气温上升 threaten to make regions across the Mediterranean and Middle East that are home to over 400 million people, 未来30年都无法居住. Intensifying natural disasters that seem unrelenting in some places, 已经开始对 心理健康 的居民. 围绕自然资源的冲突愈演愈烈 爱达荷州 to 伊朗, offering a terrifying glimpse of what’s to come as necessities like clean water and food become scarce.
My generation has been told that it’s our duty to save the world – to fix the wrongs committed by our parents and our grandparents. 而不是让我们走向成功, current leadership continues to hide behind shallow commitments, 虽然仍然活跃 使我们的星球退化.
This is the fight of our lives, and it often feels like we’re alone. 即使在实施之后 开创性的立法，它的成功 脆弱的 and still short of the necessary overhaul we’ll need to initiate to meet the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement. Twenty- and thirty-somethings have been part of this movement for a long time now, 我们已经准备好作为成年人挺身而出了.
世界组织，例如 联合国儿童基金会 have declared that almost a billion children will be exposed to numerous climate hazards during their lifetime, 影响他们的健康, 教育, 安全, 和期货. Headlines like this have been in regular circulation for as long as I can remember. It’s a reality the next generation has lived 与 their whole lives. 我从中学开始了我的气候活动家之旅, consumed by the energy I saw in my optimistic and determined peers, collectively organizing demonstrations in front of City Hall every first Friday of the month. I became devoted to political demonstrations because I could see our voices being heard. 尽管我们大多数人都不到18岁, our collective power had an impact as we pressured the local government to consider policy changes we put forth like divesting in fossil fuels and establishing environmental councils.
然后是COVID-19. 随着我们的游行(以及其他一切)转移到网上, 我们的精神健康和决心都受到了考验, 与 44% of high schoolers reporting feelings of hopelessness or depression for prolonged periods. 因为我们希望平衡我们的教育, 我们的行动, 对我们中的一些人和我们的家人来说，这是我们的生存, 我们的韧性达到了新的高度. Even as the pandemic made gathering and marching less feasible, Z世代和千禧一代继续采取行动, 约 30% 参加集会, 捐款, 给民选官员写信, or volunteering compared to just over 20 percent of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers doing the same.
For me, the question has always been, how can we, future changemakers, move the needle? Even as the pandemic has subsided and lockdowns have ended, young people have been slow to return to the height of advocacy we’d established before the pandemic. 游行队伍变少了. 市政厅的台阶仍然空着.
Without youth-led marches, the climate movement will stagnate. 而剩下的少数人则是凶猛而坚定的, they need numbers to get back to pre-pandemic levels to have the same level of impact. In 2019, over three million young people participated in that year’s climate strike in 纽约市. 到2021年，只有60万人参加了培训. 很明显谁失踪了. 人口结构发生了变化. Our base was younger, and I, the 20-year-old college student in the crowd, was the odd one out.
但这种转变是令人兴奋和必要的. Millennials and older Gen Zers who’ve been at the forefront of climate activism have the ability to equip these emerging leaders 与 the tools to use their voices, 但我们必须支持他们. Of course, as we’ve gotten older our responsibilities have increased. 就像我这个年纪的许多积极分子一样, I’m struggling to simultaneously push for legislative climate action while also managing a rigorous academic course load, 研究生的研究, 申请实习. But the 2021 march made it clear to me that even as I get older, there’s still an important role to play in the youth-led climate movement.
College-age climate leaders now attending university need to focus on how we can pass the baton to the next generation of climate activists. Joining forces means we can put pressure on public officials through our congressional internships, 我们的大学校园网络, and through connections 与 leaders we've spent years building. 随着年龄的增长，我们也会变得平庸, we can be the liaisons between generations to demand political change in a way that resonates across demographics.
我们也有教训要传承下去. I have worked on institutional climate change projects like introducing composting and waste management on multiple school campuses, and have seen firsthand how the bureaucracy in governmental agencies and 教育al institutions is often supportive in words but falls short of creating tangible action. 但我也看到了如果我们坚持到底会发生什么, 招募盟友, 关注公平的解决方案.
In 2019, I drafted and proposed a motion adopted by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to establish a 25-person youth climate commission. 起初，我们被解雇了. Yet, we continued to push public officials, skipping school and missing classes. 我们敦促民选官员通过这项动议, 他们最终做到了, and after four years the inaugural commission will launch in September 2022. 取得进步是一个漫长的过程, but I can testify to the next wave of young people that it’s possible.
We must learn what it takes from other movements to be radically inclusive, 迎接未来的挑战, 坚持不懈. And we must allow ourselves to grow up into the adults we wish we had on our side so that those who come after us don’t have to follow in our footsteps. 为了青年气候运动的成功, it will need us – the older youth activists – to help guide it.
Delaney Michaelson '24 is a current student at Barnard majoring in anthropology & 环境科学. She serves as the Vice President of 学生服务 与 the Barnard Student Government Association (SGA).