Image - Youth Action on Climate
Past Event

If You Won’t, We Will: Youth Action on Climate

Four years ago, 21 plaintiffs served the U.S. government with a lawsuit. The government, they asserted, had violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property by failing to act on climate change. All plaintiffs were students under the age of 23.

On the other side of the world, 15-year-old Greta Thunberg initiated a global youth strike for climate, prompting 1.6 million students in over 120 countries to leave school in protest of adult inaction.

A global surge in youth climate action is reverberating from the streets through the highest levels of government, but is it enough to influence the decisions of industry and fossil fuel interests? Will this new generation of activists be able to resonate with a presidential administration that barely acknowledges climate change?

Join us with student activists Isha Clarke and Sarah Goody; Julia Olson, executive director at Our Children's Trust and chief legal counsel for plaintiffs in Juliana v. U.S.; Ben Wessel, youth vote director at NextGen America; and Morissa Zuckerman, Sunrise Movement coordinator (Bay Area chapter), for a conversation on the future of climate activism.

May 21, 2019

The Commonwealth Club
110 The Embarcadero
Taube Family Auditorium
San Francisco, 94105
United States

Speakers
Image - Clarke

Isha Clarke

Student Activist

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Sarah Goody

Student Activist

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Julia Olson

Executive Director, Our Children's Trust; Chief Legal Counsel for Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States

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Ben Wessel

Youth Vote Director, NextGen America

Image - Zuckerman

Morissa Zuckerman

Coordinator, Sunrise Movement (Bay Area Chapter)

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Greg Dalton

Founder and Host, Climate One