How Young Climate Activists Are Confronting Power

Oct 5, 2023

With that Earth is experiencing dangerous climate chaos, the business-as-usual ethos of elected officials and corporate executives is hard to fathom鈥攅specially for young people whose future is in jeopardy. Now, a youth-led group called has vowed to forcefully confront those responsible, saying, 鈥淚f people in power will not save us, we will save ourselves.鈥�

Organizers with Climate Defiance have publicly confronted officials such as , a top aide to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm; , deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior; and White House Climate Advisor . One of Climate Defiance鈥檚 organizers, who goes by the name 鈥淵ew,鈥� spoke with 大象传媒 Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about how her organization approaches activism and what moves her to participate.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.