ACTIVISM
The youth
plaintiffs in
Juliana v.
United States
Suing for climate justice.
IN 1996, THE UN'S Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change issued the second in a series
of increasingly dire reports. More frequent
heat waves, floods, droughts, fires, and pest
outbreaks were on the way, scientists said.
The time to act was now.
That same year, in a small forested town
in Oregon, Kelsey Cascadia Juliana was born.
Her parents, who met at an anti-logging
demonstration, named her after the nearby
Kelsey Creek and the Cascadia bioregion.
They took her to her first environmen-
tal protest when she was two months old.
Over the next 14 years—as Juliana tasted her
Tia Hatton, AGE 22
When Hatton was young,
she and her family weren't
necessarily convinced by
scientists’ claims about cli
mate change. But when ris
ing temperatures threatened
her beloved pastime as a
crosscountry skier, Hatton
dug into the data. She now
has a degree in environmen
talsciences and works for a
land trust in a conservative
part of rural Oregon. “This is
something that should have
been resolved 50 years ago,”
she says. “It totallypisses
me off that our government
knew about it.”
Avery M., AGE 14
Avery identifies as a “very big
animal person.” When she was
in kindergarten, she raised
$200 for the Snow Leopard
Trust. Later she did the same
thing for wolves, then salmon.
At 9 years old, she testified
before her city council in Ore
gon in support of a climate
ordinance. The following year,
she signed on to Juliana v.
United States. “I had no idea
what I was getting into,” she
says. “It’s kind of disgusting
how slow everything is. We
have the world on the line, and
it’s been four years.”
first wild huckleberries, peered into her first
tidal pool, and first went backpacking in the
wilderness with her dad—the climate crisis
deepened. US carbon emissions rose by 91
billion tons; the fracking boom got under
way. When Juliana was 15, she sued the
governor of Oregon, demanding a carbon-
reduction plan. (The state supreme court
will hear the case later this year.)
By 2015, Juliana had had enough. She’d
heard that a local legal nonprofit, Our Chil-
dren’s Trust, was mounting a climate suit
against the federal government. Together
with 20 other young people, ranging in age
Nathan Baring, AGE 20
Baring grew up in Fairbanks,
Alaska. He worries that the
formative experiences of his
youth—huddling by a wood
stove at 40 below, shovel
ing himself out of snow—are
under threat. “We’ve had to
repair roads almost every
year because of permafrost
melt,” he says. “The Arctic is
never going to be the same.”
Baring’s parents are state
employees, which means
their salaries are tied to oil
revenues. As the US works
to end its reliance on fossil
fuels, he says, it can’t “just
let these oil towns screw
themselves. These are my
neighbors.”
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