Follow Young People’s Leadership
Jenny Sazama, International Liberation Reference
Person for Allies to Young People
We are living in incredibly exciting and interesting times. Not long ago, the United Nations came out with a report that said we have twelve years to turn the climate situation around or we’re looking at the possible extinction of the human race.
Young people are frontline people in relation to climate change. They need to know the truth from us. They need to know the facts about climate change. And they need to know them in a way that they can hear them.
They need to know that we can win. And we need to know that we can win—so we need to do the work that’s necessary to know that. They need to know that every effort they make matters, and that we are also going to lose a lot. They need to know that the human race is worth fighting for.
I asked my son this morning, as I often do, what I should say to you all. He said to ask you what it would take [require] to genuinely follow young people’s leadership.
Young people know and have what’s needed to fix all this. They know how to fight for connection. They know how to laugh really hard. (We’re going to have a lot of fun doing this.) They know how to quickly turn racist situations around—we’ve seen that again and again. And they know how to hit the streets [demonstrate publicly].
When I take young people to political officials’ offices, the officials can’t resist telling them that they “don’t understand,” “that’s not how things are done.” Then I remind them of Greta Thunberg’s words: “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to be changed.” [Greta Thunburg is a fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist.]
What is it going to take for us to throw our lives up in the air and belovedly and delightedly follow young people’s leadership?
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, USA