Be present. Bear witness. Show that children’s lives matter.
Last week, the wind outside my house reached nearly 60 miles per hour. The rain was loud. The thunder was close. Storms like that are not normal for this time of year where I live in Los Angeles. A few weeks ago, it was cold. Soon it will be extremely hot. This is what it feels like to be young right now: unpredictable, uncertain, and a little frightening.
My name is Genesis. I am 19 years old, Afro-Indigenous and Mexican, and I have spent most of my life standing up for my community, for myself, and for our planet.
Youth Plaintiffs Fight to Stop the Alaska LNG Project and Trump’s Directive to “Unleash Alaska’s Resource Potential”
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping declaration: a so-called “National Energy Emergency.” The disconnect? The U.S. is currently producing more energy than any country in history, with surpluses so large that much of it is destined for export, not domestic use. The real emergency isn’t a lack of energy. It’s the climate crisis, and in Alaska, that emergency is escalating at terrifying speed.
This Alaska Native Youth is Taking Her State Government to Court to Shut Down Alaska LNG Project and Protect Young People’s Rights to Safe Climate
Summer is a young Iñupiat Alaskan from Unalakleet, Alaska and the named plaintiff in the new youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, where she along with 7 other young Alaskan’s are taking their government to court over climate change. These young Alaskans are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and already experiencing serious harms to their health, safety, and access to natural resources they depend on, including for subsistence and cultural traditions.
Courage on the Frontlines: Alaska’s Youth Sue to Stop Climate Crisis
Building on the foundation of more than a decade of Our Children’s Trust’s legal work in America’s Last Frontier, Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II seeks to secure recognition of the youth’s fundamental rights under Alaska’s Constitution and stop the Alaska LNG Project, a massive, state-led fossil fuel infrastructure project that would roughly triple Alaska’s emissions of climate pollution for decades to come.
The Last Frontier Places First in the U.S. Warming Derby
Thoughts of Alaska bring to my mind massive glaciers (the largest glaciers outside of the continental ice sheets), endless frozen ground to the horizon (called permafrost), towering mountains (the highest relief of any mountain on the planet), so much snow and avalanches, dark spruce forests, never-ending days in the boreal summer sun and never-ending winter nights lit by the aurora borealis, lazy brown bears, mad moose cows with their quirky calves, clumsy caribou, cold streams choked with salmon, coastal waters teaming with food, huckleberries, and more lazy brown bears (haven’t seen a polar bear in Alaska, yet…). You know, the last frontier.