“That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me
To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
And if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the gale
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hands of the young who dare to run against the storm
Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives.”

From “Ella’s Song,” by Bernice Reagan Johnson (a tribute to Ella Baker)

Over seven years ago I decided that I needed to change my life and focus much more of my time and energies on the mega-issue of the climate crisis. At the time, there wasn’t much of a youth climate movement. My decision to change my life had nothing to do with a response to such a thing, because it didn’t yet exist.

 

But it turns out that growing numbers of young people were making the same decision I was around the same time. The Energy Action Coalition, which has organized three national “Power Shift” conferences since 2007 bringing together 6,000, 12,000 and 10,000 participants, formed in 2004, and the youth (and Bill McKibben)-led Step It Up/350.org network began to come together in 2006.

I can think of only one other current social movement in the USA that has had a significant youth involvement, the immigrant rights movement. I am not informed enough about it, however, to be able to say if young people are playing a significant leadership role.

Within the climate movement they are.

That was Ted Glick in Grist. Read the rest of his column HERE. 

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