope, and inspiration to keep doing their work, is the passion among young people who are mobilizing on this and literally fighting for their lives. “I really don’t know what needs to happen for the people that have all the power and all the money to make the change. But then I see the younger generations fighting and I get a bit of hope again,” one scientist said.

Young people have indeed been at the vanguard of the climate movement. For years now, children, teens, and young adults have mobilized all over the world demanding climate justice, as the climate crisis is undoubtedly a massive and grave intergenerational injustice. Youth and future generations will disproportionately bear the brunt of a destabilized climate system with impacts compounding and worsening over time. Anxiety over this bleak future is rampant amongst today’s youth, and many young people feel a deep sense of despair and betrayal by the adults in positions of power – what some climate and mental health experts call “institutional betrayal.”

Olivia Vesovich, a 20-year-old college student from Missoula, Montana, nearly broke down in tears when she testified during a historic climate trial last summer about how climate impacts have affected her health and her personal plans for the future. She told the court she has “always wanted to be a mother,” but she is now thinking that bringing a child into such a broken world might not be the most responsible choice. “Climate change is wreaking so much havoc in our world right now and I know that it will only be getting worse…I would not want to make a child endure that, and that has been one of the greatest sadnesses of my life,” she said from the stand, “knowing that I might not get to start a family of my own breaks my heart, it really does.”

She is far from alone in this sentiment, and for those in her generation, these seem like especially precarious times with social and economic injustices intersecting with the rise of authoritarian regimes and political violence. The current student encampments arising on college campuses across the US protesting genocide in Palestine symbolizes a broader expression of outrage and moral clarity that also applies to how young people are responding to the climate crisis. All over the world, they are striking and marching in the streets, pushing for change in the political system, and fighting for their rights in the courts.

And yet, the entrenched economic and political interests benefiting from the status quo are not yielding to the youth demands for justice and change, and are not heeding the increasingly dire warnings from the world’s scientists on climate and ecological collapse.

“What will [it take to] break through to people?” Kat Maier, a national coordinator with Fridays for Future US, questioned in reflecting on the current systemic crises facing society, including climate breakdown. “I think that’s the biggest challenge we find ourselves grappling with now, that the climate crisis is so imminent and so big, yet folks just kind of tune it out,” she told me.

Maier noted that the climate crisis is a “threat multiplier” and that it “touches everything,” and therefore what might on the surface seem like disparate struggles and movements for social change are really all interconnected.

“The way our movement manifests into a broader justice movement is us showing up for Palestine, in us showing up for housing justice, in us showing up for poverty fights, and in protecting biodiversity and fighting the plastics crisis, like those are all climate justice fights,” she said.

Nick Caleb, a climate and energy attorney at Breach Collective who also teaches a movement lawyering class at Lewis & Clark Law School, said that this kind of intersectional awareness is generally prevalent amongst progressive young people. “I think there is a crossover between the global justice movement and the climate justice movement, especially among young people,” he told me. “They see these things are really intertwined.”

Zanagee Artis, a 24-year-old climate justice organizer and executive director of the youth climate organization Zero Hour, said that climate underpins everything else in our society. “We cannot have any chance of reforming other issues, at solving other [societal] problems, if we do not have a stable climate. And that relates to war, it relates to our healthcare system, our education system, we won’t have anything else without a stable climate.”

Biden “Needs to Do Something Radically Different” if He Wants Youth Vote

With climate action an especially important priority for young people, President Joe Biden is heading into the 2024 US presidential election hoping that his statements and policies in this area, especially the expansion of federal support for clean energy, will be enough to secure the youth vote. But Biden’s stance on Israel’s assault on Gaza and his stance supporting fossil fuel expansion are a major turnoff for the progressive youth base.

“Biden loves to talk about the climate things that he has done,” Adah Crandall, an 18-year-old climate organizer with Sunrise Movement, told me in a recent interview. “It’s important to make clear that none of that would have happened without continuous pressure of young organizers and movements like Sunrise. And he can’t run off a climate platform when he’s literally expanding oil and gas production at record rates.”

“Young people aren’t stupid,” she continued. “We can see the full picture and we can see the parts that he’s not saying. It’s loud and clear, we’ve seen the climate disasters destroy our homes, and we’ve seen that he’s literally funding genocide in Palestine. We’re wide awake, and we need [Biden] to rise to the stakes of this crisis because right now, he is not on track to win the election. He needs to do something radically different if he wants to win the youth vote. And that means a ceasefire, and it means climate action, declaring a climate emergency and ending the era of fossil fuels.”

Artis agreed that Biden is not doing nearly enough to rein in fossil fuels, and said that the fossil fuel industry should also be held accountable.

“I think the Biden administration could be doing so much more. His administration fought for the approval of the Mountain Valley pipeline, led the charge to end the Juliana v. US youth constitutional climate case, and there are approvals of other [fossil fuel] projects like the Willow project in Alaska, and permitting of fossil fuels that outpaced the previous administration under Trump,” he said. “And at the same time, we still have not held the fossil fuel industry accountable. They are one of the biggest industries on the planet spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year, probably billions [of dollars], peddling climate disinformation, lobbying against climate policy, and deceiving the public and lawmakers to convince them that they are working towards the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, when in reality they’re not. I think it really starts with accountability for Big Oil.”