October 16, 2020 • 19 mins
Many of the most powerful voices for change aren't candidates for office. In fact, many are not yet even old enough to vote. As we prepare for the decade ahead, it's important to think about what you might call the next, next generation. Helping launch our special series with youth leaders is 15-year-old climate activist and founder of Earth Uprising Alexandria Villaseñor, who joins Pete to discuss the ways young people are getting their messages heard, how to get involved in decision-making conversations with political leaders, and specific steps in taking action and creating change.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Pete Bodh Judge, and this is the deciding decade.
Often I talked about the next generation of leadership not
waiting their turn. And when I say that, I'm not
just thinking about people in their twenties running for Congress
or my own experience running for president in my thirties.
I found that many of the most powerful voices for
(00:26):
change aren't just those running for office. In fact, many
are not yet even old enough to vote. As we
prepare for the decade ahead, it's important to think about
what you might call the next next generation, people who
in their teens and early twenties are stepping up, stepping out,
and showing us what twenty first century activism looks like.
I came to many of my own deepest held political
(00:48):
and moral views as a teenager, and I wonder sometimes
what that formation might have been like if I were
in the high school class of instead of two thousands,
with instant access to the ideas of others in my
generation through social media. We have a lot to learn
from these voices, and so we're going to feature a
few of these young leaders over the course of the
(01:09):
next few weeks. One major issue where the younger generation
is taking a lead is climate, from Friday's for Future
to the Global Climate Strike. Some of the people who
have taken the strongest stand on this issue, they are
leaders in their teams. I want to introduce you to
one such leader right now. I am really happy to
(01:31):
kick off this special series with Alexandra via Senor, who
joins me today. Alexandria is a fifteen year old climate
activists founder of Earth Uprising, a youth activist group dedicated
to educating and mobilizing young people on climate change. She
is a veteran of Greta Toneberg's Friday's for Future movement
and helped lead strikes in New York City for sixty
(01:51):
five consecutive weeks, even behaving the cold of a polar
vortex armed with a subzero sleeping bag. She speaks with
the moral authority of someone who's life will be shaped
by whether we succeed or fail in meeting the climate challenge. Welcome, Alexander.
It's an honor to have you here today. Yeah, I'm
very excited to be talking with you today. So I
want to start by learning a little more about your story.
(02:13):
You were You were born and raised in Davis California
and you and your family moved to New York City.
You take a trip back to your hometown and you
find yourself within about an hour of terrible wildfire, something
that again the West has faced over the course of
this summer, and you find yourself suffering from asthma. Can
you just take us back to that moment and tell
(02:34):
us how that shape your trajectory? Is an activist? Definitely.
So I first got involved in activism when I was
thirteen years old and I'm now fifteen, so it's only
been two years, but it feels like it's been a
really long time. I am originally from northern California. I
was born and raised there, and I was in my
hometown during Thanksgiving in and that was when the campfire
(02:56):
in Paradise, California broke out. And so what was very
area about that experience was that my hometown was very close,
so we ended up receiving a lot of the smoke
from that fire. It was seeping into my home. Um
at one point, it was the worst their quality in
the world during that time. And so I have asthma
and it was making me very sick, and so my
family ended up sending me back to New York City
(03:17):
early from that trip, and what's very upsetting is that
there's not a lot of public information about how to
stay safe, even though right now the entire West Coast
four million acres are burning. It is a repeat of
history almost for me. UM, and I've just been continuously
advocating and talking about California's wildfires, and so what happened
(03:39):
in my community was one of the reasons that I
ended up deciding to be an activis. So after getting
back to New York City from the campfire, I started
researching back climate change and I saw the connection between
climate change in California's wildfires, and that was the final
moment for me that I decided that I had to
do something, and so I took my first form of
(03:59):
activism in the form of a school strike in front
of the United Nations headquarters on December fourteen. I ended
up striking all the way up to the pandemic UM
so every Friday. That's over a year UM and I'm
now changing the ways that I am doing activism, of course,
but I also founded Earth Uprising and we have just
really started focusing on education because that is a very
(04:22):
important component to combat the climate crisis. So a lot
of people turn up around the U N or around
the White House holding up a sign. Not a lot
of people touch off a mass movement when when they
do it, what do you think was different about your approach,
or or your moment or whatever it was that clearly
hit a nerve and set off something much much bigger.
I think the reason that made this movement so much
(04:44):
larger was that it was led by young people. And
when young people are at the forefronts of a movement,
we speak very bluntly and directly. I've noticed that when
speaking with politicians, we really just speak our minds, and
we also don't think about what is politically possible when
it comes to the climate crisis. We think about what
really needs to happen in order to take action. Young
(05:06):
people have been using the resources that we've been given.
My generation has technology and social media that we have
really used to our advantage. I ended up getting connected
with organizers after I started my climate strike. I got
connected through social media with other young people all around
the world, and so I was very fortunate to find
(05:26):
other young people involved in this. And so it's a
sense of community that we have built. Um and we
are very strong and forceful in our message, but we're
also very consistent. So let's let's dig into that, because obviously,
you know, I've worked mostly in the political space and
it's literally been my job to figure out what's possible.
But I think it feels like part of what's happening
now is what what some are saying is possible is just,
(05:51):
in a very blunt mathematical way, not going to be enough. Uh.
And at the same time, you know, we we have
to actually do something real, and and that acquires maneuvering
around whatever obstacles there are, political, economic, social, technological. So
how do you think about that? How do you think
about the need to have an agenda or a program
that can be achieved and square that with the need
(06:14):
to maybe stretch people's imagination about what possible actually looks like.
Coming from a fifteen year old, I'm not able to
be involved in the political system for quite a while,
so I've I won't be able to vote till I'm
eighteen um, which in my opinion is far too long.
But I've noticed that young people are having a way
and getting involved in the decision making conversations. When we
(06:37):
protest and we take direct action. It's one of the
ways that we are actually being involved in policy. I
have actually been able to get policy in New York
City with the protests and so young people, we are
finding a way to make room for ourselves at these
decision making conversations, even if we aren't able to vote yet.
(06:58):
And so I actually worked with a Insley on his
Evergreen Economy plan, and after he ended his presidential campaign,
his former staffer has founded Evergreen Action, which is a
climate policy platform, and I'm on the advisory board for
Evergreen Action. I think it's very exciting that the Biden
Paris campaign has now adopted parts of that climate policy platform.
(07:19):
So actually taking steps to incorporate all of these policies
and making sure that we actually have an idea of
what we need to do to have a sustainable future.
(07:46):
How do you think about who to address when you're
trying to stir people to action or convince people. I mean,
there's there are people who think they're on the right
side of the climate issue, but you might feel they're
not going far enough. There are people who say it's
not even real. One of the things I've been thinking
about in the political season and you know, it's a
question that comes up a lot in my party is
(08:06):
how much energy do we spend addressing the people who
are still deciding how to vote, and how much energy
goes to those who are deciding whether to vote at all. Right,
so when you're thinking about, you know who your audience is.
Are you just thinking about it's everybody? Or you're thinking
about the people who just don't even believe this is
a problem. Out of who's your target? Uh, well, everybody.
(08:27):
I think that everybody needs to be an activist, and
now is the time where everybody has to be involved
in activism. And so one thing that I have been
very open with is the idea that everybody is welcome
and everyone is needed in this movement. We need people
from all sectors and all backgrounds getting involved because everybody
has different experiences and different conversations that they can bring
(08:51):
to the table. And so that's also why we need
an intergenerational conversation. We need to be including those who
are being affected the most by the climate isists in
these conversations. And so when it comes to climate deniers, um,
the United States actually does have the biggest population of
climate deniers in the world, and so I have had
(09:12):
to deal with climate deniers before. I've ended up on
bright bart before with death threats in the comments. And
so one thing that youth activists we have actually really
taken a focus to is that we do not have
the time to stress about those who are um not
believing in the science. We need to focus on bringing
(09:33):
everybody on board and pushing for actions. We need to
take What I found as well, though, is teenage girls
are actually the ones changing their parents opinion about climate change, because,
as you know, teenagers, we can be very persuasive when
we're talking. And so teenagers when they're talking with their parents,
they talk about how important this is to them, and
(09:55):
that makes adults become adult allies in this movement, and
that is very important. And so young people were starting
to have these conversations about how to change the conversation.
So one question I wanted to put to you that
that I'm really interested in with the youth climate activism,
it's a little bit personal on our side. So a
lot of times when I was campaigning, youth climate activism
(10:15):
wasn't just targeted at Republicans or climate deniers. A lot
of times folks would come to my events getting a
way sometimes, and I have to admit there's a temptation
to have a defensive instinct that's like wait a minute,
like the president says, it's not even real, Like I'm
a Democrat, I'm progressive, I care about climate, Go protest him.
But of course the folks in the movement know that, right.
They understand that, you know, my party or a lot
of people in my party care about the issue, but
(10:37):
clearly are in some way not meeting the needs or
meeting the expectations of the activists. So how do you
choose kind of where to apply that pressure and what
is your message to people who think we're in the
right place, but clearly there's something more that that you're
looking for, And what effect are you trying to have
with that advocacy. First of all, when it comes to
(10:58):
UM campaigns and policies, UM young people are going to
push everybody. And so, actually thinking back to j Insley,
he was the climate candidate, but I remember when I
first got in contact with him, I was actually pretty forceful,
and I was actually forceful in what I wanted him
to do, even though he was already pushing for climate,
(11:18):
I still stood my ground and I said that this
is the actions that you need to do. And so
I think that that is one thing that young people do.
We pick out those who are actually going to respond
to us and incorporate actions, and those are the people
that we talked to. Young people, we know the real
emergency here, and so we will when it comes to
the president, we of course will also um come for
(11:42):
his policies, because don't forget the young people on TikTok
organize the response we had at the Trump rally and
Tulsa and so young people are organizing on TikTok and
we are coming together on these social media platforms, and
so we do not need a TikTok emergency. We need
a climate emergency. And so we are going to be
(12:02):
pushing from all of our politicians, the current administration, but
also those who are possibly going to become the new
world leaders and people in those positions of power. And
so we put pressure everywhere we can. And the youth
climate movements is such this vast ecosystem of youth organizations
who focus on different areas of the climate crisis. So
(12:25):
there's groups that focus on direct actions, some focus on policy,
some focus um on voting, registration. One group maybe pushing
a specific candidate, and another will of course be pushing
someone else. And so there's so many young people who
have different um motivations and different missions that we are
going to make sure we hit every sector of our
(12:47):
society to get climate action. Sounds very strategic and very sophisticated,
which I think we've seen in terms of the results
in the impact. One of the things I've been thinking
about is is the way that the pandemic few els
in in many dimensions, as well as being obviously a
colossal emergency in its own right, also kind of address
(13:08):
rehearsal for climate I mean, here you have this issue
that depends on you know, a phenomenon you can't see
with the naked eye, at least in the kind of
immediate instance. Has a lot to do with whether we
pay attention to science. Um, it is really going to
require some level of international coordination in order to get done.
(13:28):
It involves a lot of tradeoffs, maybe false choices, but
but political trade offs between kind of what looked like
the right thing for the economy and what seems like
the right thing for the long term. And I'm wondering
whether whether if you think that pattern is legitimate. Is
there anything we're learning now from the successes or the
failures in dealing with the pandemic that might shape either
(13:50):
activism or policy for dealing with climate Yeah. When it
came to the pandemic, one thing that we were looking
at is that we saw that we add a response
to it. We saw that we could respond to climate
change because we had this collective response to the pandemic.
So we saw how our entire system could be overhauled
(14:10):
to address the climate crisis because we were able to
do that with UM the coronavirus. In the future, with
climate change, we're going to see so many people's lives
be affected, and so there is this aspect of UM
international action that has to be taken. So we saw
the entire world really come together in this pandemic and
(14:33):
take actions. Some countries took actions quicker than others UM,
and so we see how we look towards those countries
for examples on what we need to do UM the
United States. One thing, one reason why I'm always pushing
us here is that we need to be setting an example,
but we also need to have international cooperation when it
comes in the youth movement because sometimes we can get
(14:56):
stuck in this little bubble here in the US and
not really look any where else. But when it comes
to climate change, we must do that. So in terms
of who gets to be in the room and also
just who gets to command attention, and your your fifteen,
you've been able to clearly reach so many people and
make such a difference. Do you have any advice or
message to young people who may be struggled to be
(15:18):
taken seriously in the youth climate movements? Um, we have
definitely gotten into conversations where UM, with the media or
other adults where it can be UM, there can be
very patronizing conversations like your little kids, um. And as
well when it comes to the youth, UM, sometimes our
(15:39):
words are taken out of context and UM, we're tokenized
quite a lot. And so when it comes to the
youth movement, you're always thinking sure that our voices are
the authentic ones and we're the ones that need to
be at the forefront with it. And so when it
comes to young people who aren't really being taken seriously,
there are so many different ways for to make their
(16:00):
voices heard, and they have a sense there is a
community out there ready to support them. And so even
if there are people in their home or their community
that just look at them as little kids and aren't
doing anything, there are a lot that young people can
do that can change the conversation. At the local level,
they can write emails to their city council. City council
(16:23):
actually gets stuff done much quicker than our stay at
the state level or anywhere else. City council is someplace
that you can go to if you want im media action,
and so there's a lot that young people can do
at the local level as well. Um. One thing that
I've seen a lot though when it comes to youth
in the movement is often we're told by adults that, oh,
(16:46):
you're still inspirational, thank you for everything you're doing, and
then they end up just you know, giving us a
high five, and they don't actually exactly pat on the head,
and they don't actually come and support us with the
resources you need, like when it comes to funding and amplification.
And so there's so much that adults can do to
(17:06):
support the youth movement. They can actually do much more
than just say we're inspiring. I'd love to end just
with your call to action. So if someone's listening, they're
feeling overwhelmed, they're scared, maybe they're even struggling to be
hopeful at a time like this. To folks who who
needs some source of hope or need to feel empowered,
what's your message and what's your call? Look at your
(17:27):
community and how are you being impacted by the climate crisis.
We're seeing the effects of the climate crisis right now.
It's not some future issue that we're going to be
dealing with, and everybody is experiencing the effects of the
climate crisis, but in different ways. Find out what you
want to do about that. Do you are you angry
and do you just want to take action or do
you want to get involved in the solutions of it
(17:49):
and start working with your city council or getting involved
in those conversations, Find a group or an organization that
matches the mission that you have and what you want
to pursue, and then I think the last thing to
do is just start having conversations. Sometimes the feelings we
feel around the climate crisis can build up and we
can start to feel hopeless. But when you start talking
(18:10):
to somebody else, your family members and your community, then
it can open up much more conversations in the future,
and it can make you feel more motivated to get involved.
Hearing Alexandria speak about the urgency of the climate issue
and also about the specific steps needed, it really proves
that you don't even have to be a voting age
(18:32):
to have a big impact, and it's a reminder of
the power that any one of us can have to
make change. When you see a thirteen year old girl,
as she was not long ago, step up in this way,
it challenges all of us to make the most of
whatever tools are in our hands. She and her community
of youth climate activists have owned their power, and they're
(18:52):
very much changing the conversations about the most existential crisis
humanity has faced. It's especially helpful to hear her call
to look close to home, in your city, council, or
even your immediate family to have important conversations that lead
to change. It's a clear roadmap for how to use
your power to make a difference. For more podcasts from
(19:16):
I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, I'm Pete Bodh Judge, and this is the deciding decade.
Often I talked about the next generation of leadership not
waiting their turn. And when I say that, I'm not
just thinking about people in their twenties running for Congress
or my own experience running for president in my thirties.
I found that many of the most powerful voices for
(00:26):
change aren't just those running for office. In fact, many
are not yet even old enough to vote. As we
prepare for the decade ahead, it's important to think about
what you might call the next next generation, people who
in their teens and early twenties are stepping up, stepping out,
and showing us what twenty first century activism looks like.
I came to many of my own deepest held political
(00:48):
and moral views as a teenager, and I wonder sometimes
what that formation might have been like if I were
in the high school class of instead of two thousands,
with instant access to the ideas of others in my
generation through social media. We have a lot to learn
from these voices, and so we're going to feature a
few of these young leaders over the course of the
(01:09):
next few weeks. One major issue where the younger generation
is taking a lead is climate, from Friday's for Future
to the Global Climate Strike. Some of the people who
have taken the strongest stand on this issue, they are
leaders in their teams. I want to introduce you to
one such leader right now. I am really happy to
(01:31):
kick off this special series with Alexandra via Senor, who
joins me today. Alexandria is a fifteen year old climate
activists founder of Earth Uprising, a youth activist group dedicated
to educating and mobilizing young people on climate change. She
is a veteran of Greta Toneberg's Friday's for Future movement
and helped lead strikes in New York City for sixty
(01:51):
five consecutive weeks, even behaving the cold of a polar
vortex armed with a subzero sleeping bag. She speaks with
the moral authority of someone who's life will be shaped
by whether we succeed or fail in meeting the climate challenge. Welcome, Alexander.
It's an honor to have you here today. Yeah, I'm
very excited to be talking with you today. So I
want to start by learning a little more about your story.
(02:13):
You were You were born and raised in Davis California
and you and your family moved to New York City.
You take a trip back to your hometown and you
find yourself within about an hour of terrible wildfire, something
that again the West has faced over the course of
this summer, and you find yourself suffering from asthma. Can
you just take us back to that moment and tell
(02:34):
us how that shape your trajectory? Is an activist? Definitely.
So I first got involved in activism when I was
thirteen years old and I'm now fifteen, so it's only
been two years, but it feels like it's been a
really long time. I am originally from northern California. I
was born and raised there, and I was in my
hometown during Thanksgiving in and that was when the campfire
(02:56):
in Paradise, California broke out. And so what was very
area about that experience was that my hometown was very close,
so we ended up receiving a lot of the smoke
from that fire. It was seeping into my home. Um
at one point, it was the worst their quality in
the world during that time. And so I have asthma
and it was making me very sick, and so my
family ended up sending me back to New York City
(03:17):
early from that trip, and what's very upsetting is that
there's not a lot of public information about how to
stay safe, even though right now the entire West Coast
four million acres are burning. It is a repeat of
history almost for me. UM, and I've just been continuously
advocating and talking about California's wildfires, and so what happened
(03:39):
in my community was one of the reasons that I
ended up deciding to be an activis. So after getting
back to New York City from the campfire, I started
researching back climate change and I saw the connection between
climate change in California's wildfires, and that was the final
moment for me that I decided that I had to
do something, and so I took my first form of
(03:59):
activism in the form of a school strike in front
of the United Nations headquarters on December fourteen. I ended
up striking all the way up to the pandemic UM
so every Friday. That's over a year UM and I'm
now changing the ways that I am doing activism, of course,
but I also founded Earth Uprising and we have just
really started focusing on education because that is a very
(04:22):
important component to combat the climate crisis. So a lot
of people turn up around the U N or around
the White House holding up a sign. Not a lot
of people touch off a mass movement when when they
do it, what do you think was different about your approach,
or or your moment or whatever it was that clearly
hit a nerve and set off something much much bigger.
I think the reason that made this movement so much
(04:44):
larger was that it was led by young people. And
when young people are at the forefronts of a movement,
we speak very bluntly and directly. I've noticed that when
speaking with politicians, we really just speak our minds, and
we also don't think about what is politically possible when
it comes to the climate crisis. We think about what
really needs to happen in order to take action. Young
(05:06):
people have been using the resources that we've been given.
My generation has technology and social media that we have
really used to our advantage. I ended up getting connected
with organizers after I started my climate strike. I got
connected through social media with other young people all around
the world, and so I was very fortunate to find
(05:26):
other young people involved in this. And so it's a
sense of community that we have built. Um and we
are very strong and forceful in our message, but we're
also very consistent. So let's let's dig into that, because obviously,
you know, I've worked mostly in the political space and
it's literally been my job to figure out what's possible.
But I think it feels like part of what's happening
now is what what some are saying is possible is just,
(05:51):
in a very blunt mathematical way, not going to be enough. Uh.
And at the same time, you know, we we have
to actually do something real, and and that acquires maneuvering
around whatever obstacles there are, political, economic, social, technological. So
how do you think about that? How do you think
about the need to have an agenda or a program
that can be achieved and square that with the need
(06:14):
to maybe stretch people's imagination about what possible actually looks like.
Coming from a fifteen year old, I'm not able to
be involved in the political system for quite a while,
so I've I won't be able to vote till I'm
eighteen um, which in my opinion is far too long.
But I've noticed that young people are having a way
and getting involved in the decision making conversations. When we
(06:37):
protest and we take direct action. It's one of the
ways that we are actually being involved in policy. I
have actually been able to get policy in New York
City with the protests and so young people, we are
finding a way to make room for ourselves at these
decision making conversations, even if we aren't able to vote yet.
(06:58):
And so I actually worked with a Insley on his
Evergreen Economy plan, and after he ended his presidential campaign,
his former staffer has founded Evergreen Action, which is a
climate policy platform, and I'm on the advisory board for
Evergreen Action. I think it's very exciting that the Biden
Paris campaign has now adopted parts of that climate policy platform.
(07:19):
So actually taking steps to incorporate all of these policies
and making sure that we actually have an idea of
what we need to do to have a sustainable future.
(07:46):
How do you think about who to address when you're
trying to stir people to action or convince people. I mean,
there's there are people who think they're on the right
side of the climate issue, but you might feel they're
not going far enough. There are people who say it's
not even real. One of the things I've been thinking
about in the political season and you know, it's a
question that comes up a lot in my party is
(08:06):
how much energy do we spend addressing the people who
are still deciding how to vote, and how much energy
goes to those who are deciding whether to vote at all. Right,
so when you're thinking about, you know who your audience is.
Are you just thinking about it's everybody? Or you're thinking
about the people who just don't even believe this is
a problem. Out of who's your target? Uh, well, everybody.
(08:27):
I think that everybody needs to be an activist, and
now is the time where everybody has to be involved
in activism. And so one thing that I have been
very open with is the idea that everybody is welcome
and everyone is needed in this movement. We need people
from all sectors and all backgrounds getting involved because everybody
has different experiences and different conversations that they can bring
(08:51):
to the table. And so that's also why we need
an intergenerational conversation. We need to be including those who
are being affected the most by the climate isists in
these conversations. And so when it comes to climate deniers, um,
the United States actually does have the biggest population of
climate deniers in the world, and so I have had
(09:12):
to deal with climate deniers before. I've ended up on
bright bart before with death threats in the comments. And
so one thing that youth activists we have actually really
taken a focus to is that we do not have
the time to stress about those who are um not
believing in the science. We need to focus on bringing
(09:33):
everybody on board and pushing for actions. We need to
take What I found as well, though, is teenage girls
are actually the ones changing their parents opinion about climate change, because,
as you know, teenagers, we can be very persuasive when
we're talking. And so teenagers when they're talking with their parents,
they talk about how important this is to them, and
(09:55):
that makes adults become adult allies in this movement, and
that is very important. And so young people were starting
to have these conversations about how to change the conversation.
So one question I wanted to put to you that
that I'm really interested in with the youth climate activism,
it's a little bit personal on our side. So a
lot of times when I was campaigning, youth climate activism
(10:15):
wasn't just targeted at Republicans or climate deniers. A lot
of times folks would come to my events getting a
way sometimes, and I have to admit there's a temptation
to have a defensive instinct that's like wait a minute,
like the president says, it's not even real, Like I'm
a Democrat, I'm progressive, I care about climate, Go protest him.
But of course the folks in the movement know that, right.
They understand that, you know, my party or a lot
of people in my party care about the issue, but
(10:37):
clearly are in some way not meeting the needs or
meeting the expectations of the activists. So how do you
choose kind of where to apply that pressure and what
is your message to people who think we're in the
right place, but clearly there's something more that that you're
looking for, And what effect are you trying to have
with that advocacy. First of all, when it comes to
(10:58):
UM campaigns and policies, UM young people are going to
push everybody. And so, actually thinking back to j Insley,
he was the climate candidate, but I remember when I
first got in contact with him, I was actually pretty forceful,
and I was actually forceful in what I wanted him
to do, even though he was already pushing for climate,
(11:18):
I still stood my ground and I said that this
is the actions that you need to do. And so
I think that that is one thing that young people do.
We pick out those who are actually going to respond
to us and incorporate actions, and those are the people
that we talked to. Young people, we know the real
emergency here, and so we will when it comes to
the president, we of course will also um come for
(11:42):
his policies, because don't forget the young people on TikTok
organize the response we had at the Trump rally and
Tulsa and so young people are organizing on TikTok and
we are coming together on these social media platforms, and
so we do not need a TikTok emergency. We need
a climate emergency. And so we are going to be
(12:02):
pushing from all of our politicians, the current administration, but
also those who are possibly going to become the new
world leaders and people in those positions of power. And
so we put pressure everywhere we can. And the youth
climate movements is such this vast ecosystem of youth organizations
who focus on different areas of the climate crisis. So
(12:25):
there's groups that focus on direct actions, some focus on policy,
some focus um on voting, registration. One group maybe pushing
a specific candidate, and another will of course be pushing
someone else. And so there's so many young people who
have different um motivations and different missions that we are
going to make sure we hit every sector of our
(12:47):
society to get climate action. Sounds very strategic and very sophisticated,
which I think we've seen in terms of the results
in the impact. One of the things I've been thinking
about is is the way that the pandemic few els
in in many dimensions, as well as being obviously a
colossal emergency in its own right, also kind of address
(13:08):
rehearsal for climate I mean, here you have this issue
that depends on you know, a phenomenon you can't see
with the naked eye, at least in the kind of
immediate instance. Has a lot to do with whether we
pay attention to science. Um, it is really going to
require some level of international coordination in order to get done.
(13:28):
It involves a lot of tradeoffs, maybe false choices, but
but political trade offs between kind of what looked like
the right thing for the economy and what seems like
the right thing for the long term. And I'm wondering
whether whether if you think that pattern is legitimate. Is
there anything we're learning now from the successes or the
failures in dealing with the pandemic that might shape either
(13:50):
activism or policy for dealing with climate Yeah. When it
came to the pandemic, one thing that we were looking
at is that we saw that we add a response
to it. We saw that we could respond to climate
change because we had this collective response to the pandemic.
So we saw how our entire system could be overhauled
(14:10):
to address the climate crisis because we were able to
do that with UM the coronavirus. In the future, with
climate change, we're going to see so many people's lives
be affected, and so there is this aspect of UM
international action that has to be taken. So we saw
the entire world really come together in this pandemic and
(14:33):
take actions. Some countries took actions quicker than others UM,
and so we see how we look towards those countries
for examples on what we need to do UM the
United States. One thing, one reason why I'm always pushing
us here is that we need to be setting an example,
but we also need to have international cooperation when it
comes in the youth movement because sometimes we can get
(14:56):
stuck in this little bubble here in the US and
not really look any where else. But when it comes
to climate change, we must do that. So in terms
of who gets to be in the room and also
just who gets to command attention, and your your fifteen,
you've been able to clearly reach so many people and
make such a difference. Do you have any advice or
message to young people who may be struggled to be
(15:18):
taken seriously in the youth climate movements? Um, we have
definitely gotten into conversations where UM, with the media or
other adults where it can be UM, there can be
very patronizing conversations like your little kids, um. And as
well when it comes to the youth, UM, sometimes our
(15:39):
words are taken out of context and UM, we're tokenized
quite a lot. And so when it comes to the
youth movement, you're always thinking sure that our voices are
the authentic ones and we're the ones that need to
be at the forefront with it. And so when it
comes to young people who aren't really being taken seriously,
there are so many different ways for to make their
(16:00):
voices heard, and they have a sense there is a
community out there ready to support them. And so even
if there are people in their home or their community
that just look at them as little kids and aren't
doing anything, there are a lot that young people can
do that can change the conversation. At the local level,
they can write emails to their city council. City council
(16:23):
actually gets stuff done much quicker than our stay at
the state level or anywhere else. City council is someplace
that you can go to if you want im media action,
and so there's a lot that young people can do
at the local level as well. Um. One thing that
I've seen a lot though when it comes to youth
in the movement is often we're told by adults that, oh,
(16:46):
you're still inspirational, thank you for everything you're doing, and
then they end up just you know, giving us a
high five, and they don't actually exactly pat on the head,
and they don't actually come and support us with the
resources you need, like when it comes to funding and amplification.
And so there's so much that adults can do to
(17:06):
support the youth movement. They can actually do much more
than just say we're inspiring. I'd love to end just
with your call to action. So if someone's listening, they're
feeling overwhelmed, they're scared, maybe they're even struggling to be
hopeful at a time like this. To folks who who
needs some source of hope or need to feel empowered,
what's your message and what's your call? Look at your
(17:27):
community and how are you being impacted by the climate crisis.
We're seeing the effects of the climate crisis right now.
It's not some future issue that we're going to be
dealing with, and everybody is experiencing the effects of the
climate crisis, but in different ways. Find out what you
want to do about that. Do you are you angry
and do you just want to take action or do
you want to get involved in the solutions of it
(17:49):
and start working with your city council or getting involved
in those conversations, Find a group or an organization that
matches the mission that you have and what you want
to pursue, and then I think the last thing to
do is just start having conversations. Sometimes the feelings we
feel around the climate crisis can build up and we
can start to feel hopeless. But when you start talking
(18:10):
to somebody else, your family members and your community, then
it can open up much more conversations in the future,
and it can make you feel more motivated to get involved.
Hearing Alexandria speak about the urgency of the climate issue
and also about the specific steps needed, it really proves
that you don't even have to be a voting age
(18:32):
to have a big impact, and it's a reminder of
the power that any one of us can have to
make change. When you see a thirteen year old girl,
as she was not long ago, step up in this way,
it challenges all of us to make the most of
whatever tools are in our hands. She and her community
of youth climate activists have owned their power, and they're
(18:52):
very much changing the conversations about the most existential crisis
humanity has faced. It's especially helpful to hear her call
to look close to home, in your city, council, or
even your immediate family to have important conversations that lead
to change. It's a clear roadmap for how to use
your power to make a difference. For more podcasts from
(19:16):
I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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