Youth to Power

FOREWORD

THIS BOOK IS YOUR TOOLBOX

BY GRETA THUNBERG

The first time I heard of Jamie Margolin was in May 2018. We were a group of young people who were trying to organize a Zero Hour march in Sweden for the international day of action on July 21. It was just a few weeks before I started school striking outside the Swedish parliament.

Before that I basically hadn’t met any young person who seemed to care about the climate, the environment, or our future survival on this planet. My idea of the youth today was that we were lazy, self-centered, and didn’t spare the climate and ecological crisis even a second of our thoughts. I remember feeling so alone, it seemed as if no one my age saw what was going on around us or even wanted to make a difference—apart from people like Jamie Margolin.

Since then, I have been proven wrong over and over again. It turned out that countless young people felt just like I did. That our generation wanted to not only change the world but also save it. We just didn’t know how. We didn’t know how to turn our frustration and despair into something that could help push us in the right direction. And that, I think, is what’s holding us back from taking action and stepping out of our comfort zones.

The more people I meet, the more I travel and get to experience, the more convinced I am that the solution to the climate and ecological crisis—as well as to many other crises—is simple: it is the people.

Above all, the young people. The power we hold within us is invincible. It is we who together are going to solve this. What we need to do now is to figure out a way to channel that power and that strength into action.

I think that tipping point we are all waiting for will happen when we the youth truly realize what we together can accomplish. I know we will pass that point sooner or later, and deep down you probably know it too. The question is just when that tipping point will come and whether it will come in time.

Since Zero Hour started, things have begun to move. But not nearly enough. And somehow it seems like we still are stuck. So right now we are in desperate need of guidance and something that tells us what the next—or sometimes even the first—steps are and how to take them. That is why we need books like this one.

We need to be given the tools with which we can change the world. And in this book, you can find them.

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003. In August 2018 she started a school strike that became a movement called Fridays for Future, which has inspired school strikes for climate action in more than 150 countries, involving millions of students. Thunberg has spoken at climate rallies across Europe and at the United Nations COP24 in Poland and the World Economic Forum in Davos. In September 2019 she spoke in New York City at the UN Climate Action Summit. She has won the prestigious Prix Liberté and been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

INTRODUCTION

THE WORLD NEEDS TO HEAR YOUR VOICE

In times of darkness, what has saved people, countries, and movements has been ordinary folks having the courage to speak truth to power.

But our world doesn’t exactly encourage dissent.

From the minute we are tossed into preschool we are told, Be quiet, raise your hand if you want to speak, listen to authority always, put your head down and do your work, and never question anything you are told. Memorize information and regurgitate it back onto a piece of paper. We are told, If you follow the rules, there is a safe and clear path ahead of you: get good grades and you’ll be successful. Study hard for a bright future.

But what happens when there is no future to study for? What happens when, for example, your generation is being left with a planet that is soon going to be unable to sustain human civilization because of climate change?

Then the cookie-cutter rules we are supposed to follow no longer apply. That safe and clear path of following the steps of the school system into a bright and successful future no longer works in a climate-change-warped world where we are guaranteed no tomorrow.

And unfortunately, all that memorizing, studying, and rule following we got so good at won’t help us save ourselves. The longer you live in a world that sees you as just another cog in the machine, the more your eyes glaze over the injustices in front of you—and the less you question.

Many adults in today’s society (not all of them though, and shout-out to the indigenous elders who have been fighting the good fight long before I was born) have pretty much lost their will to question and rebel, or their energy is drained from doing so their entire life. Don’t get me wrong, our elders have lots of wisdom and experience to share with us, and to make changes in the world, our movements must be intergenerational. We cannot pit generations against each other or forget the decades of hard changemaking work that came before us. Erasing the work of our ancestors is extremely disrespectful and harmful to our own work because we are shutting ourselves off from knowledge of the past. We the youth are standing on the shoulders of the changemakers before us, and we must always acknowledge and respect that. Still, a lot of the action adults in power are currently taking to combat the biggest issues our generation is facing, like climate change, operates according to the same oppressive logic and methods that created the issues in the first place.

But young people? We are yet to be broken and burned out. We are still closer than adults to that part of ourselves that is full of questions, challenges, and a refusal to accept the state of the world around us. We have fresh energy, insight, and a unique power to create change in our world. What we get in trouble most for at school is usually questioning the rules. But questioning the rules may actually be where our greatest power lies.

People often joke that young people are always on the right side of history, but I believe it is a full truth, not just a witty joke. History has proved that we are always on the right side of history over and over again.

Who helped Martin Luther King Jr. win crucial civil rights battles while he was in jail and beginning to lose hope? Youth. The Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s changed the game in the civil rights movement and led to the end of segregation.

Who started the revolutionary #NODAPL movement to try to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline? Youth. The indigenous youth of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation went against the orders of their elders and started a movement that forever changed how we fight the fossil fuel industry and united Native communities like never before.

The voices of young people are so powerful because we have the moral high ground on pretty much every issue you can name.

We didn’t create any of the systems of oppression that hold us and our world down; they were thrust upon us at birth whether we liked it or not. We have no hidden agenda.

Youth have nothing selfish to gain from our activism. There is hardly ever any monetary reward for being an activist, and any fame that comes along with it is rare and usually meager and fleeting.

Youth don’t speak out of a corrupt motive. We speak truth to power because we genuinely want change and to create a better world. And this is why the voices of youth are so pure and powerful, why they always have been, and why they always will be.

Young people, despite our society conditioning us to follow the rules blindly, still have that knack for seeing right through the BS we are fed. The youth right now are the truth right now—and it’s always been that way. Whether the adults who run our society admit to it or not.

My name is Jamie, as of this writing I’m in high school, and there is absolutely nothing special about me. I wasn’t born into a political family, an activist family, or a rich family. No one held my hand and walked me through the changemaking process. I was (and still am) just a girl trying to survive high school without losing my mind, who also happens to be fed up with the corruption and irresponsibility of leaders and the crumbling unlivable world my generation is being left with.

This is the book I desperately wished I had when I was fourteen and just starting my activism journey, with no clue of what I was getting into. Every word within these pages is the true, unfiltered advice and experiences of a young activist who wants to make sure other youth activists have a guide to doing this work from someone in the same situation who actually knows what it’s like.

Within these pages you’ll find my inside scoop on movement building, community organizing, nonprofits, and making change. This is a guide to being a young changemaker. The world of changemaking can be thrilling and empowering, and it can give you a sense of hope and relief in the face of the challenges you’re up against.

I have spoken to many amazing young people with so much to say and so much to offer the world who were convinced that they were not good enough. These incredible activists (whose conversations made me change the way I worked and functioned for the better) were still convinced they weren’t smart enough, brave enough, or whatever enough to be changemakers.

Whoever told you that you don’t belong in the political world or that you do not have what it takes to fight for a cause is full of it. You (Yes, YOU!) belong with us, the young people changing the world.

You are one of us. Welcome.

This journey of being an activist is something I would not trade for anything else in the world. Wherever you are in your journey is okay—whether you’re still a bit nervous about dipping your toe into the tumultuous waters of making an impact, or whether you are confident and ready to go but just need the right guidance to move forward. If lobbying your elected officials is scary to you, if you’re nervous about getting into protests and community organizing, that’s totally okay! Just because you are uncomfortable speaking up now doesn’t mean you’ll never get there. In your activism journey you will find allies along the way; you will grow and learn and evolve, and wherever it is you want to be, you will get there, I promise. I know because not very long ago I was you. I was an insecure fourteen-year-old, worried and scared about the state of the world, with no clue how to get started.

Just like I wish someone would have done for me when I began my activism, I will keep it real and tell you everything. The good and the bad. What to watch out for, problems I dealt with (so you know how to navigate them!), and all of that tough stuff that tends to get brushed over with flowery font and inspirational blanket statements.

As a chronically exhausted high school student with too much homework who’s running an international movement, I don’t have time to sugarcoat. What you get in this book, on top of advice and strategies, are my real stories about life as a youth activist: from joyfully protesting outside the Supreme Court in a bitter cold torrential rainstorm, to a fossil fuel lobbyist creepily grabbing my shoulder and calling me “sweetie,” to dealing with all the challenges of the internal workings of a large organization. I’ve also placed excerpts of interviews with other young activists who inspire me at the end of every chapter so you can get other perspectives on the diversity of social justice work out there. You can read the full interviews online at YouthToPowerBook.com. My hope is that these stories help guide you, inspire you, give you courage—and in some cases serve as a perfect example of what not to do.

My reality and that of all changemakers isn’t a montage of flashy protest footage set to dramatic music. The pictures you see on social media of majestic-looking young people marching triumphantly are not even close to the full story. Most of my life (and the lives of all the youth activists I know and work with) consists of trying to get through my inbox while juggling homework and extracurriculars, and taking back-to-back video conference calls during breaks in my school’s badly lit costume closet. It makes the video of me look like I have four chins no matter what angle I try.

This book is your guide to causing good trouble, unlearning everything you’ve been taught before, disrupting the status quo, making your voice heard, challenging problematic authority, changing the culture, changing laws, and yes, changing the world.

This is the manifesto of the youth revolution.

Dog-ear it, write in it, read it out of order, highlight what you want, rip out pages and tape them to your bedroom wall, flush it down the toilet if that’s what helps you process information better—I won’t be offended (or maybe don’t; that would clog your toilet).

I am in the same boat as you, and I’m not going to order you around and act like I’m better than you or pretend to know everything. The truth is, I am still learning, just like you. We’re in this together.

This is your guide to starting your own revolution, whatever that means to you.

Join me.

Keep reading, and we can be scrappy activists together.

Scrappy activists who win.