If we continue at our current rate of warming, scientists predict that by 2100, sea levels will rise by more than three feet, up to a fifth of everything living in the world’s oceans will die, and more than 200 million people will be displaced. On September 25, VICE Media Group is joining Fridays for Future’s Global Climate Day of Action by going on digital strike: For 24 hours, we’re solely telling stories about the devastating effects of climate change throughout the world and highlighting the people who are doing something about it. Read our coverage of the crisis on
VICE, Refinery 29, i-D, and Garage.
Activists and scientists agree: Individual acts can no longer save us. We need mass movements that can pressure our governments and corporations into changing course. All over the world, a growing number of young people are taking matters into their own hands, starting campaigns to wake up their peers and the powers that be. We asked seven of those climate leaders to tell us how climate change critically threatens their region and way of life, and what others can do to help.
Vic Barrett, 21, is a first-generation Garifuna American from Whiteplains, New York. In 2015, he joined 20 other youth climate activists in suing the executive branch of the U.S. government for perpetuating the climate crisis and thus denying young Americans their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. The lawsuit is ongoing.
The U.S. ranks second for most CO2 emissions among countries globally, according to the International Energy Agency. Climate scientists say that structural changes at the governmental level, such as those outlined by Green New Deal proposals and required by the Paris Agreement, are our best bet for averting catastrophe. So, the future of the planet is directly linked to who we vote into office, especially in countries like the U.S.
Vic is asking all eligible Americans to register to vote and mobilize their family and friends to vote for climate justice this November.
Ridhima Pandey, 12, is a youth climate activist from Haridwar in Northern India. At age nine, Pandey filed a suit against the Indian government for not sufficiently complying with the Paris Agreement. In 2019, she also joined Greta Thunberg and 14 other youth activists in filing a complaint to the U.N. accusing several countries of violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child by perpetuating the climate crisis.
Due to a combination of fuel burning, traffic congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions, low air quality is a severe and ongoing problem in India. According to the State of India’s 2019 Environmental Report, air pollution in India kills approximately 100,000 children under the age of five every year.
Ridhima has written a letter to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pleading for action to improve India’s air quality. She is asking for allies to support her letter by retweeting her post, then writing a letter or post of their own, tagging Modi on social media, or sending it to his office.
Kyaw Ye Htet, 23, is the founder of Climate Strike Myanmar and lives in Yangon.
Due to its geographic location, Myanmar is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world. In recent years, extreme drought caused by global heating has diminished water resources across the country, in turn severely damaging the agriculture industry, on which a large subsection of the population relies. Meanwhile, monsoon seasons have gradually become increasingly deadly, with 120,000 people displaced in July of 2018 due to heavy rains.
With so many Burmese focused on basic survival, Kyaw Ye Htet’s efforts are aimed at education, awareness, and support for grassroots climate activism. He is asking for allies to help raise awareness by following Climate Strike Myanmar online and sharing its posts about the effects of climate change in Myanmar.
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Quannah Chasinghorse, 18, is a tribal member of the Han Gwich’in Nation, native to the arctic regions of Alaska and Canada. She works to raise awareness about the detrimental effects of climate change and oil extraction on Indigenous communities and land in Alaska.
Quannah is on the youth council of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, which has been fighting since 1988 to stop attempts at oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, an area that is sacred to Gwich’in people and is also the largest remaining expanse of pristine wilderness in the U.S. In August, the Trump administration announced that it will officially open up the refuge to oil extraction by auctioning off a lease to the highest bidder.
Qhannah is asking for support of the Defend the Sacred Alaska campaign through social media, pledges, and donations.
Defend the Arctic
Leah Namugerwa, 16, is from Kampala, Uganda, and co-runs Fridays for Future Uganda, the most prominent chapter of the youth movement in Africa. She was inspired to take action at 13, after watching news reports of deadly mudslides and flooding in rural parts of Uganda. Since, along with striking from school every week with Fridays for Future, she has spearheaded a tree planting campaign and a petition for Kampala to ban plastic bags.
Uganda has lost 63 percent of its forest cover since 1990 due to deforestation, according to the State of Uganda’s Forestry Report, and has increasingly been experiencing prolonged droughts. Without trees and other vegetation serving as a barrier, the risk for deadly landslides and floods is high. Deforestation also threatens Uganda’s biodiversity: Earlier this year, a court ruled that a portion of Bugoma Forest Reserve in Western Uganda could be cleared for a sugarcane plantation.
Leah is spreading awareness with the hope of protecting Bugoma Forest. She is asking for allies to support the campaign via the #SaveBugomaForest hashtag.
#SaveBugomaForest
Carlon Zackhras, 20, is a youth climate activist from the Marshall Islands. In 2019, he represented his home country at COP25, a convening of international leaders on how to mitigate climate change, issuing a plea to save his home from sinking below sea level.
The Marshall Islands, located in the central Pacific, make up one of only four low-lying coral atoll nations in the world, making it one of the globe’s most vulnerable countries to climate change and the resulting sea-level rise. According to an International Panel on Climate Change report, rising sea levels could make countries like the Marshall Islands uninhabitable as early as 2050.
One of the Marshall Islands’ primary defenses is its youth activists, who can help raise awareness for the plight of the country, which itself contributes only 0.00001 percent of the world's emissions. Carlon is asking for support of and donations to Jo-Jikum, a non-profit that nurtures and trains youth climate activists in the Marshall Islands.
Support Jo-Jikum
Helena Gualinga, 18, is part of the Indigenous Kichwa Sarayaku community of Pastaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Born into a family of activists, she works to spread awareness about climate change’s effects on the Amazon’s Indigenous communities. She is also among the founders of Polluters Out, a global movement to fight the lobbying power of the oil industry.
The Sarayaku, along with other peoples Indigenous to Ecuador, have for decades fought to protect their homelands from being auctioned off for oil extraction by the Ecuadorian government. In recent years, several oil companies have proposed aggressive plans for oil drilling in the Western Amazon, which not only threatens fragile ecosystems, but also emits copious amounts of greenhouse gases.
Helena is asking for allies to divest from banks that invest in oil extraction in the Amazon.
DIVEST
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