AOC Joins Jane Fonda for Fire Drill Friday on Importance of November Victory for Earth
23 October
Politics
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins actor and activist Jane Fonda to discuss early voting, "real climate leadership," and the Green New Deal. Fire Drill Fridays
By Andrea Germanos
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday will be the latest "fireside" chat guest to join actor and activist Jane Fonda, whose Fire Drill Fridays campaign—which has resulted in the arrests of fellow notable actors—has boosted demands for urgent action to rein in the climate emergency.
<p>The team behind Friday Drill Fridays sent an email to supporters on Thursday promoting the conversation, describing the New York Democrat as "clearly prepared to fight for and stand with working people no matter what" and saying she'd provide "insightful perspective" during the chat.</p><p>Fonda and Ocasio-Cortez's <a href="https://greenpeace.zoom.us/webinar/register/3016028606071/WN_OYvyfV5fQnSH4iSJFLFr8Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">talk</a> is slated to cover a range of topics including early voting, "real climate leadership," and the Green New Deal—the resolution Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/07/major-party-backing-ocasio-cortez-and-markey-unveil-green-new-deal-outlining-wwii" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">introduced</a> last year with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).</p><p>"This is one of our most important calls in the lead-up to Election Day, and we want to come out on the other side of November 3 celebrating—and with no regrets," the email, signed by Fonda and the Fire Drill Fridays team at Greenpeace, said. "We know this election is absolutely critical for the political fight ahead for a Green New Deal and just recovery from Covid-19, and we're ready to fight for this win."</p>
<div id="7bafb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1669c4d28a3e920d9e21791ea6f8a469"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1318584259825848321" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">🔥FRIDAY🔥 @JaneFonda, @GreenpeaceUSA, and @FireDrillFriday are thrilled to be joined by Rep. @AOC for a critical con… https://t.co/omILPXRe9W</div> — Fire Drill Fridays (@Fire Drill Fridays)<a href="https://twitter.com/FireDrillFriday/statuses/1318584259825848321">1603209960.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The conversation is scheduled to take place Friday, October 23 at 2 pm ET.</p><p>Eighty-two year old Fonda, a longtime environmentalist and veteran activist, kicked off Fire Drill Fridays in October last year with a focus on three demands: a Green New Deal, an end to fossil fuels, and a just transition to a renewable energy-based economy.</p><p>The weekly campaign featured Thursday night teach-ins—each with a different climate focus and speaker or speakers—ahead of Friday rallies and protests on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.—a place organizers <a href="https://firedrillfridays.com/about/%20" target="_blank">framed</a> as "the epicenter of the fight for our climate." The acts of civil disobedience resulted in multiple arrests, including of Fonda herself and her "Frankie and Grace" co-star Lily Tomlin.</p><p>Now forced to a largely digital format in light of the coronavirus pandemic, Fire Drill Fridays has kept up the momentum, with recent fireside Fire Drill guests including Juan Parras, founder and director of<a href="https://www.tejasbarrios.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> TEJAS</a>, and youth climate leader Jamie Margolin, also founder and co-executive director of <a href="http://thisiszerohour.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Zero Hour</a>.</p><p>Fonda is also out with a new memoir, <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a33915820/jane-fonda-what-can-i-do-excerpt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action</em></a>.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/22/aoc-join-jane-fonda-fire-drill-friday-focused-planetary-imperative-november-victory" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is seen in a video conversation in Stockholm, Sweden on April 22, 2020. Jessica Gow / TT News Agency / AFP / Getty Images
By Priyanka Jaisinghani
COVID-19, "stay-at-home" orders and enforced physical distancing has made us more dependent on digital when it comes to connection and communication at both a local and global level.
<p>In the early months of the pandemic, marginalized communities were disproportionately affected and the realities of a widening inequality gap were apparent. What was once thought to be an equalizer had become the opposite.</p><p>Where COVID-19 has removed the option for young people to take to the streets to voice their concerns about these surfacing inequalities, staying at home (and off the streets) hasn't translated to staying silent.</p><p>Recently, we've witnessed how young people are rallying around issues such as climate change, racial injustice and voting rights, using digital as their platform and driving civic engagement.</p>
Civic Engagement Redefined
<p>Long-lasting impact requires changes from the bottom up. Civic engagement means working to make a difference in our communities to promote quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.</p><p>We're seeing how, across multiple issues, young people are becoming active participants in driving dialogues with policy-makers, on a state and federal level. In addition, they are empowering the citizens of the communities in which they reside, taking an active role in shaping the future we hold.</p>1. Racial Justice
<p>Across the U.S., we saw the rise of the racial justice movement through Black Lives Matter. Hundreds of protestors came to the streets, from New York to Nevada, acknowledging, supporting and condemning the long-existing inequalities faced by the black community. We saw this movement propel beyond the streets, throughout social media, and to the polling stations.</p><p>Young activists were demanding not only awareness but also change. In this digital space, young people started sharing resources and information for others to educate themselves about the pressing need for racial justice. They were able to mobilize support to inform, educate and shape citizen action. They shared links to petitions, offered advice for safe protesting practices, created templates for emailing authorities, listed bail funds and black-owned restaurants and businesses in need of support. They used social media to support the various needs of this movement – and continue to do so.</p>2. Climate Change
<p>The youth-led climate change has become dominant online. Every Friday, young people lead a digital #ClimateStrike to raise awareness of important legislative initiatives and create tangible ways for individuals to get involved in the fight against climate change.</p><p>As a leading example, to commemorate this year's Earth Day, youth held a 72-hour, live-streamed "digital march" with protests, speeches, and more. This "digital march" was attended by more than 200,000 viewers. Young people are pivoting their strategies and applying them to a digital space. We know when the streets are safe again, they will continue their activism by marching to raise awareness both on the streets and digitally.</p>3. Voting Rights
<p>Voting is another pertinent issue coming to the fore. In <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/315761/lack-voting-information-hamper-youth-turnout.aspx" target="_blank">a Gallup poll</a>, four out of five (79%) young people say "the coronavirus pandemic has helped them realize how much political leaders' decisions impact their lives"; three in five say "they are part of a movement that will vote to express its views."</p><p>As a result of these changing attitudes, young people are having conversations with their families and finding ways to get politically active. They're donating funds to campaigns, volunteering their time to raise awareness around voting and creating social campaigns to try to influence other people to vote and register to vote.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUxMTg0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzg2OTcxNn0.AkqUpUNFBQm9qJhYK1ET2Nx_74OlOKaa0XdF-cRCuEY/img.jpg?width=980" id="0edf5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f6e1d0f9874383be19f0bba0625aa61e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/3-ways-covid-19-has-changed-youth-activism/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></p>How social media is used in the U.S. for political issues. Statista
<p>It's inspiring to see young people around the world deeply engaged in the digital space and continuing their activism. They have played a critical role in calling for change and transformation in society. From climate to health to politics, young people are the most affected. The only way to make progress is to build back better. They're building upon existing issues and movements, creating new alliances and driving conversations and action. This generation is also building upon the same values and ideas of those before them to change the status quo and find ways to enact change for a better future.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p>
<h2>Why Organic Hemp Oil Matters</h2><p>Hemp is a unique plant, not only for its rich cannabinoid content, but also for its ability to absorb a wide variety of components in soil. But this trait poses great risks when it comes to the creation of CBD products derived from hemp.</p><p>Because hemp has a high capacity for compound uptake, this means that the plants can retain <a href="https://www.remedyreview.com/industry/lab-test-results/" target="_blank">harmful chemicals like pesticides</a>, heavy metals, and other residual solvents. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic chemicals that are more toxic to humans, and difficult to remove once they have been absorbed by the hemp plant.</p><p>Organic farming practices help reduce the risk of hemp crops absorbing harsh chemicals that may later end up in CBD oil after extraction. When you're taking CBD as a wellness supplement to help alleviate your symptoms or improve your overall well-being, the last thing you want is to ingest compounds that might negatively outweigh the benefits of CBD. This is an important reason to look for third party lab test results when shopping for CBD products since these certificates of analysis can show the full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a hemp extract, as well as test results that search for the presence of any residual solvents.</p><p>In addition to creating a better end product, organic farming practices are also better for the environment. Sustainable and organic farming methods may <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy</a>. The use of natural pest deterrents as opposed to chemical pesticides is also better for nearby animal populations and ecosystems.</p><h3>Organic vs. Natural</h3><p>While there are only a select few companies offering certified organic ingredients in their products, almost every brand in the CBD market creates "natural" products. The term "all-natural" or "plant-based" does not mean that a product is organic, and since hemp oil is a natural derivative of hemp plants, these products are often referred to as all-natural. However, there are some synthetic CBD oils that should be avoided because they are chemically constructed and may produce unwanted side effects that are not caused by naturally derived CBD extracts.</p><h2>What are the Benefits of Organic CBD Oil?</h2><p>There's a long list of potential CBD oil health benefits, and some of the most common wellness advantages include:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2503660/" target="_blank">Chronic pain relief</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/" target="_blank">Anti-anxiety effects</a></li><li>Better sleep</li><li><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201901/cbd-oil-mental-health-should-you-take-it-too" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Improvements in mood</a></li><li>Internal balance and regulation</li></ul><p>When dealing with pain, inflammation, sleep issues, and mental health struggles, it can be hard to find sufficient treatment options. The use of certain prescriptions can cause unwanted side effects, yet they are often the only solution for patients with these medical conditions. In search of other therapies, people have started to flock towards CBD oil as an alternative remedy for a variety of conditions. However, it should be noted that CBD products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and you should seek your doctor's advice before using CBD if you have a serious medical condition.</p><h2>Look at the Labels Before You Buy CBD Oil</h2><p>When you go online to buy CBD oil, you'll quickly realize there is an overwhelming number of brands that are saturating the market. It can be difficult to determine which products are truly as good as they make themselves out to be. Always look for up-to-date third-party lab tests so you know you are getting a great product, and don't hesitate to contact the brand if you have any additional questions. And if you're intent on purchasing 100% organic CBD oil, it's best to look for certified products or brands that are held to strict regulatory standards.</p><p><strong>Melena Gurganus </strong>is the Reviews Editor at EcoWatch. She is passionate health and wellness and her writing aims to help others find products they can trust. Her work has been featured in publications such as Health, Shape, Huffington Post, Cannabis Business Times, and Bustle.<br></p>
Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>
$89
CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>
$35
FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>
$39
NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>
$38.50
Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>
$60
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Global Climate Campaigners Want Public Banks to Fund Just Recovery and Green Transition
15 October
Business
Protesters representing various socio-economic groups rally against climate change on September 20, 2020 in New York City. John Lamparski / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Kenny Stancil
Amid the Global Week of Action for Debt Cancellation and one month ahead of the Finance in Common Summit, climate justice advocates on Monday urged public banks around the world to treat government responses to the coronavirus crisis as opportunities to coordinate just recoveries from the ongoing public health and economic calamities and to simultaneously facilitate just transitions from dirty to clean energy, thereby beginning to "build the world we want."
<p>"The climate crisis requires us to stay under the limit of 1.5°C of global warming, and the only way we can do it is rapidly moving away from fossil fuel production and use," said Clémence Dubois, France team leader at 350.org. "We need public finance institutions to be the first movers of this transition."</p><p>350.org executive director May Boeve <a href="https://twitter.com/350/status/1315654245790748673" target="_blank">argued</a> that the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing surge in unemployment and material hardship revealed "just how broken our economic systems are," while also stressing that the current catastrophe holds lessons for how to go about "solving other pressing global challenges," particularly the intertwined problems of intensifying inequality and climate disasters.</p><p>Contrary to the demands of social and environmental justice advocates, government and financial responses to the pandemic and recession in many countries to date have continued to prop up the fossil fuel industry rather than prioritizing investments in renewable energy development.</p>
<p>As <em>Common Dreams</em> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/01/100-billion-lifeline-while-most-americans-are-being-left-behind-report-details" target="_blank">reported </a>earlier this month, the Trump administration and U.S. Federal Reserve have bailed out Big Oil during this crisis, and a May <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2020/05/27/g20-still-digging/" target="_blank">report</a> by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth showed that since the Paris Agreement, G20 countries have provided at least $77 billion per year in financing for oil, gas, and coal projects through their public finance institutions.</p><p>According to 350.org, a handful of institutions, such as the European Investment Bank, Swedfund, and the French Development Agency, have already committed to diverting public money away from fossil fuels—a move that climate campaigners say is necessary but insufficient.</p><p>Ahead of the Finance in Common Summit being held in Paris from November 10-12, advocacy groups have described this first ever international gathering of public banks—where nearly 450 financial institutions controlling approximately $2 trillion in public money will convene—as an opportunity for all public financial institutions to commit to aligning their investment policies with carbon emissions reductions, biodiversity protection, and other sustainable development goals.</p>
<div id="65c39" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ac51e8b5bddbfd63c853f644d08e44dc"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1315656759781064706" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">As we launch the #WorldWeWant campaign on climate impacts, @UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres echoes our call f… https://t.co/5ytx9JD3hh</div> — Climate Action Network - International (CAN) (@Climate Action Network - International (CAN))<a href="https://twitter.com/CANIntl/statuses/1315656759781064706">1602511989.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Activists argued that public banks' ambitious commitments in support of an internationally just transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy can help harness resources in ways that disempower the oil, gas, and coal industries while creating a more egalitarian and sustainable world that benefits workers, communities, and the environment.</p><p>Dubois explained in a statement that "this leadership is increasingly important as governments prepare to deploy historic levels of public finance in response to Covid-19. Such a commitment needs to be concrete and tangible, and would help set a high bar for what climate leadership looks like for public finance institutions."</p><p>"Development banks have the power to enact policies and direct funds towards a just recovery," Dubois said. "Especially in the midst of a health and economic emergency, public money must be used to boost existing solutions that will create new jobs and support the people most impacted." </p>
<p>"Public financial institutions are accountable to the planet and the people," he added. "After all, it's our money, and what they are doing with it determines our lives and our future."</p><p>Climate justice advocates also pointed out that this week is the Global Week of Action for Debt Cancellation, an initiative promoted by many organizations and movements in various regions around the world to highlight the negative impacts of debt on countries throughout the Global South. </p><p>350.org and others argue that the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis have highlighted the long-term consequences of colonization and imperialism for the world's poorest inhabitants.</p>
<p>"When major financial institutions lend money to Global South governments to develop fossil fuel projects, they are not only destroying the climate, weakening democratic processes and laws, deepening poverty and inequality, and violating human rights," said Alex Lenferna, a climate justice campaigner at 350.org Africa, "but also tying up young and future generations in debt slavery."</p><p>According to Lenferna, "we cannot have climate justice and a just recovery without debt justice." </p><p>"Debt contracted to finance harmful fossil fuel projects that lead to climate chaos is completely illegitimate and should not be repaid," Lenferna added. "Public finance institutions should cancel these debts and not allow any new ones."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/12/after-all-its-our-money-global-climate-campaigners-call-public-banks-fund-just" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Founder of Fridays For Future Greta Thunberg in Washington to discuss the climate crisis with lawmakers on September 18, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Alex Wong / Getty Images
Climate emergency activist Greta Thunberg on Saturday endorsed Democrat Joe Biden, urging climate voters to make their voices heard in the U.S. presidential election.
<p>"Fridays For Future and the youth climate movement are striking again around the world, in a safe way and following Covid-19 guidelines, to demand those in power treat this like the urgent crisis it is," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/09/25/new-wave-gobal-climate-strikes-takes-place-150-countries" target="_blank">said</a> Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swede whose solitary school strikes launched a global movement.</p><p>Thunberg said in a tweet that she "never engages in party politics. But the upcoming U.S. elections is above and beyond all that."</p><p>"From a climate perspective it's very far from enough and many of you of course supported other candidates. But, I mean... you know... damn! Just get organized and get everyone to vote #Biden," she tweeted.</p><p>Thunberg, whose Fridays For Future strikes sparked a global climate protest movement after striking outside the Swedish parliament in 2018, could encourage participation among younger voters who are typically less likely to vote than older Americans.</p>
<div id="61f98" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0ba6c990dea24959356d2cc93869298b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1314900271332458496" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I never engage in party politics. But the upcoming US elections is above and beyond all that. From a climate perspe… https://t.co/eoXSbUVDGY</div> — Greta Thunberg (@Greta Thunberg)<a href="https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/statuses/1314900271332458496">1602331629.0</a></blockquote></div><p>After Thunberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2019, Donald Trump tweeted: 'So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"</p>
<div id="2b028" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="969b0b5498916117fbd031b77b3bb0a9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1205154117867462662" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">President Trump called Time Magazine's choice to name Greta Thunberg its person of the year "ridiculous" and said t… https://t.co/ZcQuKbkEC3</div> — The New York Times (@The New York Times)<a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/statuses/1205154117867462662">1576166107.0</a></blockquote></div>
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A crowd of climate activists march behind a banner in NYC during Climate Week on September 20, 2020. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
After decades on the political periphery, the climate movement is entering the mainstream in 2020, with young leaders at the fore. The Sunrise Movement now includes more than 400 local groups educating and advocating for political action on climate change. Countless students around the world have clearly communicated what's at stake for their futures, notably Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who just finished her yearlong school strike for climate. Youth activists have been praised for their flexible, big-picture thinking and ability to harness social media to deliver political wins, as Sunrise recently did for U.S. Sen. Ed Markey's primary campaign. They necessarily challenge the status quo.
<p>"Every social movement in the U.S. that has been successful has always had strong youth and students out there leading the charge—and in most cases, leading the charge more aggressively and demanding actions over and beyond the general population," says Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University. That's certainly true for climate, with youth demanding a radical transition away from fossil fuels on decidedly tighter timelines than their predecessors have advocated for. Pressure from youth such as Varshini Prakash, the co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, led Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to endorse a bolder <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/890814007/biden-outlines-2-trillion-climate-plan" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$2 trillion climate platform</a> over the course of the campaign.</p><p>Sena Wazer, co-director of Sunrise Connecticut, describes how her work is often viewed by older activists: "The main response that I think many of us get from older folks is, 'Well, you're so inspirational and give me hope,' which is nice, but it ends up getting really frustrating, because we're not here to give you hope, you know? We're here to get something done."</p><p>Bullard says it's critical that we, as a society, allow youth's energy and optimism bubble to the top, and to empower young people to assume the leadership they're seeking. Having written more than a dozen books on environmental justice, he considers himself an elder in the movement. In contrast, Bullard calls young people "the tip of the spear," and says it's absolutely critical to have them out there "pushing hard for transformative change."</p>
A Convergence of Issues
<p>The unequal impacts of a changing climate have become extremely clear in 2020, so equity has come to the fore of climate conversations in every corner of the country. A global deadly pandemic continues to rage out of control in the U.S., heat waves are setting new temperature records, wildfires are scorching American Western states, and the hurricane season has already made it to the end of the alphabet for naming storms. In all cases, low-income, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities are bearing a disproportionate amount of the impacts.</p><p>"Today, the scab is off, the ugly reality of injustice is hitting us up close and personal, made more realistic by this COVID pandemic," Bullard says.</p><p>This year the decidedly youthful focus on intersectionality is a big part of what defines the transformation of the climate movement. Climate is not just an environmental issue, according to youth activists. It's also a racial justice issue, an economic issue, and an access-to-health care issue.</p><p>"Environmental justice is really seeing the intersection of these issues," says Alex Rodriguez, a community organizer with the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which aims to make environmental issues a priority for the state's elected leaders. The group is now focusing their efforts on the coming election and recently succeeded in persuading the state to allow absentee voting in November. "We want people to be safe when casting their vote," says Rodriguez, 26, whose fellow grassroots committee members range from age 16 to 60.</p><p>Rodriguez, who also serves on the equity and environmental justice working group for the Governor's Council on Climate Change, says, "We see our programmatic work as a way to help lawmakers see what they can do to improve the dignity of those suffering from environmental racism, systematic racism, and economic oppression."</p><p>Seeing the overlap and bringing these issues together is a strength that Bullard says was missing from the civil rights organizing he was involved with in the 1960s. He says 2020 is unique in many ways.</p><p>"The number of marchers is unprecedented, from different economic, ethnic, and racial groups—an awakening unlike any that I've seen on this Earth in over 70 years," Bullard says. "Today, the different movements are converging, and I think that convergence makes for greater potential for success."</p>Young and Old
<p>But young people are one essential demographic among many when it comes to climate action. With all that's on the line for climate in the coming elections, up and down the ballot, collaboration becomes key. Bullard says previous generations of climate activists can now play the critical role of mentoring, assisting, and supporting. Standing with, not in front of, youth.</p><p>"Youth are leading us and taking on frontline activity," says Jayce Chiblow, the community engagement lead for Indigenous Climate Action, a Canadian organization that works for Indigenous-led climate justice solutions. But in doing so, she says many young Indigenous activists are experiencing the trauma of violence, getting arrested, and being taken away from their land. "All of our older people are supporting those youth: Elders, mentors, people trained in nonviolent action," Chiblow says. "The youth aren't alone."</p><p>That support can go a long way. "There's a lot of anger and a lot of fear, and that's understandable," says Wazer of Sunrise Connecticut. "I definitely feel those things, too, just considering the ways that our future has been threatened and kind of trashed by older generations."</p><p>Under the Trump administration, the number of environmental rollbacks alone can be disheartening, not to mention new <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/video/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/" target="_blank">drilling permits in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge going up for auction</a>.</p><p>Wazer is frank about the risks of burnout, depression, and anxiety from the stress of it all, but draws inspiration from the example of the late U.S. representative and lifelong civil rights activist John Lewis. "That forgiveness and that ability to keep fighting and stay motivated … I think that that is something really powerful to learn from older generations."</p><p>An intergenerational approach can leverage the individual strengths of youth and older people in all their diversity.</p><p>"The elders hold our stories," says Chiblow, who is Anishinaabe from Garden River First Nation, Ontario. Those stories include lived experiences, culture, history, and generations of adapting to changes in climate. Such collective experience continues to inform Indigenous knowledge and connections to the land, as well as how people manage and govern themselves in relation to it. This knowledge is passed on through relationship-building and storytelling.</p><p>"Every time you hear that story, you're at a different point in your life, and you'll pick up something else … something new," Chiblow says.</p><p>Changes in perspectives that come with time and experience are among the reasons why intergenerational learning and coalitions are critical to the climate movement. To combine that living and learning is to expand the reach and meaning of the message exponentially. As part of her research for her master's degree, Chiblow brought together youth, community leaders, and knowledge keepers in her community to workshop climate action. "Those relationships are vital to keep that movement going," Chiblow says.</p><p>The value of intergenerational relationships resonates far beyond Indigenous cultures, too. Rick Lent, a member of Elders Climate Action in Massachusetts, says he is motivated to act for his granddaughter. He recounts the time she said to him, "Please tell me that there is something hopeful regarding the climate in our, in the future, because I'm going to be living with the repercussions, and I'm scared."</p><p>Lent takes that request seriously and says that working on behalf of future generations translates into effective messaging. "When you show up as a group of elders, and you're talking to your legislator, our pitch is, 'I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for my grandchildren.' So it gives you a whole different story about who you are and why you're doing this work."</p><p>Elders Climate Action has <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H832" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">campaigned to pass a decarbonization plan</a> in the Massachusetts legislature, which would set a net-zero emissions goal for 2050 and codify environmental justice in state law. With the November elections fast approaching, the group's focus is now on assuring everybody can vote safely. In some states, the group's chapters are pushing for voter registration and in others, ensuring people can vote by mail.</p><p>"We're going to be in a pandemic in this year's elections," Lent says, which poses risks to people's health, especially that of older voters. And because most poll workers, traditionally, have been seniors, Elders Climate Action is also encouraging youth to take up that mantle. "We need vote-by-mail," Lent says, "And we need more poll workers, younger poll workers."</p>
The Unique Value Proposition of Elders
<p>Older activists bring unique strengths to the table, according to gerontologist Mick Smyer, who designs strategies to move people from anxiety to action on climate. He calls himself "the aging whisperer to climate groups" and "the climate whisperer to aging groups." He is quick to point out that the learning can go in both directions.</p><p>"I think older adults are untapped resources," Smyer says. "Older adults bring several resources, one of which is their circles of influence. Just by virtue of having lived longer, older adults are going to have denser and richer networks," Smyer says. "The second is, when it comes to voting and civic engagement, older adults, as an age group, outperform all other age groups."</p><p>He uses the 2016 presidential election to illustrate his point: "The older age groups, 70% of them voted. Nobody [else] came close." He is cautious about making sweeping statements about older people broadly, but he says that ageism is alive and well. And that can deter the kind of collaboration that would beget necessary progress on climate action.</p><p>As the twin global patterns of an aging population and a changing climate continue arm in arm, Smyer says a good place for starting this work is within one's family.</p><p>"We each have that power to use in our circles of influence, particularly in our families, and we don't realize it," Smyer says. Whether it's via Zoom or FaceTime or a phone call or a chat in the living room, Smyer says, family members have a superpower: They will listen to each other, and they'll at least start the conversation.</p><p> "Intergenerational collaboration around climate issues, particularly in this election season, starts at home, and then goes to the polling booth," he says.</p>Speaking the Same Language
<p>As an individual's network of family, friends, and connections becomes wider and more diverse, the more work will need to be done to have them all working toward the same goals. That is equally true for the climate movement at large.</p><p>In bridging the gaps among baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials, Bullard says, "Each generation will have some idiosyncrasy and uniqueness about it that another generation will not understand or comprehend."</p><p>If everybody in a group or institution is similar, then there's no need to explain a lot, Bullard says. There's usually a fair amount of shared knowledge and values. But the more diverse that group gets, in age, race, gender, or culture, he says, the greater the potential for making mistakes, stepping on people's culture, and causing pain. But the potential for learning also increases exponentially.</p><p>Chiblow says successful collaboration comes down to being able to speak in shared concepts. The term "justice," for example, is an English word that's hard to translate into the Anishinaabe language. Chiblow says that because her community sees itself as belonging to the land, and being part of the land, the Anishinaabe worldview, and therefore their understanding of justice, is necessarily more holistic than the mainstream.</p><p>"Indigenous people have been feeling [the effects of climate change] for so long," Chiblow says. Today, as wildfires rage across the West, the mantra of "I can't breathe" is being driven home on a grand scale. For better and worse, climate justice is finally a front-page story.</p><p>"It's affecting the broader society," Chiblow says. "We're finally at the turning point where we could start to make real change because … people are really starting to feel that urgency."</p><p>The urgency will be tantamount in the coming election. A lot is at stake, says Chiblow: "Incentives, funding, all-around agreement, and also the way we're able to manage our lands and ourselves as people."</p><p>Bullard, too, is insistent on urgency. "This election is one of the most important elections of a generation, because there's so many things at stake," he says. "We can't wait another 40 years on climate. We don't have that much time. We don't have 40 years to get justice."</p><p>Issues of climate justice will be on the ballot in state and local elections this fall, such as Nevada's proposed renewable energy standards and Louisiana's proposed disaster funding. And the topic has finally made it onto the national stage. Joe Biden called Trump a "climate arsonist" for not acting on or even admitting that the wildfires in California are clearly climate-related. The frequency and intensity of such disasters is indisputable.</p><p>"Hurricanes don't swerve to avoid red states or blue states. Wildfires don't skip towns that voted a certain way," Biden <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-address-west-coast-fires-confront-growing-threat/story?id=73000218" target="_blank">said in a speech on Sept. 14</a>. "The impacts of climate change don't pick and choose. That's because it's not a partisan phenomenon."</p><p>In many ways, the results of the upcoming elections will reflect the ways youth activists and older activists are able come to a common understanding of what climate justice means and what they want the future world to look like. </p><p>"There's a lot of knowledge built up in experience, and there's a lot of energy that's stored in young people," Bullard says. "When you put those two together, you have … an excellent recipe for potential success."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg protests in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm on September 25, 2020. Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP / Getty Images
By Ruby Russell and Ajit Niranjan
Hamstrung by coronavirus lockdowns, frustrated school strikers have spent months staging digital protests against world leaders failing to act urgently on climate change.
<p>Today they are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-global-climate-strikers-take-on-inactive-leaders/a-55039689" target="_blank">taking to the streets once more</a>.</p><p>The Fridays for Futures movement, which started with activist Greta Thunberg skipping school to sit alone outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018, has become a global youth force calling for climate justice. But a surge in support last year was hobbled after coronavirus lockdowns closed schools and kept children at home. </p><p>The protest on Friday is the group's first global action since the pandemic struck and follows meetings between prominent activists and world leaders. Last month, Thunberg and three other climate activists presented German Chancellor Angela Merkel with <a href="https://climateemergencyeu.org/#letter" target="_blank">a letter signed by nearly 125,000 people</a> demanding EU leaders "stop pretending that we can solve the climate and ecological crisis without treating it as a crisis."</p>
<p>They have called for an immediate halt to investments and subsidies in fossil fuels and, in Germany, pressured the government to bring forward its deadline to phase out coal from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-approves-coal-phaseout-by-2038/a-54040605" target="_blank">2038 to 2030</a>, and to go carbon-neutral by 2035 instead of 2050.</p><p>Line Niedeggen, a physics student at the University of Heidelberg and Fridays for Future spokesperson, believes Germany has a responsibility to lead on climate action. Historically it has been one of the world's <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-emissions-paris-agreement/a-55044341" target="_blank">biggest carbon emitters</a>, she says, is also rich enough to adopt cleaner energy systems, and last month it adopted presidency of the EU Council.</p><p>"We have to use this role as the leader of one of the biggest emitters in the world to start a change of direction because, scientifically, 2020 is the last year we can make changes to actually reach 1.5 degrees," Niedeggen told DW. </p>
Pandemic Stalls Protests
<p>Last November, the head of the UN Environment Program was among the public and scientific figures to warn that 2020 offered a last chance to cut emissions. Then, few could have suspected this deadline would coincide with an unprecedented public health emergency.</p><p>The pandemic has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tough-times-ahead-for-climate-protesters-during-corona-pandemic/a-52978469" target="_blank">dealt climate activism a blow</a>. Niedeggen says that as a movement demanding that the world act on scientific advice, the school strikers took lockdown restrictions extremely seriously, halted public protests immediately and took their activism online.</p><p>On April 24, Fridays for Future organized a "digital strike," with Niedeggen hosting a that racked up close to a quarter of a million views. "We were not physically standing together, but we were all fighting together," she says.</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-strikers-get-inventive-during-the-covid-19-crisis-fridays-for-future/a-53229262" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Activists also gathered thousands of placards</a> from across Germany to lay out in front of the German Bundestag around the central slogan: "Fight every crisis."</p><p>Still, corona inevitably pushed <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/life-after-coronavirus-we-can-shape-a-totally-different-world/a-53496208" target="_blank">climate change down the agenda</a>, and according to a poll conducted by Postbank only 6% of German 16 to 18-year-olds joined an online strike, compared to nearly a third who had been to a physical Fridays for Future protest.</p><p>Elsewhere in the world, the shift to online activism may have been even more damaging.</p><p>Fatou Jeng, a climate activist from Gambia, says that in Africa, school strikes are anyway less effective than they are in Europe, although they have inspired other action. Her own activism has mainly focused on conservation work, planting trees to protect vulnerable coastlines, and educating communities about climate change. </p><p>Most of these activities have had to stop as a result of COVID-19, and while Gambian activists have continued to use digital means to pressure those in power, "the provincial areas which are more vulnerable to the impact of climate change don't really have access to the internet," Jeng told DW.</p>
Opportunity for a New Normal
<p>Last September's Global Climate Strike drew young and old protestors around the world, with organizers estimating a global turnout of 7.6 million, including an estimated 270,000 people in Berlin. Activists have adjusted this year's event to account for social distancing and different levels of coronavirus restrictions in cities taking part.</p><p>They say COVID-19 also presents opportunities.</p><p>"The pandemic shows that we can change our normal daily life, and we are very able to adjust to a situation of crisis," she says. The key question is how economies get back on their feet: "We have the possibility to build a new normal, to build a renewable world order, and an environmentally just, climate-just normal for everybody."</p><p>In July, Jeng was among 20 female Fridays for Future activists from the Global South to sign an open letter to G20 finance ministers warning that their decisions in "exclusive backrooms" over stimulus packages and corporate bailouts would "lock in development pathways for decades."</p><p>"The system is not broken, it was built to be unjust. We don't need recovery, we need a reboot," the letter reads, stressing that "black people, indigenous peoples and people of color," have been disproportionately hit by the economic, climate and coronavirus crises. </p>Policy 'Not Quite There Yet'
<p>Figures on stimulus spending do not suggest their words had much impact. The ministers were criticized for failing to relieve the debt of poorer countries, and according to <a href="https://www.energypolicytracker.org/region/g20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Energy Policy Tracker</a>, G20 countries by August had pledged $169 billion (142 billion euros) to fossil fuels since the beginning of the pandemic.</p><p>Katrin Uba, associate professor of political science at Uppsala University in Sweden, is researching Fridays for Future. She says that despite the movement raising awareness and gaining access to policymakers, real policy change "is not there yet."</p><p>Still, she stresses that social movements go through waves of mobilization as public attention on their core issues ebbs and flows. And perhaps one of Fridays for Future's biggest achievements is birthing a politically active generation that will keep the fight up long after corona becomes a memory. </p><p>"We know clearly from our research that many of the people who came to the streets hadn't done any protesting before in their lives," she told DW. "And we also know that if you do one protest, you are likely to do more."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Demonstrators from several environmental groups including Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement demand broad action at a youth-led climate strike near City Hall on December 6, 2019 in New York City. Scott Heins / Getty Images
By Jacob Wallace
This story is published as part of StudentNation's "Vision 2020: Election Stories From the Next Generation" reports from young journalists that center the concerns of diverse young voters. In this project, working with Dr. Sherri Williams, we recruited young journalists from different backgrounds to develop story ideas and reporting about their peers' concerns ahead of the most important election of our lives. We'll continue publishing two stories each week over the course of September.
In the speech she gave at the People's Climate March in Washington in 2017, Jansikwe Medina-Tayac, then 15, told a crowd of thousands, "This [climate change] is not just an environmental issue. This is a race issue, this is an immigration issue, this is a feminist issue."
<p>The experience was a formative moment for Medina-Tayac, who devoted much of her free time to climate justice advocacy. "I remember waking up the next morning and my mom was like, 'Jansi, your video got like 500,000 views,'" Medina-Tayac, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., said. "At that age you're not used to being listened to by people."</p><p>Now 18, she cofounded the Washington chapter of Zero Hour, a woman-of-color-led climate justice organization with fellow student activist Khadija Khokhar in February. "To me, the people who are fighting against climate change and who are most affected are people of color," Medina-Tayac said. "And yet we don't see them reflected often." This is what she hopes Zero Hour will do. </p><p>Medina-Tayac, a member of the Piscataway Nation, a Native American tribe historically based around the Chesapeake Bay, and Khokhar, a Muslim and a first-generation immigrant, both felt that other climate movements they participated in were whitewashed. After meeting at one of Jane Fonda's Fire Drill Friday rallies in the fall, they kept in touch, and by the new year, they decided they wanted to be a part of a movement that incorporated inclusive policies and more people of color in leadership. "I honestly feel like there aren't enough of those spaces," Medina-Tayac said. "I'm really just making sure to reach out to as many communities as I can and really creating a space where people feel safe to share about their experiences. Just a space where people can learn and share and be equal partners."</p><p>Young voters are intimately aware that they will be forced to bear the full effects of climate change, and this is especially true for frontline communities in areas with higher pollution or fewer green spaces or on coastlines being eaten away by rising oceans. Zero Hour's platform reflects that duality: The organization calls for a "Just Transition" away from fossil fuels by 2040 like many other climate advocacy groups, but it also counts defending the treaty rights of Native Americans, for example, as a core part of its mission "because treaty rights are the only truly rigorous laws already in place that protect the land, the water, the wildlife, and the people."</p>
<p>Far beyond the presidential election, young activists from organizations like Zero Hour, Sunrise Movement, and beyond are demanding that all political candidates in the 2020 election begin to make mitigating global warming a key policy issue, and not just a talking point. During this polarized election year, these activists are finding ways to create climate policy at every level of government. "The goal is to get mass mobilization, to get everybody out in the streets," Khokhar said. "The entire climate movement is already rolling."</p><p>Millennials and Generation Z are the only generations in the United States where a majority of survey respondents say Earth is getting warmer due to human activity, according to a 2019 survey by <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/" target="_blank">Pew Research Center</a>. Among 1,000 voters aged 18–29, one <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xgqymn/exclusive-poll-80-of-young-voters-think-global-warming-is-a-major-threat-to-life-as-we-know-it" target="_blank">survey</a> found that as many as 4 in 5 believe "global warming is a major threat to human life on earth as we know it."</p><p>Though the majority of Generation Z is still too young to vote, Generation Z and millennial voters already make up nearly 40 percent of the electorate, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/11/04/election-2020-young-voters-key-democrats-path-beating-trump/2458445001/" target="_blank">according to</a> Carolyn DeWitt, president and executive director of Rock the Vote. With that level of power comes expectations about their clout as a voting bloc. </p><p>Although Medina-Tayac is now voting age, she is remaining focused on educating young people about policies like the Green New Deal rather than the presidential election. "I think the Green New Deal is really, really important and has sparked a lot of really interesting ideas in the movement," Medina-Tayac said. "[The climate justice movement] needs to be people-powered and there has to be policy-making." </p>
<p>During the Democratic primary, Khokhar was a strong supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders and valued his support for the Green New Deal. But now, with the primaries over and the pandemic ravaging the nation, she's accepted a position as the Detroit fellow for Zero Hour's Vote for Our Future campaign. In the role, which was created as part of a campaign to boost youth voter turnout, Khokhar is partnering with community organizations near her home in southeast Michigan, where she returned when quarantining began.</p><p>"What we're trying to do is get out young voters, because the youth voter turnout is a lot lower than it should be," Khokhar said. "It should be a lot higher, and the people that young people who aren't voting should hear that message from are [other] young people."</p><p>Some young activists compare today's climate activism to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, arguing that both are youth-led movements focused on systemic change. And like in the civil rights era, the current wave of activism has driven engagement at the polls. In modern times, the more young people participated in activist work ranging from signing an online petition to attending a demonstration, the more likely they were to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, according to <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/our-research/youth-activism-and-community-change#activism-on-the-rise" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">research</a> conducted at Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.</p><p>In fact, much like the civil rights movement, the modern environmental justice movement began in the South. In the 1980s, a young sociologist named Robert Bullard was asked by his wife, attorney Linda McKeever Bullard, to conduct research for a lawsuit against the local waste management company. Bullard studied the location of toxic waste sites in Houston and discovered that for decades, these sites had been systematically placed in neighborhoods that were predominantly Black or brown.</p>
<p>Bullard waited years to get recognition from mainstream civil rights organizations, but he places his work in a long line of activism around dignity for black workers in the United States. Bullard notes that the final event that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attended before his assassination was a sanitation workers' strike in Memphis, where Black workers were forced to move the city's garbage for low pay in inhumane conditions. "The environment piece was not something that was on the radar [of civil rights organizations,]" Bullard said. "The issue died with him."</p><p>But Bullard continued to press his case with Black civil rights groups and white environmental groups, undeterred. By 1990, Bullard had conducted enough research with academics and activists around the country to write what would become his first book, <em>Dumping in Dixie</em>. "It took two decades for us to get the two groups to converge in a way that people saw this as something that should be baked into their work," Bullard said. </p><p>Indeed, young activists have become increasingly more focused and sophisticated in how they push for action on issues like climate change, said Katie Kirchner, national director of the Roosevelt Network. A former campus organizer herself, Kirchner coordinates a program that "trains, equips, and develops progressive policymakers" at the local level. Kirchner sees that local work as complementary to activism taking place at the national level to create federal climate policy. "The organizing that Gen Z has been doing in general has been phenomenal," Kirchner said. "We have to have a movement that's powerful enough to hold politicians accountable across the board at every level, really."</p><p>In their inaugural meeting at a Washington, D.C., hotel on February 23, Medina-Tayac and Khokhar walked attendees through a PowerPoint presentation of how they believed climate change and sustainability were intersectional issues. </p>
<p>"We believe that people on the frontlines should lead the movement," Khokhar, 19, told the attendees. "Especially in the climate movement, we've seen in a lot of organizations, it's a lot of privileged white people, to be completely candid, who are leading this movement who haven't really faced the effects of the climate crisis or are just now starting to. So we really value giving the voice back to the people who have been fighting this fight for so much longer."</p><p>The organizers walked attendees through slides that helped introduce some of the young attendees to complex issues like colonialism, racism, and the prison-industrial complex. By the end of the discussion, the gathered crowd was discussing future plans for an Earth Day strike and the importance of scheduling events to be inclusive to those fasting for Ramadan and welcoming to long-time residents of Washington, D.C.</p><p>One of the young activists in attendance that day was Iris Zhan. A high school student in Clarksville, Md., Zhan is just 16. Last year, Zhan wanted to organize a #FridaysForFuture walkout at her high school in solidarity with the movement begun by Greta Thunberg, the internationally renowned student climate activist from Sweden. But Zhan realized that in order to get students to come to her rally she'd have to ensure they wouldn't be penalized by the school for attending. </p><p>"We're like, 'How are we going to get people to come out?'" Zhan said. "The only way is to get an excused absence for that day." </p>
<p>Zhan circulated a petition that eventually received hundreds of signatures, enough to convince the school to make the walkout an excused absence. As a bonus, the petition also increased awareness about the work she was doing with Sunrise Movement, another youth environmental justice group. </p><p>"[After that,] people kind of knew who I was, like I'm the climate person," Zhan said. "There's real stuff you can do besides a walkout, and people were able to see that." </p><p>Since the walkout, Zhan has gathered a group of friends she considers her "strike circle" to attend local meetings for organizations like Zero Hour and attended a climate strike at the Howard County government building in December, where she spoke with local politicians about the movement. </p><p>Zhan said that although she considers herself and her peers to be studious, they also view it as equally important to take time to advocate for policies that matter to them, regardless of whether they're able to vote. Walkouts, for instance, were once considered radical, Zhan said, but she believes they're almost a new normal for Generation Z.</p><p><span></span>"I think when you plant the activist mindset at a young age, it sticks with you," Zhan said. "Once you care about it you can't un-care about it, it kind of ingrains itself into your personality, and change[s] the way you act."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.thenation.com" target="_blank">The Nation </a></em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Young Republican Climate Activists Split Over How to Get Their Voices Heard in November’s Election
22 September
Climate
The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. filo / Getty Images
By Ilana Cohen
Four years ago, Jacob Abel cast his first presidential vote for Donald Trump. As a young conservative from Concord, North Carolina, the choice felt natural.
But this November, he plans to cast a "protest vote" for a write-in candidate or abstain from casting a ballot for president. A determining factor in his 180-degree turn? Climate change.
<p>Climate didn't become a voting issue for Abel until months after the 2016 election. As a college freshman at Seton Hall University, he found himself increasingly frustrated by lackluster Republican responses to an issue now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leading</a> millions to march in the streets. </p><p>Abel felt that his party's future, like that of his generation, depended upon it addressing climate change with the appropriate urgency.</p><p>While his progressive counterparts helped propel a "<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c686caa2-a8c5-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04" target="_blank">Squad</a>" of climate leaders into Congress, Abel advocated for market-driven climate solutions like carbon pricing as a spokesperson for republicEn, a right-leaning climate advocacy organization. </p><p>"The Green New Deal was actually a big catalyst for a lot of young Republicans coming forward and pushing for serious Republican solutions" on climate change, said Abel. </p><p>Momentum on the left stirred new conversations on the right, as young conservatives banded together in hopes of sustaining both their party and the planet. Their cries for climate action helped open older Republicans' eyes to the risk of losing young voters, and a seat at the table in future climate policymaking, if the GOP didn't change its tune.</p><p>"Over the next 10 years," Abel said, he "wants to see Republicans come together with Democrats to come to a realistic solution," along with Republicans proposing "more and more solutions" of their own, including around what Abel considers a critical "middle ground" measure to advance decarbonization—carbon pricing.</p><strong><strong></strong></strong>
<p>"Because we're still kind of relatively new to actually taking this topic seriously and proposing policy," said Abel of the GOP, "I think our policy response could be more robust and more detailed."</p><p>Only a decade ago, Abel's story might have been a novelty. Now, it's commonplace. From <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wildfires-west-coast-death-toll-burn-2020-09-15/" target="_blank">raging</a> wildfires on the West Coast to Hurricane Sally's massive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54174831" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flooding</a> in the South, climate disasters are politicizing young people across the ideological spectrum who have experienced them first hand. </p><p>Younger Republicans are much more engaged with climate change than their parents and grandparents, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The program's research <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shows</a> young Republicans are more likely than older ones to believe in human-caused global warming and to support climate action. </p><p>Frustrated by party leadership that doesn't <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/millennial-and-gen-z-republicans-stand-out-from-their-elders-on-climate-and-energy-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">represent</a> their call for urgent climate action and public discourse that discounts their views, young Republicans also seem more willing to pose their own climate solutions. They don't want to see a World War II-style mobilization; they want pragmatic proposals advancing private sector innovation. </p><p>The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. While some young Republicans who prioritize the issue of climate change remain loyal to Trump and others turn to Biden, a growing number like Abel are not supporting either candidate. </p><p>Given <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump's thin margin of victory in 2016</a>, young conservatives who choose not to vote for either major presidential candidate may help Biden just as much as those who vote for him over Trump, Leiserowtiz said, depending on the state they vote in. Millennials and Gen Zers will <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comprise</a> 37 percent of eligible voters in November, which gives them vast electoral influence, if they vote.</p><p>If youth show up in force to oust Trump from office, their votes could provide a "powerful warning sign" for the GOP, Leiserowtiz said. It would affirm that for Republicans to win the youth vote and have a path to the White House moving forward, they must embrace climate action now. </p>
Fractures Among Young Climate Conservatives
<p>While young conservatives have united around the urgency of climate change, they remain divided over how to bring their concerns to the ballot box. Some embrace right-wing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-attacks-republican-convention/2020/08/24/434e5b46-e66d-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html" target="_blank">attacks</a> painting Biden as a "tool of the left" and find his climate agenda "radical." Others can't find a way to justify voting for Trump, even if it means breaking with their party.</p><p>Patrick Mann from Orange County, California, voted for Trump in 2016. But today, he's leading Aggies for Joe at Texas A&M University and is co-founder of Texas Students for Biden. </p><p>Mann grew up watching wildfires ravage his home state, nearly forcing his family to evacuate in 2017. The GOP is failing to "meet the moment" for climate action, Mann said. He's hoping Biden will deliver on a promise to "<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2020/01/06/joe-biden-democrat-president-iowa-caucus-restore-soul-our-nation/2806422001/" target="_blank">restore the soul of our nation</a>." </p><p>Taylor Walker from Pensacola, Florida, is also determined to make her voice heard on climate, including by casting her first-ever vote for president—but not for Biden.</p><p>Walker, a statewide campus coordinator for the conservative environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition, felt compelled to act on climate change after seeing the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/gulfspill-impacts-summary-IP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lasting environmental and economic damage</a> the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wreaked on her home state. As a practicing Christian, Walker feels a "responsibility from God to steward the environment," which means fighting climate change while protecting industry. </p><p>She lauded Trump's <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/06/22/trump-tweets-full-endorsement-of-desantis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">support</a> of Ron DeSantis' run for Florida Governor in 2018. Walker appreciated DeSantis' <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-01-11/florida-gov-desantis-signs-executive-order-to-protect-states-waters" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ambitious environmental vision</a> and said he "passed quite a few green initiatives in the first few months of his term." The governor's environmental <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article239258123.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">record</a> since has been controversial, with DeSantis earning dismal ratings from the Sierra Club and <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">League of Conservation Voters</a>. </p><p>Walker also praised Trump's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/08/reversal-trump-ban-oil-drilling-off-coasts-florida-georgia-south-carolina/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent</a> commitment to banning offshore drilling on the state's coasts, which came two years after he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-drilling-off-all-u-s-waters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed</a> vastly expanding oil and gas drilling in U.S. continental waters. The move "shows a good faith investment" in finding clean energy alternatives, Walker said.</p><p>Walker said she'd examine both major presidential candidates' platforms and records on climate policy up until Election Day, but she doesn't think there's much, if anything, the Biden campaign could do that would convince her to swing left. If Trump can help pivot the GOP in greener directions, she said, "then more power to him."</p>
A False Equivalency
<p>Young climate conservatives may fear climate denial and delayed climate action, but more than that, they fear the growing political momentum around the Green New Deal, the massive spending it entails and <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/" target="_blank">Biden's citing of it</a> as a "crucial framing for meeting the climate challenges we face."</p><p>Many don't want to split with their party to support a Democrat whose <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/757220130/joe-biden-on-bipartisanship-gun-control-and-regrets-over-inaction-after-a-traged" target="_blank">allegedly bipartisan intentions</a> they doubt. If stymieing what they consider a radical green agenda means re-electing a climate change denying president, so be it. </p><p>"I'm scared of climate change, but I'm also scared of the Green New Deal and what it means for America," said Ben Mutolo, a republicEN spokesperson and junior at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. </p><p>Mutolo felt encouraged by former Ohio Governor John Kasich's <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/17/kasich-speech-to-democratic-convention-follows-years-of-building-conservative-credentials/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appearance</a> at the Democratic National Convention, but he still struggles to see himself voting for Biden. Though the candidate paints himself as a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-biden-different-generation-similar-political-instinct" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">centrist,</a> Mutolo believes he's "cozying up to the ultra-progressive left." </p><p>Mutolo, who wants to see market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, feels torn between a candidate whose climate plan relies on taking an "<a href="https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-plan/#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All-of-Government approach</a>," and one with no efforts to reign in global warming at all. <span></span></p><p>Leiserowitz said he appreciated how a conservative might feel Biden's climate plan "doesn't jive with their limited government, free-market approach."</p><p>But he sees a strong distinction between voting for a presidential candidate with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html" target="_blank">$2 trillion climate plan</a> that includes large renewable energy investments, which have <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/politics-global-warming-april-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bipartisan support</a>, and a candidate trying "to take the country in the opposite direction, towards more fossil fuels."</p><p>Equating the two seems "hard to square rationally," said Leiserowtiz. But most people don't vote rationally. Research <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-democracy-brexit-2016-election-europe" target="_blank">shows</a> they vote based on their social and political identities, not policy positions, and are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3834737/" target="_blank">influenced</a> by messaging from their social circles.<br></p><p>As someone ready to talk climate solutions, rather than debate science, Mann, the Texas A&M student, has struggled to connect with Republican peers supporting Trump. He believes that people concerned about climate change have a moral imperative to support Biden. "Voting for someone who took us out of the Paris Agreement, you're not going to get progress on climate change," said Mann. "Trump is not making America a leader on this." </p><p>Given the vast threat posed by climate change, Mann said, a vote withheld from Biden is just as problematic as a vote for Trump. </p><p>Mann knows he can't change people's minds, but that won't stop him from trying. "All I can do is plant ideas in their mind of why it's important" to elect Biden now and put climate leaders into office beyond this November, he said. "Hopefully, those grow."</p><p>While some young climate conservatives like Mann are engaging their peers in discussions about the presidential election, others like Walker are more concerned with raising awareness of market-driven climate solutions or getting out the vote for local and Congressional races.</p><p>Whatever their course of action, the chance to help shape climate policy for a critical next four to eight years isn't lost on any of these young climate conservatives. How they cast their ballots, and in what numbers, may solidify for the right a reality already made clear on the left—political survival now goes hand in hand with efforts to stabilize the climate and invest in the futures of today's youth and those of generations to come. </p>
<p><em><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20092020/young-republicans-climate-change-biden-trump-voting" target="_blank"></a></em></p><p><em>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647767066#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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Activists gather in John Marshall Park for the Global Climate Strike protests on September 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. Samuel Corum / Getty Images
By Alexandra Villarreal
As West coast wildfires color the skies dystopian red and orange and an aggressive hurricane season batters the U.S. Gulf coast, college students are demanding their schools take bold action to address the climate crisis.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Caitlyn Daas is among them. The senior at Appalachian State University and organizer with the Appalachian Climate Action Collaborative (ClimACT) stands on the frontlines of her school's grassroots push to go "climate neutral," part of a years-long, national movement that has inspired <a href="https://reporting.secondnature.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hundreds</a> of institutional commitments to reduce academia's carbon footprint.</p><p>Carbon neutrality commitments typically require schools to dramatically cut their carbon emissions by reimagining how they run their campuses — everything from the electricity they purchase to the air travel they fund. Colleges across the country, from <a href="https://secondnature.org/climate-action-guidance/carbon-neutral-colleges-and-universities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the University of San Francisco</a> to American University in Washington DC have already attained carbon neutrality. Other academic institutions, including the University of California system, have taken steps to <a href="https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/may/20/university-of-california-completes-fossil-fuel/#:~:text=The%20University%20of%20California%20announced,as%20solar%20and%20wind%20power." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fully divest from fossil fuels</a>.</p><p>But as young activists like Daas urge their universities to do their part to avert climate disaster, many are frustrated by tepid responses from administrators whom they feel lack their same sense of urgency and drive. Appalachian State, part of the University of North Carolina system, has committed to reaching net-zero emissions decades down the line, but Daas and her fellow activists fear that's far too late. She's baffled that an institution devoted to higher learning is seemingly ignoring the science around the climate emergency.</p><p>"If our voices don't matter, can you please stop telling us that they do?" Daas says.</p>
<p>College activists concerned about the climate crisis have largely focused their efforts on two popular movements that go hand-in-hand: reaching<a href="https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_3cbb5394-d27a-11ea-8d95-efad3d7293d1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> carbon neutrality</a>, and<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/opinion/letters/colleges-divestment-fuels.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> divesting university endowments</a>. Broadly, the term "net carbon neutrality" means that a campus zeroes out all of its carbon emissions, says Timothy Carter, president of<a href="https://secondnature.org/mission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Second Nature</a>, a nonprofit focused on climate action in higher education. This can be achieved through modifying campus operations, often with the help of alternatives, such as renewable energy certificates and voluntary carbon offsets (activities that atone for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/carbon-offset" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other emissions</a>). In Second Nature's definition, investment holdings don't factor in a school's carbon footprint. Carbon neutrality often falls within a wider umbrella of climate neutrality, which also incorporates justice and other concerns.</p><p>Divestment campaigns, meanwhile, pressure universities to shed investments in fossil fuels in their endowments. "We cannot truly be climate neutral if we continue to invest in a fossil fuel industry," says Nadia Sheppard, chair of the Climate Reality Project <a href="https://climaterealityproject.org/chapters-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">campus corps chapter</a> at North Carolina State University, where oil, gas and consumable, nonrenewable fuels account for around <a href="http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_2aed037e-4b7b-11e9-9660-73d3cbdd1487.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$43m</a><a href="http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_2aed037e-4b7b-11e9-9660-73d3cbdd1487.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> in university investments</a>.</p><p>Across North Carolina, the heated campus battles brewing over climate policy this fall represent a microcosm of the national conversation. The University of North Carolina system – <a href="https://www.northcarolina.edu/about-us/" target="_blank">which includes 16 universities</a> and one gifted public residential high school – has set a <a href="https://rmi.org/our-work/electricity/elab-electricity-innovation-lab/elab-accelerator/elab-accelerator-teams-2014/elab-accelerator-2014-teams-university-north-carolina-system-energy-future/" target="_blank">2050 goal</a> to go carbon neutral, the same year as the state <a href="https://deq.nc.gov/energy-climate/climate-change/nc-climate-change-interagency-council/climate-change-clean-energy-16#:~:text=Clean%20Energy%20Plan%20Goals&text=Reduce%20electric%20power%20sector%20greenhouse,attain%20carbon%20neutrality%20by%202050.&text=Foster%20long%2Dterm%20energy%20affordability,modernizing%20regulatory%20and%20planning%20processes." target="_blank">at large</a>.</p><p>But students are frustrated by the distant deadline. "I do believe 2050 is realistic," says Isaiah Green, president of the UNC system-wide Association of Student Governments. "But it's so realistic that it's just not enough, in my opinion."</p>
<p>Laura England, a ClimACT member and senior lecturer in sustainable development at Appalachian State, approaches the issue with similar gravity as the undergraduates at her school. "That concept, 'our house is burning,' was a metaphor. But really in 2020, it is literal," she says.</p><p>Students and faculty at Appalachian State are angling for net zero emissions by 2025, or at least 2035, but have felt unheard. ClimACT lambasted the school's administration last week in a letter emancipating themselves from the official climate action planning process, at least until its leadership declares a climate emergency and responds accordingly. "The question we face is astonishingly simple," the group wrote. "Do we have the political will to chart a path toward a safe and just climate future, or will we continue careening toward hot house earth?"</p><p>Lee F Ball Jr, chief sustainability officer at Appalachian State, admires young people's passion and would "bottle" and "serve it" if he could. But to reach neutrality by 2025, the university would need to spend tens of millions of dollars it doesn't have.</p><p><span></span>"There's no real silver bullet of clean energy out there that we've been able to find, so we're in a wild west of carbon accounting and climate action," Ball says. "There's no rulebook, there's no prescription for this stuff."</p>
<p>Other students in the UNC system are advocating for more transparency and accountability around their school's investments.</p><p>Kelsey Hall, the leader of a divest campaign at UNC Asheville, <a href="https://www.unca.edu/events-and-news/stories/unc-asheville-commits-to-environmental-social-and-governance-criteria-for-portion-of-endowment/" target="_blank">successfully pushed the school administration</a> to divest around 10% of its endowment from fossil fuels last year. But the other 90% remains in the hands of the UNC management company, which invests in a nebulous category of "<a href="https://uncmc.unc.edu/files/2020/02/FY-2019-UNCIF-Annual-Report-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">energy and natural resources</a>" – oil, natural gas, power, etc.</p><p>"Returns [on investments] are very, very close" between the competing portfolios so far, says John G Pierce, vice-chancellor for budget and finance at UNC Asheville. But university leadership isn't prepared to entertain divesting more of its endowment just yet.</p><p>"It's frustrating," Hall says. "But it's something that I've learned since becoming involved with the campaign, is just that, like, universities move slowly."</p>
<p>At Duke University, a top tier private institution in North Carolina, the administration has agreed to a much quicker <a href="https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2019/12/duke-university-carbon-neutrality-2024-offsets" target="_blank">2024 climate neutrality date.</a> There, students have been more concerned with how they arrive at that target.</p><p>They want the school to reduce actual emissions as much as possible, "rather than relying on more questionable, less rigorous ways of offsetting emissions in the books", says Claire Wang, a recent Duke alumna and Rhodes scholar.</p><p>"It'd be very easy for a huge polluter to, you know, only pick a low-hanging fruit, maybe bring emissions down 10%, and instead buy very cheap carbon credits for the remaining 90% and say they've reached carbon neutrality," Wang says.</p><p>Although student activists often direct their ire toward school administrations, their greatest antagonist may simply be a ticking clock. Undergraduates generally only get a four-year window on campus to make a difference, and they've lost precious time because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has in some ways pulled focus from climate issues.</p><p>Environmental campaigns, meanwhile, require long-term, dedicated attention spans. Gabriela Duncan, co-president of UNC Reinvest at UNC Chapel Hill, found article after article in her school paper about past divestment movements, and she knows that "there realistically is no way" that the university will divest during her academic career.</p><p>To avoid yet another loss of momentum, she's focusing on creating "a really strong foundation, so that we can have a sustainable movement for many years."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Portuguese students protest in front of the Portuguese Parliament on behalf of climate change on March 15, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. Horacio Villalobos / Corbis / Getty Images
By Holly Young
In what is being described as an unprecedented climate case, four children and two young adults from Portugal have filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against 33 industrialized countries.
<p>The young people, supported by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), <a href="https://youth4climatejustice.org/assets/images/GLAN_COURT_APPLICATION_2020.09.02.pdf" target="_blank">allege the countries</a> — which include Germany, the UK, Russia and Portugal — have failed to enact the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-high-emission-countries-lagging-on-climate-protection/a-51644769" target="_blank">emission cuts</a> needed to protect their futures.</p><p>The case focuses on countries whose policies lawyers argue are too weak to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/kyoto-protocol-climate-treaty/a-52375473" target="_blank">Paris Agreement</a> goal. They cite the country ratings of the <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate Action Tracker</a>. </p><p>The plaintiffs range from age 8 to 21 and come from Lisbon and Leiria in Portugal. The case states climate change poses a rising threat to the six young people's lives and physical and mental well-being. It invokes <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/un-rights-body-climate-change-could-be-grounds-for-asylum/a-52101672" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">human rights</a> arguments — including the right to life, a home and to family — as well as claiming discrimination. </p><p>"Our generation is living in an age of great danger and uncertainty, so our voice must be heard," said Andre Oliveira, 12, whose father is translating for him.</p><p>"It's clearly not the case that young people are the only people vulnerable to the effects of climate change," said Gerry Liston, legal officer at GLAN. "But because they stand to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/children-at-risk-of-new-threats-like-climate-change-warns-unicef/a-51290018" target="_blank">endure the worst impacts</a>, we're saying the effects of failing to adequately address greenhouse gas emissions amounts to unlawful discrimination on the grounds of age."</p><p>"It's not about finger-pointing, but all about giving all these 33 governments a chance to act better and faster," said Andre. "It is a matter of human rights and that's why we're going all the way to Strasbourg."</p>
A First at Strasbourg
<p>While there are numerous recent and ongoing climate cases, many also involving young plaintiffs, it is the first of its kind to be brought to Strasbourg. The international court, set up in 1959, deals with alleged violations of civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.</p><p>The pressing need for significant and wide-scale action among many large emitters warranted going directly to Strasbourg, rather than through domestic courts which is more common, explains Liston. "A decision from the European Court of Human Rights is urgently required in order to provide the legally binding decision that would then filter down and prompt the change that's required at the domestic level." </p><p>According to GLAN, if successful, the 33 countries would be legally bound to tackle overseas contributions to climate change, including that of multinational companies, as well as ramping up emissions cuts. While the timescale ahead and whether the court will decide if the case is admissible is not yet clear, Liston said they have applied for the case to be given priority. </p>Portuguese Wildfires
<p>The plaintiffs belong to three families and became involved in the case after hearing about GLAN's climate work through a local contact.</p><p>Many cited seeing climate change hit their doorsteps as encouraging them to act, particularly the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/portugal-breathes-sigh-of-relief-as-fires-brought-under-control/a-39367823" target="_blank">deadly Portuguese wildfires</a> in 2017. </p><p>"I directly experienced the terror of the fires," said Catarina Mota, 20, one of the four that live in Leiria, one of the areas hardest hit. Rising sea levels, the constant threat of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/yes-climate-change-fuels-forest-fires-but-thats-not-the-only-factor/a-41006333" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forest fires</a> and increasingly abnormal temperatures are now part of her everyday reality. "These changes make me feel apprehensive," she said, adding sometimes the heat makes it hard to breathe or sleep. In July this year the <a href="https://www.ipma.pt/pt/media/noticias/news.detail.jsp?f=/pt/media/noticias/textos/resumo-clima-julho-20.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hottest temperatures</a> in 90 years were registered in the country. </p><p>"What motivated me to be involved in this case was the desire for a world where one can at least survive," said Catarina. "Because if nothing is done by our governments this will not happen."</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/fridays-for-future-uganda-climate-change-africa-activism-food-security-water/a-54732304" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate action</a>, such as this case, is necessary "in order to have a future and a healthy life without fear" said plaintiff Claudia Agostinho, 21. "Our generation and all future generations deserve this."</p>Wave of Climate Litigation
<p>The Strasbourg case is one of a growing wave of climate litigation around the world. <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/climate-change-litigation-shows-no-sign-of-abating-as-plaintiffs-use-a-variety-of-strategies-to-bring-lawsuits-against-governments-and-carbon-majors/" target="_blank">According to the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment</a>, while the majority happen in the U.S., over the last year climate cases were filed across six continents, 80% of them against governments.</p><p>It also noted a recent increase in litigation by activists and advocacy groups, and the use of human rights arguments. </p><p>While there are ongoing cases in many countries — including South Korea, Peru, and Canada — regarding states' human rights obligations to mitigate climate change, the most recent high-profile example is the Dutch <a href="https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/" target="_blank">Urgenda case</a>.</p><p>In 2019 the country's Supreme Court became the first highest level domestic court to establish a state's duty to significantly and immediately reduce emissions in line with human rights obligations. This summer activists were <a href="https://www.courts.ie/acc/alfresco/681b8633-3f57-41b5-9362-8cbc8e7d9215/2020_IESC_49.pdf/pdf#view=fitH" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">also successful</a> in taking the Irish government to court over climate action failures. Greta Thunberg is among 16 youth activists who also have an ongoing legal complaint to the UN committee on the rights of the child. </p>Politics, Protest and the Courts
<p>"I think one case inspires the other," said Caroline Schroeder, from Germanwatch, an NGO supporting 9 young people with a <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/en/constitutional-complaint" target="_blank">constitutional climate complaint</a> in Germany. She sees the Strasbourg case and growing trend of climate litigation as born of the same mounting frustration driving the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/cliamte-change-environment-greta-thunberg-merkel-global-strike-climate-action-luisa-neubauer/a-54618006" target="_blank">Fridays for Future</a> movement - namely, that "politics is not doing enough."</p><p>"I wish we wouldn't have to bring the cases," said Roda Verheyen, a climate lawyer working on the <a href="https://peoplesclimatecase.caneurope.org/" target="_blank">People's Climate Case</a> filed against the EU institutions. "But it is essentially still the case that the level of protection afforded to our children by the legislators is too low. And that's why the courts will keep seeing these cases." </p><p>Verheyen points out that in emphasizing a general duty to protect rather than challenging a specific law, the Strasbourg case is less concrete than others she has worked on. Yet a win there could have wide-reaching implications for member states, she adds, and even a loss could potentially "reinforce the strength of the litigation both in national cases and on the EU level."</p><p>Its ultimate strength, Liston argues, is in bringing home the time perspective and imminence of the threat.</p><p>"This case shows that there are people who stand to suffer horrendous effects of climate change within their lifetime," said Liston. </p><p>The youngest plaintiff, now 8, will be 28, in 2040, the year in which the UN panel of scientists expect <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">many of the most severe consequences</a> of climate change to unfold. </p><p>Andre, 12, said he hopes the case will bring "acknowledgement of the voice of a generation that lives with high anxiety and increasing fear of incoming catastrophes, but also a generation that has all the hope that things will change." </p>From Your Site Articles
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Activists from the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion wear PPE as they perform during a march through central London on September 1, 2020. Isabel Infantes / AFP / Getty Images
After a coronavirus-induced hiatus, the activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) is back on the streets of the UK demanding action on the climate crisis.
<p>The group kicked off 10 days of planned civil disobedience on Tuesday with protests in London, Manchester and Cardiff, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/extinction-rebellion-plan-two-weeks-of-disruption-as-parliament-returns?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR3RnBU7-hTcnfN9CsAiaNVPCLkIrspHNWlD5H7dJCT-ApTChhUAeYKYvcg" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. The London protest ended in Parliament Square as the UK's legislative body returned from its summer recess.</p><p>"The government is failing to do what's necessary to keep people safe. We are here, taking action, because their criminal negligence is putting lives at risk," Extinction Rebellion said on its website, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-britain-protests/extinction-rebellion-urges-returning-uk-lawmakers-to-take-climate-action-idUKKBN25S4W0" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>. "We refuse to be bystanders and wait for this emergency to push beyond the point of no return."</p>
<p>Specifically, the group wants Parliament to pass the <a href="https://www.ceebill.uk/" target="_blank">Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill</a>.</p><p>The CEE Bill was written by a coalition of scientists, lawyers and activists determined to advance UK climate policy beyond its current goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Instead, it would require a climate plan that would:</p><ol><li>Reduce emissions enough to account for the UK's "fair share" of carbon pollution</li><li>Account for the country's whole carbon footprint, both at home and abroad</li><li>Protect nature both in the UK and abroad by looking at the impact of consumer supply chains</li><li>Not rely on new technologies as an excuse to keep polluting at current levels</li><li>Create a citizen's assembly "with bite" to shape climate policy</li></ol>
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<p>UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his government's climate legacy and promised new announcements in the fall, Reuters reported.</p><p>Before a cabinet meeting, he told senior ministers that he planned a green recovery from the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>"From this crisis we will build back better in this country, we will build back faster and we will build back greener," Johnson said. "And there will be a lot more to come about the way in which this government is going to lead a new green industrial revolution for the UK."</p><p>The planned disruptions come a little less than a year after XR's "Autumn Uprising" shut down large parts of central London and led to more than 1,700 arrests, the <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/extinction-rebellion-set-to-hold-10-days-of-climate-change-demonstrations-across-central-london-a4536891.html" target="_blank">Evening Standard</a> reported. This in turn led to the Metropolitan Police <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/extinction-rebellion-banned-london-2640972104.html" target="_self">banning</a> the group in London, a move later found to be <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/extinction-rebellion-ban-london-unlawful-2641246275.html" target="_self">illegal</a>.</p><p>Tuesday's London protest drew thousands of people and resulted in 65 arrests, according to The Guardian.</p>
<p><br>This year, the Metropolitan Police have set limits on when and where gatherings can take place and prohibited the use of boats, vehicles or other structures in processions, the Evening Standard reported. They have also threatened a roughly $13,000 fine for organizing a gathering of more than 30 people during the pandemic, The Guardian reported.</p><p>XR already canceled protests planned for earlier in the year because of the coronavirus, according to Reuters.</p><p>The Guardian reported that a majority of Tuesday's protesters wore masks, and XR has also organized a digital rebellion for those who cannot join in person.</p><p>For some participants, however, the virus made them more determined to take to the streets.</p><p>"By living the way we live, we are making ourselves more vulnerable to these pandemics and that's why [the climate crisis] should never have been off the agenda, it should be part and parcel of the Covid debate," 50-year-old Ava, from Lewes in East Sussex, told The Guardian.<br></p>
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Swedish founder of Fridays for Future movement Greta Thunberg wears a face mask as she walks to the Chancellery to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 20, 2020. Odd Andersen / AFP / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
Swedish climate leader Greta Thunberg donned a mask and joined a socially distanced Fridays for Future protest in Berlin just a day after she and three other youth activists met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government took over the European Council presidency in July, to discuss the planetary emergency.
<p>Thunberg—along with Luisa Neubauer of Germany and Anuna de Wever van der Heyden and Adélaïde Charlier, both of Belgium—met with Merkel on Thursday exactly two years after the first school strike for the climate took place, which the four activists <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/19/greta-thunberg-and-fellow-activists-decry-political-inaction-climate-crisis-after" target="_blank">noted</a> in an op-ed for the <em>Guardian</em> Wednesday that detailed their plans to share with her an <a href="https://climateemergencyeu.org/" target="_blank">open letter</a> from July, now signed by over 125,000 people, calling on European Union and global leaders to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FaceTheClimateEmergency" target="_blank">#FaceTheClimateEmergency</a>.</p><p>About 100 activists reiterated that demand with their Friday demonstration in the German capital. Tweeting about the meeting with the chancellor, Fridays for Future Berlin wrote that "conversations must be followed by deeds—that's why we take to the streets together!"</p>
<div id="dc9a2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8229fb577f8697ac42ee3e8843974dc9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296748619522093056" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">School strike week 105. We’re back, social distant. Berlin! #climatestrike #fridaysforfuture #schoolstrike4climate… https://t.co/jcY5vVtahZ</div> — Greta Thunberg (@Greta Thunberg)<a href="https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/statuses/1296748619522093056">1598003937.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="9032c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a0befc79f58c9dc4b239b3d6d45dada"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296733781626257408" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING: Nach dem Gespräch mit Merkel gestern haben heute 100 Aktivist:innen von #FridaysForFuture zusammen mit… https://t.co/e2UwCuZtNA</div> — Fridays for Future Berlin (@Fridays for Future Berlin)<a href="https://twitter.com/FFF_Berlin/statuses/1296733781626257408">1598000400.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>After the 90-minute meeting with Merkel, Thunberg <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/greta-thunberg-climate-youth-movement-targets-angela-merkel/" target="_blank">told</a> reporters that "we want leaders to step up, take responsibility, and treat the climate crisis like a crisis."</p><p>The Swedish teenager <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-climate-change-germany-greta/greta-thunberg-urges-merkel-to-get-out-of-climate-comfort-zone-idUKKBN25G1H3" target="_blank">added</a> that the Fridays for Future activists want world leaders "to dare to step out of their comfort zones, to prioritize the future ahead of us now, and to be brave enough to think long-term."</p><p>Citing a German government<a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/bundeskanzlerin-merkel-trifft-vertreterinnen-von-fridays-for-future-1778472?view=renderNewsletterHtml" target="_blank"> statement </a>issued after the meeting, <em>Politico</em> <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/greta-thunberg-climate-youth-movement-targets-angela-merkel/" target="_blank">reported</a> that "the group discussed the climate priorities of the German E.U. Council presidency, the E.U.'s objective of becoming climate-neutral by 2050, and efforts to hike the bloc's 2030 emissions reduction targets."</p><p><a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-climate-change-germany-greta/greta-thunberg-urges-merkel-to-get-out-of-climate-comfort-zone-idUKKBN25G1H3" target="_blank">According to</a> <em>Reuters</em>:</p><blockquote>The government spokesman said Merkel and the activists agreed that global warming posed a challenge for the world and that industrialized countries had a special responsibility to tackle it. <br><br>"The basis for this is the consistent implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement," the spokesman said.<br><br>The German government admitted earlier this week that it would have missed its climate target for 2020 if the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus pandemic had not caused a large drop in greenhouse gas emissions.<br></blockquote><p>Neubauer <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-climate-change-germany-greta/greta-thunberg-urges-merkel-to-get-out-of-climate-comfort-zone-idUKKBN25G1H3" target="_blank">told</a> journalists that Merkel "at least confirmed that she is willing to get stuff done during the [E.U.] presidency... Yet eventually, at the end of the day, it's about common budgets, it's about very clear targets, it's about numbers and figures and that we need action, more than really nice and big words."</p><p>"It became very clear that we look at the situation from different perspectives," Neubauer said of the climate crisis after the meeting. "As a physicist, [Merkel] does understand the science. As a politician, she well understands the political complexity behind that struggle. The question is now how to fill that gap."</p><p>The German activist added that "the interests of future generations have to be somehow balanced with interests of generations today—and that's a huge challenge and we're not denying that at all."</p>
<div id="1f351" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1da318c4cb38c5a6e5e7abe03d7fd66e"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296809297435860992" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">During the Corona crisis, the #FridaysForFuture demonstrations could not take place. Now #climate activists, includ… https://t.co/clnemnAEmp</div> — Deutschland.de | Germany (@Deutschland.de | Germany)<a href="https://twitter.com/en_germany/statuses/1296809297435860992">1598018404.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Neubauer also shared that Fridays for Future is mobilizing another worldwide strike next month, while acknowledging challenges posed by the pandemic.</p><p>"We used to strike in masses on the streets which was for many weeks not thinkable during corona and is still a very challenging task," she noted. "We're listening to the science and we are adjusting. We're moving to spaces where we can strike safely—sometimes digitally, sometimes in smaller numbers on the streets."</p><p>"We have decided to strike again globally and safely, if possible on the streets... we're mobilizing right now for September 25," Neubauer said. "The climate crisis hasn't slowed, it's escalating. We need people to demand action and this is obviously what we keep doing."</p><p>The calls for urgent action in Berlin on Friday were echoed by other school strikers across the globe. Some participated in the weekly Fridays for Future protest digitally due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, while others wore masks and took additional safety precautions like the strikers in Germany.</p>
<div id="516c1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc7d43c79b060445bfba2448e9003946"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296698566455562240" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Week 36! #schoolstrike4climate from Kenya. let's stop talking and act!Action is better than words. We cannot eat co… https://t.co/WN3Nn5db4G</div> — Dorcas Wakio (@Dorcas Wakio)<a href="https://twitter.com/WakioDorcas/statuses/1296698566455562240">1597992004.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="07915" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1e4814f20335a07c6e64eac54bdff8a6"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296692265780486145" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">School has started again and we are back at the #ClimateStrike in front of the Swedish Parliament again! The strike… https://t.co/8X9zhEvlKz</div> — Isabelle Axelsson🌍 (@Isabelle Axelsson🌍)<a href="https://twitter.com/isabelle_ax/statuses/1296692265780486145">1597990502.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="ee5b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f96586f8ace84eefa25e4f55ffaf3552"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296642301255536641" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#ClimateStrikeOnline week17 危機感を持てば、行動せずにはいられません。 危機に気づくということは行動するということです。 ※私たちの"行動しないリーダー"はまだ気候危機の深刻さを理解していないのです。… https://t.co/l0fxBus5lN</div> — Tenshin てんしん (@Tenshin てんしん)<a href="https://twitter.com/ShindoTenshin/statuses/1296642301255536641">1597978589.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="417d1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="272cf96a7e5bd51a38001515719e2f8c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296690147270909952" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#FridaysForFuture climate strike at Sydney Town Hall https://t.co/N6DByTMqGK</div> — Fridays For Future Sydney (@Fridays For Future Sydney)<a href="https://twitter.com/fff_Sydney/statuses/1296690147270909952">1597989997.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"This is week 80 of my <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/schoolstrike4climate?src=hashtag_click" target="_blank">#schoolstrike4climate</a> but are you listening?" <a href="https://twitter.com/NamugerwaLeah/status/1296723352602718208" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Leah Namugerwa, a 16-year-old in Uganda. "Whether you do or not I'll continue doing what is right for my and future generations."</p>
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