American youth climate activists have given themselves an 11-year deadline. Concerned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2018 report, which warned of the dire impacts of a 1.5 degree Celsius global temperature increase by 2030, American youth climate activists are working to mobilize the government and the public. They aim to prevent the damaging effects of climate change — from rising sea levels to more frequent and severe natural disasters — which have already started to occur. What is clear to these activists is that doing so will require unprecedented changes to industry, public infrastructure, energy, and land use — which in turn requires strong government intervention.
Within youth-led organizations like Zero Hour, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, and Sunrise Movement, youth climate activists are demanding change through marches, rallies, summits, and lobbying events. So far, much of their success can be seen in impressive event turnouts and increasing media attention. However, these accomplishments are largely symbolic; truly limiting global warming and mitigating the impacts of climate change requires significant legislative change on a national scale.
Founding the Youth Climate Movement
100 days after the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, adults and youth alike took to the streets of Washington, D.C. and satellite cities across the country to protest the Trump Administration Environmental Protection Agency’s rollback of fossil fuel regulations and removal of language around climate change from its website. Frustrated by this hostility toward climate action, young Americans formed climate action organizations across the United States. Zangee Artis and his peers Jamie Margolin, Nadia Nazar, and Madelaine Tew founded Zero Hour. They believe that now is the last chance for meaningful climate action — as they put it, the zero hour on climate — so they created a space for young voices to take leadership in the climate action conversation.
Like other youth climate activists, climate change’s threat to Artis’ personal living situation motivates his climate activism. “Living on the coast, I really value the shoreline and the beaches,” Artis told the HPR. In 2018, Artis’ hometown of Clinton, Conn. saw an unprecedented storm that caused the Menunketesuck River to flood the town’s streets, making them impassable. Artis lives with the fear that climate change will increase the severity of such storms and threaten coastal towns like his own with rising sea levels.
In 2019, fellow youth climate activist Haven Coleman joined forces with her peer Isra Hirsi, whom she met over Instagram, to form the U.S. Youth Climate Strike. Through striking, they aim to motivate society and government to transform the sustainability of the U.S. energy system and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions to combat the worst effects of climate change. As someone who suffers from asthma, Coleman’s concerns about air quality and its impact on her daily life motivate her climate activism. Coleman told the HPR that in her home state of Colorado, the smoke from California wildfires, fracking, coal plants, and smog from cars makes the air feel like “fumes of death,” which make it difficult for her to breathe. For her, climate change is not a future issue; it is a present concern.
Beyond their personal stakes in the climate crisis, American youth climate activists like Artis and Coleman often feel a unique responsibility to advocate for climate solutions because they understand that humans, particularly ones in developed nations, have played such a central role in causing climate change. “The world is going through something that we caused, so we have to do something,” Coleman explained, referring to evidence that the United States is ranked first globally in terms of its per capita carbon footprint. For these activists, the United States’ massive contribution to climate change creates a greater moral responsibility to partake in the fight against it.
Pushing for Meaningful Climate Action
While youth-run climate organizations like Zero Hour and the U.S. Youth Climate Strike share the broad goal of mitigating the impacts of climate change, they take different approaches to doing so. The U.S. Youth Climate Strike centers its demands around federal policy change, which it seeks to secure through actions such as campaigning for the Green New Deal, declaring the climate crisis a National Emergency, and implementing comprehensive K-8 education on climate change and climate justice. To engage young people in these demands, the organization hosts strikes across the United States.
In contrast, Zero Hour focuses on changing individual behavior. Artis explained that if the organization can get even a few march participants “to really commit to working toward something — towards climate justice, toward a just transition — then that is success.” While other youth-led organizations mostly run lobby days and strikes, Zero Hour also runs community-building events in the communities it believes will be most impacted by climate change. The group makes a concerted effort to acknowledge that climate change disproportionately impacts communities of color, poor communities, and women worldwide. By centralizing their efforts on disproportionately impacted communities and highlighting the intersection of different systems of oppression in their national education campaign, Zero Hour provides ways for individuals to see how climate change impacts them personally, which may help them feel a greater urgency to take climate action.
It was a mix of these tactics that Sunrise Movement, another youth climate activist organization, employed to present the Green New Deal. Sunrise aims to attract young people through conversation, channeling dialogue into organizing efforts. The organization first publicly introduced the Green New Deal through a national tour visiting communities impacted by climate change. After beginning the conversation in communities, Sunrise brought the dialogue to Congress when the Green New Deal was introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Sunrise then organized a massive lobbying day in Washington, D.C. and even held a demonstration to support the GND in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office, with some activists getting arrested for the cause. In doing this, Sunrise was able to initiate a conversation among youth on the Green New Deal, organize their voices, and gain federal government attention on their proposed climate action.
While the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, Zero Hour, and Sunrise Movement engage people through varying tactics, they represent a cumulative push for climate action at the national level. As a result, these organizations are often depicted by the media as one greater youth movement, amplifying their public reach and the public perception of the momentum they are creating.
Defining Success
In their efforts to achieve policy change aimed at mitigating climate change, many of these youth climate activist organizations have identified their own metrics of success. Some measure their progress by the number of individuals inspired to make more sustainable lifestyle changes, while others measure success by turnout at lobbying days and marches.
For Artis, success revolves around inspiring individual behavior changes. Even one person’s conscious efforts to consume in a more environmentally friendly manner or engage in political organizing is a victory. Much of this kind of success depends on the reach of young activists’ social networks. A study done by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that opinion leaders in activism can influence up to 1,000 people through interpersonal connections. Personal engagement with others at this scale may be one of the most effective ways that climate activists can inspire others to join and organize with them.
In reaching out to fellow young people and adults, however, youth climate activists employ different strategies of engagement. When appealing to young people, youth climate activist organizations tend to use a personal angle, as young people hold a greater risk of loss in the future due to climate change. By contrast, reaching adults who will not see the worst impacts of climate change but whose children will requires a different and more somber tone. As Steven Cohen, director of the Earth Institute’s Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management at Columbia University, described in an interview with the HPR, “Having young people say, ‘Hey, you older people messed it up. You didn’t do what you’re supposed to, and you’re leaving me a planet that is damaged’ … is a really tough argument to refute … It has emotional resonance.” Such appeals can create a sense of guilt among adults that catalyzes them to take action.
However, it is difficult to measure the success youth climate activists have had in influencing people to take more climate-conscious actions. “We don’t necessarily know whether or not they’re taking what we’re saying and implementing that in their own community,” Artis said of Zero Hour’s event participants and social media followers. While increasing march turnout can indicate growing public momentum around climate action, it does not necessarily reflect increasing individual commitments to more sustainable living.
Instead of trying to influence individuals, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike and Sunrise Movement measure their success in terms of federal policy change. While the push for the GND is their largest and most comprehensive attempt at making such change, the GND has yet to become law and does not appear to have a clear route to implementation. Moreover, making such massive policy changes takes time and, importantly, a federal government that sees a need for climate action, which the United States currently lacks.
While these organizations may have a range of metrics of success, whether they are actually succeeding at their ultimate goal — mitigating 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2030 — remains in question. Considering the ongoing debate on the existence of climate change in the U.S. government, the federal climate action needed to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions remains elusive. Even at the international level, efforts to combat global warming are falling short. Thus despite youth climate activists’ progress in gaining public attention and building public support, it seems that the clearest pathways to attain change at both national and international levels remain obstructed.
Finding a Way Forward
Even as youth climate activists seem unwavering in their determination to tackle the climate crisis, and as their organizations continue to raise public momentum, resistance to climate action by the federal government remains a major obstacle. To see legislative change enacted at the national level, it seems that the United States might first need a change in presidential administrations. In the meantime, youth climate activists may need to explore new paths for policy change if they hope to meet their 11-year deadline.
Without federal support, working at the state level presents one viable option for youth climate activists. For example, in 2018 the Utah Youth Environmental Solutions, a teen council which aims to advance pro-environmental solutions statewide, saw the fruits of their lobbying events when the state passed House Concurrent Resolution 7 entitled “Economic and Environmental Stewardship,” which recognized climate change and called for the use of science when making environmental decisions. Other states have also committed to climate initiatives in response to public momentum: In Coleman’s home state of Colorado, the Air Quality Control Commission adopted the Low Emission Vehicle Program after 7,600 Coloradoans actively called for it in 2018.
With time running out to achieve the pressing legislative changes that could cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, it seems that youth climate activists may have to adapt their strategy to both meet their own metrics of success and mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
Image Credit: Flickr / kehworks