Adolescence is rarely an easy deal. Now try including an impending climate crisis in the mix, something today’s teenagers can add to the usual cocktail of hormones, schoolwork and general teenage angst. Faced with an uncertain future, Gen Z are mobilising the tools of both online and offline activism, grappling with the mistakes of former generations in the race against Mother Nature’s clock. To get a clearer picture of life on the frontline of the environmental movement, I spoke to five of the UK’s most insightful young changemakers. Here they discuss their hopes, fears and frustrations.
First on the list is Finlay Pringle, a shark enthusiast and climate activist from Ullapool. At just 13 years old, Finlay is already well established on the activist scene. (Aged 11, he hit headlines for telling Bear Grylls “you suck” on social media, in response to Grylls’s shark-diving experience at his Birmingham Adventure site.) Alongside his sister Ella, Finlay was the first British youngster to follow Greta Thunberg’s lead in the Fridays for Future school climate strikes. To this day, Finlay still conducts a strike every Friday, a response to the government’s empty lip service on environmental concerns.
“In the UK we have a massive track record of going in the wrong direction,” Finlay tells me over the phone from Scotland. Of his recent invitation to the European Parliament, he says: “They invited Fridays for Future, but they didn’t bother inviting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – you know, the people with all the solutions…”
His feelings reflect a common theme amongst his activist peers, which is a frustration at the “Isn’t it sweet, isn’t it inspiring” narrative bestowed on them by their elders, a panacea for any sense of accountability or action. “At the end of the day, what we’re doing, we’re not gonna solve the problems. We’re here to raise awareness so they can actually act.”
“It’s very easy to get caught up in this narrative of being like: ‘Wow, look at all these young people go, that’s amazing, that’s so inspirational,’” agrees Mya-Rose Craig, aka Birdgirl, who founded her organisation Black2Nature when she was just 13. For her forthcoming book, We Have a Dream, 19-year-old Mya-Rose interviewed dozens of activists from around the world, many of whom began their work as young as seven or eight. “It’s not because they wanted to, particularly, it’s because they felt like they didn’t have any choice,” she explains. “Much of my teenage years I’ve spent writing and campaigning and talking and stuff, when otherwise I would have just been hanging out with my friends.”
Another teenager familiar with this juggling act(ivism) is 19-year-old Noga Levy-Rapoport, the production muscle behind 2019’s record-breaking climate strike. At school, Noga’s days were bookended by early-morning and late-night Zoom calls, and often interrupted by interviews and speaking engagements. (It’s perhaps symbolic that the climate strikers were using Zoom and wearing face masks long before the coronavirus pandemic hit.)
Now a history student at Warwick University, Noga paused their passion for theatre in order to pursue a course which would better accommodate their activism. “I already have a full time job! I have to stay in a form of education where there are less contact hours… and make sure I’m available at two in the morning for a Zoom if needed.”
While we shouldn’t be relying so heavily on Gen Z to solve our climate emergency, an advantage of their influence is that the climate conversation is finally starting to address wider systemic issues.
Returning to Mya-Rose’s story, at the age of 13 she decided to organise a camp to meet peers who shared her love for nature. As sign-ups began rolling in, she noticed something was off. “No one signed up except for like, white, teenage boys; all very middle class. I’d been aware that there was a race issue for a long time, but I think that because it was something that I was organising, it was much more personal.”
This prompted her to set up Black2Nature, whose camps and workshops help inner-city children to connect with nature, and address the sector’s lack of diversity. “At the time there were a lot of people out there saying that there are just certain groups of people who can’t engage with nature, who can’t engage with environmental issues, who have no desire to do so, and so this was directly disproving that.”
A common theme amongst these activists is a frustration at the -Isn’t it sweet, isn’t it inspiring- narrative bestowed on them by their elders
As a self-described “queer Jewish feminist”, Noga’s activism is firmly rooted in both politics and intersectionality. “Often people will ask: ‘Ooh, what area of environmental activism are you interested in?’ And I can’t answer that question because it is so absolutely universal,” Noga explains. “Everything is intertwined with climate. All the issues that we face, or any issues of inequality or injustice that we are seeking to resolve, come from the same extractivist and exploitative roots that have been so embedded in our power structures and our economic structures over so many centuries. It’s those that are the root of our climate crisis. It’s those that are the root of our labour crises and our gender crises, and the catastrophic proportions of the inequalities we’re facing today.”
It’s true that industrialisation often favours greed over green, but there are voices within the climate movement refuting the idea that the urban and the natural can’t coexist. Enter Kabir Kaul, better known by his moniker Kaul of the Wild. Born and raised in the capital, Kabir has found his niche in celebrating the biodiversity of his own natural habitat: the city of London.
His interest stemmed from watching a David Attenborough documentary as a child, which led
him on a journey to discover the local flora and fauna around his home. Since then, he’s created an interactive map of all the city’s green spaces, called The Wild Side of London. “A lot of people think that they have to go to a place where there is little human habitation, usually the countryside, to see nature,” he explains. “They don’t realise that it’s right there on their doorstep.”
For 18-year-old Yetunde Kehinde, the journey into activism was similarly happenstance, prompted by a school trip to litter-pick on the banks of the Thames. “I was never really that interested, but in Year 9, my geography teacher was like: ‘Hey guys, I’ve been speaking to Thames 21 and they offered a really cool opportunity to go litter pick. We were like: ‘Litter pick? Why do you think that’s a cool opportunity?’” She laughs. Despite this scepticism, she describes how: “I had an epiphany… to see so much plastic going in was really worrying to me… It made me question the state of our environment, and from there my interest sort of blossomed.”
Today she studies geography at Oxford University, alongside being an ambassador for Action for Conservation and sitting on the youth advisory panel for the Natural History Museum’s urban nature project. This means working on initiatives promoting diversity and access to nature within London, alongside encouraging greener policy.
She cites the latter as the primary route to change, asking voters to consider the environmental agenda (or lack thereof) of their chosen candidates. “I feel like the government are the changemakers and it’s them who should be targeted. Because they have the power, the influence, the funding.” As our conversation draws to a close, I ask Yetunde for one final word of advice. “I’d say that I think we should stop seeing natural environmental issues as not related to humans; as not human issues,” she responds. “Environmental issues are social issues.”
As this new generation of activists continue to push forward for a better future, it’s clear that the mission needs to be a collaborative one. Turning back the tide on climate change is an intersectional, intergenerational project – an ecosystem in which each of us plays a pivotal role.
“Nature is for everyone. It doesn’t belong to any one individual,” says Kabir. “But in order for people to respect that and to have that mindset, I think people of all ages must be educated about the importance and the value of nature.”
It is perhaps symbolic that the climate strikers were using Zoom and wearing face masks long before the coronavirus pandemic hit
