WMC FBomb

An Interview with Teen Climate Change Activist Alexandria Villaseñor

WMC F Bomb Alexandria Villaseñor Earth Focus KCET 9820

The latest episode of Earth Focus, a Link TV environmental docuseries, follows four kids taking an unprecedented stand against world leaders on climate change. One of them is Alexandria Villaseñor, who last year, along with 14 other kids, filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. They argued that Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey are threatening young peoples’ futures by not acting on climate change.

Over the past two years, Villaseñor has become a leader in the youth climate movement, joining Greta Thunberg’s school strike and founding Earth Uprising. She sat down with the FBomb to discuss activism in quarantine, the costs of climate change, and why you don’t have to wait until you’re 18 to get involved in politics.

What inspired you to start Earth Uprising?

I saw how a lot of young people weren’t educated about climate change. After organizing all of these global climate strikes in 2019, I noticed that a lot of young people weren’t coming and taking action because they didn’t understand why it was important or why they should go. I realized just how important climate education was and [that we need to] get it into schools. We don’t have time to wait for schools to integrate it into their curriculum.

I realized youth will have to teach each other about the science and social aspects of climate change. We’re also designing our own curriculum and building school groups so that young people can use this curriculum, and that’s how they teach each other. We’re actually getting to work more and more inside the public education system because climate change isn’t taught in schools enough. All you really learn is to reduce, reuse, recycle.

As time goes on, we’re going to focus on adaptation because the climate crisis is here, and there’s so much change that is already irreversible. And we as young people need to learn how to live on the new planet safely and have fulfilling lives.

How did you cultivate your organizing and activist skills? Were there any resources or mentors you relied on?

There is no exact way for you to organize or be an activist. I think that it’s very open for different areas and different techniques. And for me personally, I learned as I went along. I had to learn a lot as I organized. Of course, I made mistakes or [did] things that I would do differently now when it came to organizing, but I’m glad that I learned that way, and I had that experience so I could grow from it. What really shaped my activism was learning about different cultures and how climate change affects everyone so differently. I believe that this understanding makes our activism grow and become more inclusive.

How have you continued your climate activism in quarantine?

I wasn’t really prepared to have to find new ways of organizing. And so in March, when quarantine first started, the youth movement as a whole started focusing on reflection and had a bunch of conversations about our movement and what really brought change. Reflection is needed after doing everything that we ended up doing. Then we started talking about new ways to take action.

I think that we’re going to come out of this pandemic even stronger because of the conversations that we’ve had, for example, around Black Lives Matter, especially to have people of color and those impacted the most at the front lines is so important.

Historically, kids have often not had a voice in politics, globally and locally. What avenues should there be for kids to have a larger voice in important issues?

I’m only 15, and I still can’t vote, but I can go outside and protest. I can write and call my leaders. I can bring awareness to the issues that are affecting my generation right now. Young people are more vocal and visible than we have been in the past years, and that’s only going to grow regardless of whether or not we can vote. Adults in power are hearing us, and they’re responding.

We have made ourselves a spot at the table. Of course, we have had a lot of politicians and people in power come out and invite us. But young people are the ones actually putting themselves there. We are demanding a spot. We need to normalize young people at the table. I think that having us there really helps when it comes to intergenerational dialogue.

And so I definitely think that there should be an easier way for young people to get involved, but I think that we are actually making that system right now. And we’re starting to teach each other exactly how to make your voice heard in those rooms of power.

The episode emphasized how climate change harms the wildlife around us and our relationships with our communities, friends, and family. Why do you think so many people don’t understand these deeper costs of climate change?

For a long time, a lot of climate change communications centered only on the science of how our planet was warming up. Because of this, the media ... didn’t really go deeper into the social and political issues that climate change is causing. So the media drives a lot of the public conversation about climate change. And so there’s so much work to do in communicating about climate, so people get a broader perspective and deeper understanding of the issue. That’s what I love about the episode, is that it makes it a more personal issue, and it actually does bring those community relationships and people up so you can get more of a personal climate story from them. That’s what people relate to, is hearing other people’s stories. We need to know the science, but when it comes to communicating and reaching people, we need those stories.

What would you say is the biggest lesson you learned about activism over these past two years?

I think that everyone is needed and everyone is welcome. In organizing ... you do need so many diverse and different stories. You need people from different backgrounds because that way, your organizing can be truly intersectional. And I think that that’s why this movement cannot gatekeep because we need so many people in it so we can actually make our actions most effective. That’s how we grow our movement.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get involved but doesn’t know where to start?

The first couple of steps that I recommend are to find out how climate change is impacting you and your community. Find out what’s happening, talk to others in the community, and really get that passion behind what you’re doing. I continue activism because I see how climate change is affecting California, especially with the wildfires. And so find your climate story and then after that, find out what you want to do about it because what you want to do about it can really lead into where you go next; if you want to work on policy and stop what’s happening; if you want to work on solutions then find an organization that focuses on the solutions of the climate crisis; if you’re angry and you just want to do something, focus on direct action and find an organization that does just that; or if you want to educate others you can join an organization or a group that you resonate with and that your message can be most powerful at. You can find so many different ways to take action.

The new season of EARTH FOCUS premieres on Tues., Sept. 8 at 8 p.m. PT on KCET in Southern California, on Wed., Sept. 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Link TV nationwide (DirecTV 375 and DISH Network 9410), and on Sun., Sept. 13 at 3:30 p.m. ET/PT on WORLD Channel, with streaming on kcet.org/earthfocus and linktv.org/earthfocus.



More articles by Category: Environment
More articles by Tag: Activism and advocacy, High school, Climate change
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