On Christmas Eve, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew was drifting through what seemed like an infinite inky night, as the first humans in history to orbit the Moon. The three crew members on-board were taking photographs of the craggy lunar landscape while scouting the Moon’s surface for potential landing sites for future Apollo missions. 

William Anders, the youngest astronaut in the crew, was sitting by the right window as the ship rounded the edge of the Moon. Suddenly, on the horizon a blue ball appeared and Anders, awestruck, gasped “Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth comin’ up. Wow, is that pretty!”

He anxiously called for some color film to capture what would become a history-defining moment, ensuring that even though Anders was the first person to see the Earthrise, he most certainly would not be the last. 

Last week, on June 7th of 2024, Will Anders passed away in a tragic plane crash. He was a fighter pilot as well as an astronaut, logging more than 6,000 hours of flight time, but the 90-year-old Anders will be immortalized because of the “Earthrise” photo he took that Christmas Eve night. EARTHDAY.ORG and the rest of the world will be forever grateful to him for this image and its tremendous contribution to the environmental movement. Nature photographer Galen Rowell would go on to describe it as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

“Earthrise” was the first color image of the Earth, seen from outer space, ever taken. It was the very first time in history that humanity was  able to see what our home planet looked like. Anders captured the Earth floating above the Moon’s surface, a tiny blue orb drowning in the vast darkness of space. Peering at the world from this previously unseen perspective, Anders reflected that “Earth is small, delicate and not the center of the universe.” 

Apollo 8’s “Earthrise” photo sparked a modern Copernican revolution of sorts when Anders and his crewmates returned home, splashing down on December 27th. While the Earth may feel vast, expansive, and blessed with what seems like endless resources, to see the world from this epic 200,000 million mile bird’s-eye view is a humbling experience. We could see how wondrous Earth truly is, and perhaps, how vulnerable it is as well. 

Anders described the rising Earth as “a Christmas tree ornament, very fragile…[and seemingly of] a physical insignificance and yet it was our home…” The smallness of the Earth in relation to the universe emphasizes the duty we all share in caring for our one and only home in the face of a cold and infinite universe.

The photo was a catalyst for the founding of the modern environmental movement, and just over one year after “Earthrise” the world celebrated its first Earth Day. 20 million inspired Americans, 10% of the country’s population at the time, participated in demonstrations protesting and spreading awareness about environmental degradation. By the end of the year, the United States government created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed trailblazing environmental legislation like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Education Act, and more. 

William Anders and his photograph lives on through the environmental movement and the ever-growing participation and importance of Earth Day. When the environmental movement faced the dark and challenging dilemma of a global pandemic just weeks before the 50th Earth Day, Earthrise became a beacon of hope to lead environmentalists through a time where taking action felt harder than ever. Earthrise showed that on this island Earth, the only way forward through global crises is to unite for the common good in support of the one planet we all call home.

William Anders’ legacy serves as an inspiration and a constant reminder of our responsibility to protect this fragile planet we call home. His Earthrise photograph showed that sharing a meaningful image can lead to a profound impact. You can be part of the Earth Day impact by joining our email list, and we’ll keep you updated on critical news and actions you can take for the environment.

The post The Photo That Captured the World appeared first on Earth Day.

The coronavirus pandemic does not shut us down. Instead, it reminds us of what’s at stake in our fight for the planet. If we don’t demand change, our current state will become the new normal — a world where pandemics and extreme weather events span the globe, leaving already marginalized and vulnerable communities even more at risk. 

On December 24, 1968, astronauts on the moon took the first full color photo of the Earth. This photo, titled “Earthrise,” showed us both strength and fragility of our planet while helping launch the modern environmental movement. That movement took a historic step forward just over a year after that photo, when 20 million people turned out for the world’s first Earth Day.

Human health and planetary health are inextricably linked. To protect one, we must protect the other. Millions rallied behind this idea to create the first Earth Day in 1970, and, 50 years later, we must rally behind it again.

On April 22, join us as we EARTHRISE, a global digital mobilization that drives actions big and small, gives diverse voices a platform and demands bold action for people and planet. Over 24 hours, EARTHRISE will fill the digital landscape with global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and more.

While Earth Day may be going digital our goal remains the same: to mobilize the world to take the most meaningful actions to make a difference. Below are ways to participate:

SPEAK: Exercise your right to express, promote and defend your ideas. While we may not be able to assemble in-person, we can still create a mass outcry and a mass outpouring of support online.

• Take action: Share what you’re doing, today and from where you are: What are you fighting for — it could be for your children, for frontline communities, for safe water to drink. What compels you to act, and why are you in this fight?

• Add your voice to this global demand for action with #EarthDay2020 and #EARTHRISE.

ACT: Everyone can do something. Join us on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day — April 22 — as we issue 24 actions for the planet that you can take now, wherever you are.

• Take action: Join us on earthday.org and on @earthdaynetwork on social media for 24 hours of action with EARTHRISE. Every hour, on the hour, we’ll have a new, powerful way for you to demand action and drive change.

VOTE: More than 65 countries host major elections in 2020. Make your demands known by voting for those who will defend the planet.

• No elections in your country? Too young to vote? Demand change with civic action — call your representatives, tweet at your policymakers, volunteer for a candidate. There are so many ways to tell your leaders that human and planetary health must be the top political priority.

• Take action: Send a message to your leaders on April 22, and get registered, educated and ready to vote in your elections in 2020. Throughout April, earthday.org will have ways to get involved in local, state and national politics as we launch our Vote Earth campaign.

EDUCATE: The first Earth Day seized the power of education through campus-wide teach-ins that sparked conversation, engaged local communities and informed change. Now, as Earth Day goes digital, we’re bringing teach-ins to a global scale. Some of the world’s most inspiring musicians, artists, scientists and thought leaders will use digital teach-ins to share their experience, expertise and lessons to a global audience across the 24 hours of EARTHRISE.

• Take action: We need you to share your knowledge and wisdom as well. Bring your friends, family, coworkers and neighbors into this global digital conversation to share what you’re doing locally to meet this global crisis. And tune into EARTHRISE as we release 12 digital teach-ins from some of the world’s most inspiring voices for change.

While coronavirus may physically distance us, it will not silence or divide us. Through the power of digital media, we’re more connected than ever. On Earth Day 2020, we seize all the tools and actions that we have, big and small, to change our lives and change our world, not for one day, but forever.

The post EARTHRISE: Earth Day Goes Digital appeared first on Earth Day.

What does Earth Day and German composer Johann Sebastian Bach have in common? The new Earth Day 2020 banners, according to renowned designer Jakob Trollbäck.

Asked about the look of the banners, which he and his colleague Nanna Göransson designed for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Trollbäck said it’s the visual equivalent to Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” — a composition of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys.

The banner’s connection to the composition, said Trollbäck, hinges on the banner’s Helvetica font, a font first developed as modern, neutral, and clear capable of universal use — much like Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” incorporates all 24 keys of the instrument and is thus used by many musicians.

In addition to font, shape and colors are also important for the banner. Trollbäck, whose Stockholm-based company The New Division promotes sustainability in its designs, is known for colorful logos and clear, unbureaucratic text, as seen in one of the most iconic campaigns of our age: the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Trollbäck uses these same principles for the design and messaging of the Earth Day banners.

“The other aspect of the Earth Day logo was finding harmony, balance and inspiration from the many circles in the text as a result of it having the number 50, for the 50th anniversary, and the year 2020,” said Trollbäck, whose team choose a no-frills look in the European modernist art tradition.

With the words “Let’s Make History” on the banner, the design also echoes the urgency of today’s generation, as well as the youth of 1970, when 20 million protestors took to the street to demand action.

“The phrase ‘Let’s Make History’ is more action orientated, so we used a more oblique style to donate motion,” said Göransson.

The Earth Day banners will be indispensable for the global activities on and around Earth Day’s 50th anniversary on April 22, 2020. Whether you are marching on an EARTHRISE climate strike in the U.S.; at a rally for the Great Global Cleanup in India; doing an Artists for the Earth arts project in Europe, as for example part of the Beethoven Pastoral Project; or collecting data for the citizen science initiative Earth Challenge 2020, get your banners ready and get noticed.

Download The New Division’s blue banner and white banner today.

The post Designer of UN Sustainable Development Goals logo makes Earth Day 2020 banners appeared first on Earth Day.

Around the world, youth activists are striking for climate action. Most notably, 17-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has drawn international attention and media coverage with her climate strikes and Fridays for Future movement.

But that’s only one part of the story. Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate, 23, has also been advocating for climate action. In January, she attended the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with Thunberg and others. 

Though eager to spread her message to a broader audience, Nakate was cropped out of a photo with Thunberg, Loukina Tille, Luisa Neubauer and Isabelle Axelsson by the Associated Press. That crop sparked a fierce debate over race and media representation. 

“You didn’t just erase a photo,” Nakate tweeted after the incident. “You erased a continent. But I am stronger than ever.”

The lack of diversity in the environmental movement is not a new concern, and Nakate recognizes that.

“I think that there is an issue of white privilege,” Nakate told Earth Day Network. “Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. Media loves news that is a hot piece of cake for them, news that will sell… I believe that if they cover news from activists from the Global South, they think it would not cause as much impact.” 

Nakate has been striking for just over a year. Over the last decade, Uganda has experienced unusually high temperatures, as well as increased floods and landslides. But only recently did she connect these events to climate change.

“I wanted to do something that could enact change in the lives of the people in my country, so I started researching,” Nakate, who lives in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, said. “Climate change really caught my eye because… in school, it is taught as something that we don’t have to worry about, something that is coming in the far future or that happened in the far past.”

African nations are some of the most vulnerable to and least prepared for climate change. Approximately 300,000 people are already affected by more frequent droughts, floods and landslides, and an estimated 65,000 people have been displaced, according to a government report. 

In East Africa, where Nakate lives, communities are experiencing the worst invasion of desert locusts in 25 years. This is why she and other activists from the Global South are speaking out. 

Nakate wanted to spread awareness so young people could connect disasters and rising temperatures to climate change earlier than she had. In January 2019, she staged a solitary strike outside of Uganda’s Parliament, an idea that came from Thunberg. 

“Honestly, I didn’t know how I was going to spread awareness for it, so I decided to read more,” she said. “That is how I found out about the Fridays for Future climate strikes, and I decided to start striking.” 

Since then, Nakate has participated in nearly 60 Fridays for Future protests and founded Youth for Future Africa, which later transformed into the Rise Up Movement. She has also campaigned for the Congo forests.

“It is important to listen to the activists from the Global South because they’re representing different communities,” Nakate said. “[The Rise Up Movement’s] main goal is to help tell the stories of these activists in Africa who are striking every Friday, who are doing different activities to demand climate action.”

The AP incident has only motivated her and strengthened her platform. She received an outpouring of support from activists across the globe, and her Twitter account became verified. 

“Despite the fact that this incident was so hurtful and painful, it has changed the story for different activists in the Global South,” she said. 

Like the first Earth Day in 1970, youth are the foundation of today’s environmental movement. To mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, 2020, Earth Day Network created EARTHRISE to build the world’s largest, most diverse mobilization of activists. Join the movement.

“The climate issue is a life issue,” Nakate said. “We have to keep fighting until we see the action that we are demanding. Above all, I want people to stop dying as a result of climate change.”

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Youth around the world are on strike for the planet — inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, many young people are skipping school and taking to the streets every Friday to demand climate action through climate striking organizations like Fridays for Future, Earth Uprising and more.

Despite its relative infancy (Fridays for Future founder Thunberg didn’t start striking until early 2018), climate striking has caught on in a big way. On September 20, 4 million took to the streets worldwide to call for greater political action on climate change. The next week another 3 million turned out in cities around the world.

But there’s another story under the surface, and that’s what’s happening online: digital striking.

“Digital striking is basically a solidarity action for those that can’t strike every Friday from school, so they can show their support for Fridays for the Future through the Internet,” says Iris Zhan, a 16-year-old climate activist from suburban Maryland.

By definition, striking requires a physical presence and sacrifice — one must have a routine or activity that they are striking from — usually in the form of missing school or work to strike. But not everyone can afford to pay that price. That’s why Zhan, a member of Fridays for Future USA, started digital striking several months ago together with George Zhang, a 16-year-old from outside Los Angeles.

Zhang had similar difficulties skipping school to strike — in his case, his school has a strict attendance policy he couldn’t get around. His parents also weren’t too eager to see him skip school.

In some schools, striking is forbidden altogether. Schools don’t allow excused absences for climate striking, leaving students who physically strike forced to often take a hit academically. That’s what happened to Washington native and highschooler Jerome Foster II, whose grade point average started dipping after he started striking weekly outside the White House.

“[Digital striking] gives an extra voice or periphery to the movement and more inclusive to people who may not necessarily be around where the strikes are or whose parents are super strict,” says Zhang.

Digital striking is simple: Take a picture of yourself holding a striking sign (digital or physical) lending support to the Fridays for Future movement (most messages are something along the lines of, “I stand with Fridays for Future,” but signs can also include traditional climate slogans, like “The seas are rising and so are we,” “There is no planet B,” or the OG climate strike message, Thunberg’s “Skolstrejk för Klimatet”).

Next, you upload the photo to Instagram, tagging @fff.digital and using the #digitalstrike and #fridaysforfuture hashtags. Zhan and Zhang then compile these photos into collages every week on their personal pages, as well as the @fff.digital account.

The digital striking movement is only about four months old but has been growing each week. Part of Fridays for Future’s success is rooted in unity, consistency and visualization. To deliver success, the movement needs individuals to strike on a weekly basis, not just occasionally. Digital striking helps to remove barriers to entry and create that consistency.

“We want to emphasize weekly action and not just waiting for the next big strike,” says Zhan.

Another benefit of digital striking is that it gives a voice to people outside of major cities. Often, national media limits their coverage of striking to big cities like New York, D.C. or London. Zhan is from suburban Maryland, with no public transportation — a big deal for teens without licenses — and no high-profile government buildings to strike outside of. Social media provides the time and the place for everyone to strike, regardless of where you’re from.

Digital striking also provides another supportive community for these youth climate activists. In my talks with climate activists the last several months, I’ve learned that this community is integral to the success of the movement. It’s not just the physical support; it’s also the mental support.

“The biggest challenge for me has been my mental health,” said 17-year-old Jamie Margolin, founder of climate organization Zero Hour, on a panel co-hosted by Earth Day Network and Twitter earlier this year. “The climate anxiety is really real for me.”

In September, Foster II told me he relies on comfort and healing calls — a way to “let it out” and “rant” to other activists in the movement. Fridays for Future and the digital community give him an outlet to combat the frustration associated with striking in the face of government inaction on climate change.

Encountering a challenge as enormous and existential as climate change, youth leaders are pulling out all the stops, using every resource they have to sound the alarm on the urgency of this crisis and the desperate need for global action. Digital striking serves as one more factor in the growing climate movement that its proponents hope will coalesce into an unavoidable force of change.

“I personally believe the change will come eventually,” says Zhang. “The facts are starting to add up, and people are starting to be more and more aware of what is going on around us.”

Meanwhile, activists like Zhan and Zhang will continue to digital strike on behalf of the Fridays for Future movement and their future. To them, there’s no other way — they feel compelled to strike. If your future was on the line, wouldn’t you?

“We don’t just want to stay silent — we want to show that we are out here still being active in the climate movement and still demanding climate action,” says Zhan. “I know that a lot of kids can relate to that.”

The post Can’t strike for the planet? Digital striking provides an alternative appeared first on Earth Day.

On a Friday afternoon in early autumn, 17-year-old Jerome Foster II was not at school. He wasn’t at home, either. Foster was outside the White House in Washington, D.C., holding a sign that read, “School Strike for Climate,” and protesting government inaction on climate change.

“Most of the time I’m here by myself,” Foster told me, a different scene from two weeks earlier when Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined him and hundreds of youth climate activists to strike outside the White House.

Foster speaks in rapid cadences, his voice spurting forth in call-to-action phrases and rhetoric that echoes an urgency found in the youth climate movement. Most days Foster is easy to point out. He wears a bright blue and green bike jersey embedded with the words, “Think Globally Bike Locally” — it’s become a sort of signature.

But when I spoke to him outside the White House, Foster wore a hoodie. Sweating under an abnormally hot autumn day and in direct sunlight, he said he wore the hoodie because he was battling a cold. Several times he had to excuse himself to cough.

On top of sacrificing his health for the cause, Foster sacrifices a traditional high school experience by climate striking. He’s a senior at Washington Leadership Academy in Northeast D.C. and, like many of his classmates, is enrolled in a handful of AP courses in preparation for college. All those classes are put on hold when he strikes.

“Some teachers fully support my striking, but other teachers are like, ‘You’re going to get a zero.’ Okay, I’ll take the zero,” said Foster.

That attitude reflects the mindsets of countless youth climate activists around the world who strike in the name of climate action. To them, climate change is a crisis that must be prioritized above all else —even if that means forgoing an A.

Kids from all over the world have been striking and using their voices to demand change. Some are inspired by the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg; others are inspired by each other; others are just fed up by climate inaction.

“We have no more time,” Jamie Margolin, founder of youth climate movement Zero Hour, told me several weeks earlier. “People are dying, and it is important that [world leaders] step up and give a damn.”

Margolin’s Zero Hour movement was how Foster became formally involved in climate activism. Foster loves writing, and he hopes to be a journalist someday — something he worries might clash with his activism. Two years ago, he started a blog called The Climate Reporter.

While searching the Internet for stories for his blog, Foster came across the Zero Hour movement. Surprised to discover there was an entire organization of young people organizing against climate change, he emailed and asked how he could help. That set him off on a course of climate action.

“I just knew about the climate crisis, and I wanted to educate myself more and more,” said Foster. “And I felt that if us young people aren’t going to be taken seriously, then we’re going to make sure we are by uniting globally.”

The youth climate movement is an entire community. Zero Hour isn’t the only environmental organization mobilizing youth — there’s also Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, Earth Guardians, Earth Uprising and Fridays for Future, the last of which was started by Greta Thunberg.

Though the climate movement has been going on for a couple years, only recently have national media and world leaders begun taking notice.

“It has just been accelerating and growing,” said Margolin. “The pressure has been magnifying. Something is going to tip the scale, and we do not have a choice.”

Margolin started Zero Hour in 2017 to organize a youth climate march. She and Zero Hour succeeded, organizing the Youth Climate March in 25 global cities on July 21, 2018, a little more than a year after the People’s Climate March and the March for Science, both in April 2017. Now Zero Hour is a staple of the youth climate movement.

From marches to strikes

These marches and movements are converging with the recent climate strikes, the latter of which has been widely attributed to the rise of Greta Thunberg. Many consider Thunberg the face of today’s global student strike movement and the reason many, including Foster, initially started striking.

“She knows so much more than anyone,” said Foster, who spoke with Thunberg after a White House strike. “She knows everything you can know about the climate crisis and understands the urgency.”

In August 2018, Thunberg began striking against climate inaction, sitting outside Swedish parliament in Stockholm every Friday and holding a sign that read Skolstrejk för Klimatet (school strike for the climate).

Thunberg remained committed, striking through the cold, wet Scandinavian weather. People took notice. The New Yorker profiled her. In December of 2018, Thunberg spoke at the U.N.’s COP24.

“I’ve learned you are never too small to make a difference,” said Thunberg at COP24. “And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.”

As Margolin and Foster were organizing for Zero Hour, another soon-to-be youth activist was on her own quest. And Thunberg’s speech helped guide her journey.

Fourteen-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor, now known for her weekly strikes in front of New York’s United Nations headquarters, had just returned from Northern California, where she saw directly the impacts of climate change on communities.

In autumn of 2018, Villaseñor traveled to her birthplace of Davis, California. Davis is only an hour from Paradise, where the now infamous Camp Fire broke out last year, a wildfire that killed 85 people and destroyed 150,000 acres and 18,000 buildings. The smoke eventually got to Davis. Suffering from asthma, Villaseñor had to return to New York prematurely.

“When I got back to New York City, I was so upset because all my friends and family were still in that fire, still experiencing the effects of the smoke,” said Villaseñor, at a youth climate panel co-hosted by Earth Day Network and Twitter. “I started to research, and I came across how the climate crisis is linked to California wildfires. I started to see the effects of the climate crisis all around the world.”

That curiosity to make sense of the world drives many climate activists. It’s a self-education that often ends in frightening revelations: The world is changing rapidly, and the youth are sensing that they’re inheriting a much less inhabitable Earth than the older generations have lived in.

“My generation will be impacted the most by the climate crisis, more so than any generation before us,” Villaseñor told me after the panel. “It is important for young people to stand up for our futures and demand action because we are the ones being handed this future.”

The more Villaseñor learned, the more she wanted to help. But she didn’t know how. That’s when she saw Greta Thunberg give an impassioned call to action at COP24. On December 14, 2018, Villaseñor took her up on that call and started striking at the U.N. Headquarters in New York. She’s been there every Friday since.

Villaseñor and Foster crossed paths months later at this year’s March for Science. That’s when Villaseñor encouraged Foster to strike.

“I was too scared [to strike], then I met Alexandria,” said Foster. “She gave me a pep talk and said I should do a climate strike at the White House. The day I came back from March of Science, I striked here. It was an amazing experience.”

It’s the science, stupid

Besides the urgency, the self-education and the sometimes-blunt messaging, a common theme throughout the youth climate movement is a steadfast reliance on science.

When Thunberg testified to U.S. Congress in September, she submitted landmark 2018 research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as her testimony. The special report gives us a dozen years to curb greenhouse gases to avoid 2 degrees of warming and limit the effects of a climate catastrophe.

“I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists,” Thunberg said. “And I want you to unite behind the science. And then I want you to take real action.”

Thunberg was presenting new research, but at the same time, she was backing climate science that has been known for decades.

The IPCC was formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Programme to assess climate change based on the latest science. This corresponded with climate scientist James Hansen’s testimony to U.S. Congress in June 1988. As part of his testimony, Hansen, who was director of the NASA Goddard Institute at the time, said, “The global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.”

A day later, The New York Times ran a headline that read “Global Warming Has Begun.” Bill McKibben’s book “End of Nature,” the first climate change book for a general audience, came out a year later.

Many consider these events in the late ‘80s the line drawn in the sand — the time when the public first learned about the potential impacts of climate change. Since then, however, very little has been done to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Paradoxically, each year since then the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we spew into the atmosphere has increased.

Part of the urgency of the youth climate movement is driven by this blatant disregard of decades-old climate science. Political leaders have known about this since well before many of these activists were born. Rather than ignore these reports, like so many before them, these activists are using them as a sort of fuel.

“We need politicians to have the courage, we need them to have the moral clarity and for them to have the ability to actually say what the facts are,” said Foster. “For them to actually act on them and not make speeches.”

Almost everyone I’ve talked to in the youth climate movement mentioned these IPCC reports in some way, mostly as a call to action that compounds an already urgent tone.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 19-year-old indigenous hip hop artist and climate activist, has been involved in the climate movement since he was six. He said he was tired of politicians dragging their feet and falling short on their promises.

“We have eleven years to radically transform every sector of our economy to guarantee a job to everyone who needs one and get our economy towards a renewable energy to make sure that we have a dignified and livable future,” said Martinez.

“We are demanding that action is implemented immediately to treat this like exactly as it is: a global emergency, a crisis,” he said. “We have so little time.”

Building momentum

Halfway through my conversation with Foster, a passerby interrupted us. She was visiting D.C. from Hawaii and recognized Foster. She briefly said she appreciated what Foster was doing and then was on her way. Foster was all smiles.

“[Striking] seems to have a ripple effect,” Foster told me. “People that walk past may not know anything about climate change… But if they see ‘School Strike for Climate,’ they see how important it is. I’m taking time out of school to come here and strike. That just shows the extent of the climate crisis.”

That climate crisis seems to be getting worse. With each passing day, greenhouse gas emissions left unchecked are causing irreversible damage to our planet. And this isn’t just a problem for future generations (although climate impacts will get more and more devastating in the coming decades); we’re already seeing the damage of climate change in the form of record droughts, hurricanes, floods and wildfires.

People are taking to the streets to force the issue into public view, driving more awareness to climate change than ever before. Organizations like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion are shutting down city streets and legislative offices to draw media attention and turn the heads of policymakers. If not with the carrot, then with the stick.

“One of the best ways for people to support this movement is to go out and do civil disobedience in forms of strikes or other direct actions,” Villaseñor said. “Now is the time for us to take to the streets because that is how we can see the most change.”

The first time I talked to Jerome Foster was before a Fridays for Future White House strike that brought Thunberg to Washington, D.C. The event turned out hundreds of youth activists, press members and interested bystanders.

“I’m not seeing action. There’s no hope without action,” Foster told me before the strike. “We won’t stop striking until we see global action to the levels that meets the global crisis.”

About an hour later, Foster gave an impassioned speech — which he later told me was improvised — that helped kick off the event. The speech hits on several main points of the youth climate movement and is included it in its full length below:

I have been striking at the White House for about 14 weeks now, and today, I want to call to action and say that young people around the world are not striking for pity. They’re not striking for forgiveness. They’re not striking for any other reason. We’re striking to demand action, because we don’t want change, but we need change. We need global change.

Because if you look around the world, we’re seeing natural disasters happening at every corner of the planet, from the Bahamas and the hurricanes there, from Central America to the droughts that are happening there, and also in the Middle East, where droughts are happening. And also around the world, we’re seeing entire communities being decimated by the climate crisis.

We’re all acting as if nothing is happening.

That’s why we strike here today. That’s why we strike here every Friday: to say that world governments must have the moral clarity, they must have the political courage and they must be willing to work internationally to solve this crisis because that’s what this crisis demands.

We stand here today to say yesterday was the best day to take action. Today might be okay, but tomorrow is too late.

And that’s what we’re saying today is that today is the day for action to be taken. Today is the day that youth around the world mobilize to say that enough is enough and that our future will not continue to be burned, that our future will not be continued to be taken away, that our future is a right, that clean air, clean water and a livable future is a right.

And that’s what our government must understand. And that’s what world governments must understand: that the economic systems of today will not work for the climate of tomorrow. And that’s what we’re saying is that we must have a call to action. Our economic system must reflect not growth but equitable development around the world.

We stand with communities around the world, from indigenous people to black and brown people, from men to women, no matter your sexual orientation, your age, your gender, anything that you’re fighting for. We are united in this crisis, because if we’re united in crisis, we must be united in our advocacy, we must be united in our activism, and we must be united in our solutions.

And that’s why we’re here today, to say that today is the last day where politicians will continue to ignore the youth of the world. Because the youth are standing up.

Welcome to Fridays for Future movement, and this is the White House climate strike. Thank you.

A week later, on September 20, 4 million people turned out for the first of two global climate strikes, the largest-ever day of climate action. The next day saw 3.6 million people take to the streets. At the main U.S. rally in New York City on September 20, Thunberg spoke to a crowd of 250,000 people.

“We are united behind the science, and we will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse, even if that means skipping school or work, because this is more important,” said Thunberg at the rally.

The New York strikes led right into the U.N. Climate Action Summit, convened by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss national contributions to the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement, the international agreement that aims to limit global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” this century.

Juxtaposed against the urgency of the climate strikes, the summit fell noticeably flat. Much was said but little was done in terms of concrete action, particularly from the world’s largest emitters. U.S. President Donald Trump stopped by for about 15 minutes. He was refused a platform to talk, given his stance on climate action: The U.S. — the world’s second-largest emitter and largest emitter per capita — is the only United Nations member state to announce a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

There was, however, a silver lining. Thunberg was given another opportunity to fuel the climate movement. And she did so by eviscerating heads of state as the world watched.

“People are suffering, people are dying. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairytales of eternal economic growth,” she said, voice shaking and on the verge of tears. “For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away.”

Thunberg called out politicians for their blatant disregard of scientific reports that spell out the threat of our climate crisis. As she continued, the room fell silent.

“You are failing us,” she said. “But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now, is where we draw the line.”

This message, coupled with the fact that world leaders committed little concrete action at the summit, will inevitably create even more urgency among youth climate activists.  People talked. The media covered. Thunberg, if you were living under a rock, was now impossible to avoid. So was the youth climate movement.

From climate strikes to Earth Day

Did it happen all at once? Or are we just now paying attention?

The convergence of environmental degradation, climate activism and public attention has created an inflection point in our fight against climate change. The IPCC special report on 1.5 degrees gave us a timeline in this fight. Legislative proposals like the Green New Deal provide us frameworks for action. Meanwhile, protesters continue to take to the streets, demanding a new way forward.

Back in front of the White House a few weeks later, Foster talked about the reaction to Thunberg’s speech in New York.

“She was a celebrity,” said Foster. “It was so cool to see that she is speaking truth to power, unapologetically having this anger because that’s how we feel.”

A general sense of restlessness and intolerance for inaction is seeping into public consciousness, reminiscent of an environmental call to action 50 years earlier. The youth of today — their anger, their sense of urgency, their demands — reflect the youth movements of years passed, including those who mobilized for the first Earth Day in 1970.

“Pressure has been building and mounting for so many years,” said Jamie Margolin, the climate activist who started Zero Hour. “We need to just finally push over the edge and get this mass momentum, like what happened with the first Earth Day, when there were all these bills passed and sweeping legislation and sweeping mobilizations.”

In 1970, a 25-year-old graduate student named Denis Hayes coordinated the first Earth Day, which helped launch the modern-day environmental movement. Much like climate strikers today, Hayes wasn’t just representing the conservation community; he was representing the millions of young people who would no longer tolerate the ignorance wreaking havoc on our environment.

“We find ourselves in the prologue to unanticipated disaster,” Hayes wrote in 1970. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation, widespread internal diseases, exhaustion of valuable resources, and the senseless death of trees and lakes and people.”

Sound familiar?

“All that we can now avoid,” he continued, “is the ultimate compounding of our mistakes — the death of our planet — and time is running out.”

At a panel in September, Foster spoke about maintaining the momentum of the youth climate movement, echoing the messages of Hayes 50 years earlier.

“We are resorting to going to the streets and yelling and trying to get [leaders] to understand we aren’t just fighting for a river, we aren’t just fighting for a mountain, we aren’t just fighting for a singular home,” said Foster. “We are fighting for your brother, your sister, your mother, your child and your father. We are fighting for everyone that you know.”

The first Earth Day brought together 20 million people – 10% of the U.S. population at the time – as they took to college campuses, auditoriums and streets to demand change. That Earth Day spread across America to shake citizens out of complacency and unite millions in a shared call for action.

The legislation that followed — the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency — was a testament to the power of a nationwide movement organized by a 20-something grad student from Wisconsin.

Today, young people around the world are looking for similar transformative legislation. They’re looking for real commitments, not broken promises. And they’re hoping this movement can capture that.

To help drive change, Foster started his own international youth advocacy and voting organization called OneMillionOfUs, which works to unite five major youth social movements: climate change, gun violence, immigration reform, gender equality and racial equality.

According to its mission statement, OneMillionOfUs is a “diverse movement of young people with one common agenda, which is to have one common objective based on our belief that today we strike and tomorrow we vote.”

“We have to call everyone from Congress and say that it’s unacceptable that we are ignoring this issue,” said Foster. “We’re in a crisis and we have to act on it. We can’t be focused on what’s politically or economically possible but on what is necessary to take action.”

EARTHRISE: The next global mobilization

So now, up against not just regional or national problems but an enormous global crisis, the planet needs another collective movement. That catalyst of change starts with young people, just as it did 50 years ago. Climate strikes, led by activists from youth movements like Fridays for Future, Zero Hour and Sunrise Movement, is the start of this change.

April 22, 2020, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. To meet this moment, Earth Day Network is launching EARTHRISE, a movement that will continue to build the momentum started half a century ago, revitalized by today’s youth climate strikes.

The stated goal of EARTHRISE is “to mobilize thousands of organizations, communities and schools and millions of individuals worldwide in a united demand for greater protections of our planet.”

“We need to channel the energy, urgency and indignation of the global youth strike movement to rally around a central message — that we cannot afford to wait any longer as climate change permanently alters our planet — as we push our leaders into action,” said Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.

The similarities between the environmental protests that culminated with the first Earth Day and the youth climate strikes of today are noteworthy, as the success of the first Earth Day provides a call-to-action framework in our fight forward, while the rallying cry of youth activists provides the endurance and energy needed to demand change.

“The tasks ahead are enormous; our accomplishments to date have been trifling,” wrote Hayes in 1970. “But there’s little survival value in pessimism — and we are beginning to dare to hope.”

After we finished talking, Foster’s mother comes up to us and we exchange small talk.

When I look back, Foster is already preoccupied with another group of people — they’re students from a local university, seeking his endorsement for one of their environmental organizations. Seeing Foster standing there with his sign, coughing and sweating through his sweatshirt and talking to students only several years older than him, I’m reminded that Foster is only a kid. He has classes, homework, a couple hobbies, I’m not even sure he can drive yet.

Despite the rockstar status given to these strikers — their popularity granting them first-name familiarity (Greta, Alexandria, Jamie) in climate circles — these kids aren’t superheroes. They’re kids with hormones, social lives and looming deadlines for college applications.

When you talk to these youth climate strikers, though, their passion and eloquence overshadows their age. It’s easy to forget these activists are also just teenagers. When I was 17, the most memorable thing I did was learn to (poorly) play guitar and form a (terrible) pop-punk band. Foster and others — Thunberg, Villaseñor, Margolin — have given up all the things that shape a typical high school experience so that they can strike for the planet. So they can force world leaders to get their acts together.

Previous and current generations let fossil fuels burn despite knowing the devastating consequences. These people have left today’s youth with a responsibility they don’t deserve to inherit — namely, getting us out of this mess — and we must acknowledge the burden placed on them.

“We earned the title young adults because we are acting as adults,” Foster said, weeks earlier at a panel. “We are trying to mobilize like adults when adults are acting like children.”

Or, like Thunberg said at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.”

Yet they’re here, striking for our future.

The post Planning protests, not prom: Inside today’s youth climate strike movement appeared first on Earth Day.