Student activists are striking again December 6. Here’s the backstory.                                                   

By Cate Pitterle

The Strike

The air seemed to hum as a couple hundred activists crowded toward the small wooden stage, lofting signs with slogans like “March Now or Swim Later” and “I am the Lorax, I speak for the planet, and the planet says ‘can you maybe not'” into the air. Their attention fixated on the figure stepping up to the mic: Cary Academy senior Michelle Rouse.

“My parents want me to live happily in this world, and I want my children to do the same,” she said in her speech. “With everyone fighting to end the consequences of the climate crisis, that is possible.”

That was September 20, a rally that occurred as Greta Thunburg led students in over 150 countries to strike in protest of worldwide climate policies, and saw a contingent of CA students skip school to attend. They gathered around a giant white parachute, on which they had painted a globe during a meeting of the new Delta Service Club’s Environmental Committee, to draw their handprints and encourage others to do the same.

Students including Rouse are striking again today, December 6. They will go to Durham Central Park and then march downtown in another bid to demand legislative action on climate change. By skipping school, they hope to draw attention to an often-overlooked issue.

The strike today is also a part of Thunberg’s movement, Fridays for Future.

A vocal organizer of Cary Academy’s environmental movement, Rouse is also a member of the unaffiliated Sunrise Movement, whose goals are “building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end[ing] the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect[ing] leaders who stand up for the health and wellbeing of all people.”

Kaela Curtis, a senior who also works with the Sunrise Movement, attended the September strike and is attending today’s strike because “climate justice is inextricably intertwined with social justice,” she said. “The people on the front lines of climate catastrophes are disproportionately poor and low income folks who contributed the least to the crisis but will suffer the most if we don’t address it.”

“This is not sustainable for communities to withstand long-term.”

The Sunrise Movement is a growing organization among high school students, and Rouse and Curtis aren’t the oldest members. Lily Levin, an alumna from the class of 2019 now attending Duke University, is an outspoken member. On October 28, she asked former Vice President and 2020 Presidential Candidate Joe Biden about his willingness to take money from Super PACS – which opponents argue is hard to trace and can come from shadowy sources like big oil – how the public can trust he would fight climate change as President. His reply, after he stopped to take a selfie with the still-talking freshman, was only “Look at my record, child. Look at my record.”

The “record” Biden was referring to might have meant a frequent talking point of his campaign, that he was one of the first to introduce a climate change bill in the Senate. The Global Climate Protection Act of 1986, which called for a national EPA climate change policy, was largely ignored by the Reagan administration.

“His reaction was, I believe, incredibly patronizing and fully disregarded my ask,” said Levin. “I was disappointed in the way he treated me, a potential voter.”

On his campaign website, Mr. Biden describes his plan for a “Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice,” which intends to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The plan also addresses worldwide efforts to fight climate change, the disproportionate harms of pollution on communities of color and low-income communities, and an intent to “build a stronger, more resilient nation” and not “leave any workers or communities behind.”

Biden has pledged not to accept money from oil, gas, and coal corporations or executives, according to his website.

The protests have been ongoing for months. The day after the September 20 strike, Rouse spoke again at a climate rally, this time on Duke campus. Levin also attended this second rally, where she introduced William J. Barber III, the strategic partnerships associate at the Climate Reality Project, whom she had recruited to speak.

Like Curtis, Levin got her start in other justice movements. “I got involved in the climate movement at the beginning of last year because of its intersection with social justice and the impact environmental devastation has on already marginalized communities,” she said.

Slowly, policies and views are starting to change, Rouse and others emphasized. But change can be slow, they said, and their fight is far from over.

 

The Movement

Climate change, in general, describes changes in global climate patterns often attributed to an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, and increased output of fossil fuels. Though there is controversy over its exact cause, human-created or not, many scientists agree that humans can slow some of its worst effects.

However, any change would require humans stop or at least significantly limit greenhouse gas emissions. Considering current economic patterns, this seems less and less likely to occur.

One of climate change’s most obvious effects is the increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters. “According to NOAA there have already been 10 natural disasters in 2019 which have cost over a billion dollars each in economics losses,” Environmental Science teacher Heidi Maloy said. “This is not sustainable for communities to withstand long-term.”

Climate change also disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities. A branch of environmentalism, environmental justice, aims to mitigate its effects on these vulnerable places.

Activists such as Curtis often join the climate movement after working on other types of justice reform. “I am very involved with local social justice movements and since all justice – racial, gender, economic – is interconnected,” said Curtis, “I got drawn into climate justice as well.”

Environmental justice isn’t just about climate change. Human economic activity, climate-related or not, is harming communities across the state.

Just last month, students heard from NHS speaker Naeema Muhammad, an organizing director for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. Her presentation, on concentrated animal feeding operations – specifically hog farms – described the practice’s adverse effects on low-income communities who live near the smelly, polluted facilities.

 

 

“People living in these unhealthy communities have higher rates of elevated blood pressures, upper respiratory conditions, and higher stress levels,” Ms. Muhammad said, citing studies by former epidemiologist Dr. Steve Wing and other researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill. Children are particularly affected by health problems resulting from their proximity to the farms, said Ms. Muhammad. According to Dr. Wing’s research, “Children living within a 2 1/2 mile radius of CAFOs [or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] suffered a high rate of asthma, were on more asthma medication, and missing more time out of school and children living 5 miles away.”

Contaminated water has also forced people in the area to switch from using their own well water to purchasing clean water, she said.

Hog farms exist throughout NC but are primarily concentrated in Duplin, Sampson, Bladen, and Robeson counties. “You can smell when you drive into Duplin County,” said Ms. Muhammad, referencing the farms’ overpowering smell.

Last March Rouse attended the Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training with Al Gore. Though she is, as she says, new to the environmental and climate justice movement, she wanted to learn more. She said, “I knew our world was burning due to greenhouse gases and whatnot, but I never understood the longevity of our lives until I attended.

“There, I met a group of high school students from Duplin County in NC. They shared their experiences and hardships from the effects of Hurricane Florence. They lived near hog farms, and because of the heavy storms, hog waste spilled into the area, negatively impacting their water systems for months. I couldn’t imagine living through that.”

National news has recently picked up on the environmentalism movement. Thunberg’s global climate strike on September 20 gained traction in over a hundred countries and energized a base of young activists. Her subsequent September 23 speech at the UN has been viewed millions of times.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg told leaders in her speech. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

The speech divided American lawmakers, mostly along party lines. United States President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denied the existence of climate change, tweeted, “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

Thunberg promptly changed her Twitter bio to “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”

Curtis maintained that legislators are not doing enough to address climate change. She advocated for a program along the lines of the Green New Deal – the title proposal being that of Congressional Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ed Markey (D-MA) – to mitigate the crisis. “The idea of a Green New Deal is basically using the idea of the FDR new deal and translating that to climate action,” Curtis explained. “It’s creating jobs but also transitioning people from pollution-creating jobs, like coal jobs, to green jobs. Things that would be similar manual labor, but not polluting the earth, keeping in mind justice.”

The Green New Deal has faced criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, who say it is too radical to be practical. “In recent months our nation has watched the Democratic Party take a sharp and abrupt left turn toward socialism… nothing encapsulates this as clearly as the huge, self-inflicted, national wound the Democrats are agitating for called the Green New Deal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said of the plan.

As for local politics, Curtis said that legislators “need to break the hold Duke Energy has on North Carolina,” she said. “There was a church that put solar panels on their church roof, but then Duke refused to connect them to the power grid,” she said. The example she cited of the company’s allegedly harmful monopoly referenced a majority African-American church’s lost court case against North Carolina’s utility monopoly.

 

 

Climate change has been creeping, if slowly, to North Carolinian government. On October 29 of last year, Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, passed Executive Order 80. The order, titled “North Carolina’s Commitment to Address Climate Change and Transition to a Clean Energy Economy,” lays out goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage in state-owned buildings. It also established an interagency council to address climate issues, among other initiatives.

“Legislators, hopefully, will take into the account the ever increasing economic costs of natural disasters as a motivator.”

The GOP-led legislature is more reluctant to pass climate-related legislation, citing economic concerns. Governor Cooper’s use of a unilateral executive order at all indicates the divides in state climate policy.

Some laws that opponents argue could adversely affect positive environmental shifts are still on the books. In 2012, for instance, the legislature banned coastal developers from acknowledging scientific models predicting rising sea levels. The law generated renewed outrage last year as Hurricane Florence bore down on coastal cities, including hard-hit Wilmington and Lumberton.

 

The Impacts

Just as ever-stronger wildfires have hit California in recent years, many scientists say hurricanes will hit the North Carolina coast as more intense storms. Former WRAL meteorologist Greg Fishel told the Raleigh News and Observer, “If you go out there and say the hurricanes are getting stronger every year and it’s because of climate change, the data doesn’t bear that out in terms of wind production. In terms of rain production, it’s a different story.”

Ms. Maloy elaborated on the scientific basis for the surge in rainfall. “What we are seeing in the most recent hurricanes is that they are larger in size so they move more water towards land as they approach, making flooding from storm surge even greater than in past hurricanes,” she said. “The slower movement of these storms increases the impacts of not just of the winds but of the rain events that come with them.”

More rain naturally means more flooding, devastating towns and cities along the Southeastern coast, including and especially those in North Carolina. Since Matthew in 2015, Florence in 2018, and Dorian earlier this year, NC communities have experienced widespread flooding.  Towns such as Lumberton hadn’t fully recovered from Hurricane Matthew by the time Florence hit.

After Florence left its trail of destruction, Lumberton resident and pastor Rick Foreman’s church was devastated, moldy and flooded. “Everything that we’ve gained just in the last couple years, to try to get back to where we were before Matthew, all that’s gone,” he told the Washington Post at the time.

 

 

 

According to Ms. Maloy, the challenges aren’t over for the state. The coast will likely deal with increased vulnerability to coastal erosion, a result of rising sea levels, and the increase in slow-moving, large-scale hurricanes and tropical storms. The threat to beaches, bridges, roadways, utility service, homes, and businesses is great – and potentially very costly. “This is true from many viewpoints including property and human loss, the viability of  insurance to protect from financial losses, as well as funding for emergency management at the local, state and federal governmental levels,” she said.

“Legislators, hopefully, will take into the account the ever increasing economic costs of natural disasters as a motivator for looking at minimizing the impact of future events.”

Rouse, for one, hopes lawmakers act soon. “We must bring people who are on frontline communities to the forefront of this movement. Their voices matter,” she said.

“We don’t have that much time left.”