HalfPoint/Bigstock.com
A Child Shall Lead Them
Connecticut Youth Lead the Climate Charge by Melinda Tuhus
T
he world has the teenage climate warrior Greta Thunberg, but Connecticut is home to several young warriors of its own: High schoolers in the New Haven Climate Movement convinced the city to declare a climate emergency, while Yale’s Endowment Justice Coalition actively seeks the university’s divestment from fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt. Green Eco Warriors is a youth climate program founded by Leticia Colón de Mejias, who is one of Connecticut’s foremost mentors to youth regarding the climate crisis. The mostly 20-something group from New Haven’s Sunrise Movement hub promotes the Green New Deal. According to Adrien Huq, a 16-year-old senior at New Haven’s Metropolitan Business Academy and one of the organizers with the New Haven Climate Movement, 24
New Haven/Middlesex
“There’s new excitement and urgency around the climate emergency. It’s a new decade and we need to see strong action because not a lot happened in the last decade. Earth Day is about taking solid action this time, not just a one-day thing or just planting a tree. Being an environmentalist is great, but we also need people pushing for strong action at the governmental level, especially the state level.” Another group, the Sunrise Movement hub, burst upon the scene shortly after the 2018 mid-term elections when a large group of young people occupied the Congressional office of incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, demanding the government pass legislation for a Green New Deal to “stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process,” says Tyler Wakefield, a leader with the group. “It’s an attempt to center justice
NaturalNewHaven.com
in our approach to stopping this crisis. It recognizes our country’s and cities’ long history of racist and classist energy, housing, health care, transportation and food policy that has left communities of color and low-wealth communities far more vulnerable to climate change.” Another area of focus for many of these young climate warriors is the “Stop the Money Pipeline” campaign, based on the idea that if banks and other financial institutions stop extending loans and providing insurance coverage for fracked gas and highly polluting tar sands and other kinds of oil pipelines, then that greenhouse gas-emitting infrastructure can’t be built. Hartford has long been considered “the insurance capital of the world,” and activists recently began planning an “accountability walking tour” to visit a number of insurance companies headquartered in the
