The New Face of Climate Activism Is Young, Angry — and Effective

September 18, 2019

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by Ella Nilsen (Vox) A growing sea of crusaders known as the Sunrise Movement has helped put climate change on the national agenda. Most aren’t even 30. -- ...

The three-bedroom apartment in Washington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood is one of a handful of so-called movement houses around the country where Sunrise Movement activists live and work together. Their mission is twofold: trying to force politicians to act on one of the most dire issues facing humankind and building an army of young people to send the message.

After they spend their days working at the Sunrise office in downtown DC or meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, they come home to share vegetarian meals at their table each night. A small sign in their kitchen says “everyday I’m brusselin’,” and the apartment wifi password alludes to their shared love of eggplant. They try to minimize their trash impact by composting, which they can take to the local farmer’s market for free.

This small group is part of a much larger national organization whose members are disproportionately in their teens or 20s. (The Sunrise Movement doesn’t have formal membership.) But its core leaders — a small group of activists in their mid-20s — estimate that 15,000 young people have showed up to in-person actions across the country and that 80,000 have participated in less direct actions such as emailing and calling their representatives. As of this month, the group has 290 small, autonomous chapters of activists (called “hubs”) across the country. In November 2018, there were just 11.

The 15,000 people who have turned out in person have spent the past year occupying the offices and hallways of the US Capitol, state houses, and Democratic National Committee meetings across the country, yelling at the top of their lungs.

Their methods are straight out of the playbook of the civil rights movement of the 1960s:

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Sunrise has been incredibly effective at drawing attention to climate
Sunrise is known for two things: how young it is, and how effective it has been so quickly.

The group was born out of the college divestment movement, in which student activists pushed administrators to divest assets and holdings from fossil fuel companies.

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“We started coming up with an idea. What would it look like to actually demand action at the scale that was needed and put forward solutions actually at the scale of the problem?” (Sunrise co-founder and current political director Evan) Weber, 27, said.

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“Our old plan exploded, and when the dust settled, one thing was crystal clear: We’ve gotta figure out how to win some elections,” (Sunrise co-founder and executive director Varshini) Prakash and (organizing director Dyanna) Jaye wrote in a 2017 Medium post. “Trump’s victory has blown over the barriers between young people and political engagement, pointing towards the possibility of a sea change at every level of government.”

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The group has also done electoral work that has paid off, especially in state and local elections. They and other local activist groups helped elect progressive politicians to the New York state legislature, which passed the wide-reaching Climate & Communities Protection Act this summer (many view the state law as a precursor to a Green New Deal).

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A global poll by Glocalities showed 67 percent of US Republicans ages 18 to 34 “agreed” or “strongly agreed” humans were causing damage to the planet.

This speaks to the fact that climate is a huge generational issue. A May Gallup poll showed 70 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 were worried “a great deal” or “a fair amount” about climate change, compared to 56 percent of Americans 55 and older.

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This has most recently been seen in the group’s work to secure a climate change forum on national television. Despite the Democratic National Committee voting down a climate-specific presidential debate, major networks like CNN and MSNBC stepped up to fill the void after months of Sunrise activists protesting, showing up to DNC meetings, and tweeting. CNN recently held a seven-hour climate town hall — the longest, most substantial discussion of climate change ever held on primetime television. MSNBC is set to hold another one on September 19.

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“The best part was who was in the audience; it was a bunch of young people who made it happen,” (Senator Elizabeth) Warren said, comparing youth activists to generations of civil rights marchers, suffragettes, and LGBTQ activists that came before them. “They’re going to make their voices heard in 2020.”

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Sunrise sees itself as more akin to the civil rights movement of the 1960s or the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 than it does to older environmental groups.

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Part of the reason Sunrise has been so effective is the way it communicates the scale of the crisis. This component is important because Republicans and fossil fuel companies successfully muddled the message for years, claiming climate change either wasn’t happening, or wasn’t manmade. The environmental movement thought science would convince the public, but that hasn’t worked, in part because scientists aren’t the best messengers.

“They’re not very effective,” said Leah Stokes, a political science professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, who studies environmental movements. “Scientists trade on uncertainties and caveats. We needed a voice to say climate change is happening now, and get that into the media and public consciousness.”

Rather than focusing on abstract or far-away things like melting ice caps in the Arctic or rising CO2 levels that no one can see, Sunrise strategically focuses on something much more immediate and — in some ways — selfish. It homes in on what climate change will do to humans.

“I know a very small number of people who get very excited about decarbonization as a thing,” Prakash told me. What she and her colleagues at Sunrise are trying to get at is their vision for solving climate change through massive mobilization and, most importantly, the creation of green jobs.

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A number of Sunrise members talk about the concept of “millennial dread” or “millennial nihilism,” the sense that things are bad and won’t get better for younger generations. That encompasses a lot of things, like student loan debt and the inability to save enough to buy a home, but the climate crisis is a huge part of it.

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Sunrise’s name alludes to that feeling, that the night is always darkest before the dawn of a new day. The youth are scared, but they’re also hopeful.

Almost every Sunrise member of the DC house has a story about how climate dramatically made a mark on their lives.

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It was (Christian) Galo who summed up why they were all in DC, working with Sunrise: “I would not know how to live with myself if I were not involved.” READ MORE

Climate Strike Toolkit for your classroom (Climate Generation)

How ‘resilience’ became a politically safe word for ‘climate change’ (Roll Call)

The Energy 202: Sunrise Movement to score 2020 candidates on Green New Deal — and yes, tweets count (Washington Post)

Americans like Green New Deal’s goals, but they reject paying trillions to reach them (Washington Post)