As #climateweek unfolds, let’s remember that frontline communities hold the solutions.
With characteristic searing eloquence, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered a rousing address at the UN on Monday, denouncing the world’s governments for their lack of meaningful response to the climate crisis: “People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is fairytales of eternal economic growth.”
While Thunberg has become the face of the climate strike movement, youth (as well as adults and elders) from communities of color and indigenous territories around the world are leading the fight on the frontlines. From New York to Puerto Rico, thousands of young people who have experienced environmental injustice and climate-fueled storms firsthand are organizing powerful mobilizations against climate inaction.
Indigenous people are continuing to hold down the struggle against voracious agribusiness in the Amazon and other threatened ecosystems around the world. Farmers are saving climate-resilient seeds and practicing biodiversity-sustaining agriculture despite an onslaught of anti-farmer trade and development policies. Native peoples are resisting fossil fuel projects and modeling a true “green economy” rooted in the stewardship of land and water.
The climate crisis requires that we heed the clarion call of Greta Thunberg. But our future depends upon following the lead of those who are already charting a climate-resilient course—under extreme duress—on the frontlines.
Solidarity for a just transition,
Tanya, Tiffani, Anna, and Christina
P.S. Learn more about groups and movements organizing for policy change and resilient food systems in our Tackling Climate Change Through Food toolkit.
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Header Image: Urban Tilth’s AdamsCrest Farm