In November of 2018 there was a fire, started by a downed power line, that turned into a forest fire whose smoke travelled 3,000 miles all the way to New York. I live in Berkeley, CA, about 100 miles away, and our air was toxic. My family fled from the unhealthy air so we wouldn’t get bad effects from it like higher risk of cancer. The smoke was so bad that school was cancelled. Driving on the freeway on our way out of town, it was so smoky I could hardly see out the window. At one point the smoke cleared up and, looking behind us, all I could see was a giant mass of smoke. The fires happened partly because of PG&E’s carenessless, but also because of how the climate is getting warmer and warmer; this fire happened because of climate change. I think that the people who deny climate change deny it because they believe that climate change is a lie. It is hard to understand how someone could believe it’s fake when there is so much evidence in support of it; saying it’s fake makes you look like a fraud. Fortunately, young people are stepping forward and educating the public about what needs to be done to save our planet.

Climate activists are people who are trying to save our climate by standing up, giving speeches, and organizing strikes. One prominent youth climate activist is Greta Thunnberg. Greta Thunnberg is a 16-year-old girl who started a student strike and stood in front of the Swedish Parliament every Friday for a year. She eventually made it into the mainstream news and started giving speeches around the globe about how we need to stop using fossil fuels and how we need to start using sustainable energy sources that are better for the environment. The reality that one person can make that big of an impact is unbelievable. Thunberg won’t stop. She is devoted and very stubborn. If there were more people standing up for our planet it would be really good for the welfare of everyone everywhere. At the 2019 UN Climate Summit, Greta gave a very courageous speech, saying, 

"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!...You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” 

She is speaking her mind and not bothering to be polite. She is going after people in power, as she should, and showing us how even powerful people can be stood up to.

Young climate activists’ voices need to be shared, not just because our world is going to be flooded, but also because it gives us hope. With all the news out there about Trump and the bad stuff he does, young climate activists help us try to find a new future. One example of a youth activist other than Greta Thunnberg is Quannah Chasinghorse. According to Vice.com, Quannah Chasinghorse, a member of the Han Gwich’in and Lakota Sioux tribes, helped defeat Trump’s plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “A lot of our communities and villages on the coast, because of erosion, are literally falling apart,” Chasinghorse says. “Communities are being evacuated from their own homes and ancestral lands because of climate change.” This is a huge victory for this wildlife refuge and for everyone concerned with protecting the planet. What is really eye-opening is that someone so young could play such a big role in winning this battle. That same Vice article draws our attention to another youth climate activist, Vic Barrett, who is one of the people suing the executive branch of the government for neglecting to help stop climate change. Barrett says, “We’re here to write a new story, a story in which our country is doing everything in its power to address not only the climate crisis, but the systemic injustices at its roots, a story in which our constitutional right to a safe climate is recognized by the highest courts.” This is a powerful statement because Barret is not just talking about how bad the system is. He is talking about how we can make our future better.

During and after the Camp Fire, which burned down the town of Paradise and forced thousands of people out of their homes and onto the streets, California was witness to how devastating the effects of climate change will be on our country. It was a disaster and it should never happen again, yet we are letting it happen again by not taking dramatic enough action to stop it. Yes, the youth activists are playing a big role in this struggle and spreading the word, but, we have to gain power and use that power to make sure we cut down and stop fossil fuels. We have to try to stop this. We can’t wait for a miracle.