188
Thunberg in Sweden,” says Naomi Klein, activist and author
of 2014’s best-selling This Changes Everything. “I think young
people have a particular moral voice that is just getting stron-
ger and clearer, a combination of optimism and existential
terror. There’s also a rage and rightful disappointment with
the people who were supposed to protect their future.”
Like Prakash, Sara Blazevic, 26, is one of Sunrise’s
cofounders (there are eight in total, most of whom cut their
teeth working on fossil fuel–divestment campaigns at their
respective colleges, then were spurred to wider action by
Bernie Sanders’s first presidential campaign). Blazevic
wears a discreet nose ring, a trout tattoo on her inner arm,
and projects an air of serene competence. “Almost every-
body in Sunrise has lived our entire
lives in a world on the cusp of cli-
mate apocalypse,” she tells me.
“That’s what drives them—just the
sheer scale of the devastation on
the horizon.” Last fall the United
Nations’ scientific panel on climate
change underscored how close
that horizon has come, warning
that the world community has 12
years to prevent global tempera-
tures from rising above 1.5 degrees
Celsius, the cutoff for averting
catastrophe. Meanwhile, President
Trump has relentlessly mocked
climate science and heaped scorn
on the Green New Deal, even as
the major Democratic presidential
candidates have all embraced it in
some way. “It would be unwise to
discount Sunrise’s capacity to keep
this front and center,” says Klein.
“I mean, we’ve never seen this
much attention paid to climate
change in an electoral cycle.”
In the six weeks I spent at Sunrise
rallies, boot camps, and debate parties this summer, the
young activists I met seemed caught between idealism and
fury—and a longing to escape to different worlds. Meisen-
helter, who grew up in a commune with goats in Portland,
Oregon, routinely shares favorite fantasy or science fiction
with her fellow Sunrisers. “Organizing is making science
fiction real,” she says. Prakash nods vehemently; she is
currently reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven,
which describes a dystopian American Northwest ravaged
by climate change. (Though Harry Potter is her favorite of
the genre—“Duh! Is that even a question?!”—and there are
plans to name the conference rooms in the new D.C. Sunrise
offices after Hogwarts houses.) Growing up, Prakash and
her school friend would take Bridge to Terabithia–type
adventures into the woods behind their homes in Acton,
Massachusetts. “All of the people I know spent lots of time
in imagined worlds,” she says.
Pulling off I-64, we stop at Bojangles and order Bo-Berries
(blueberry-muffin biscuits) drenched in icing. Prakash digs
into the Styrofoam box and shrugs when I ask about her
own consumption habits. “If eating fast food on the tour
means that in five years we’ve passed legislation that has
changed the system, then I think that’s okay,” she says, adding
that this is a crucial generational divide. “Older generations
were like ‘Change your light bulb, change your life’ and this
generation is thinking, Let’s change these systems.”
It is the older generation that has leveled the sharpest
criticisms of the Green New Deal, which demands a com-
plete transition to a carbon-neutral economy in the next
decade, requiring nothing less than a total overhaul of the
nation’s infrastructure. This would cost trillions, on top of
the plan’s proposals for government-funded or subsidized
health care, education, jobs, and housing. The rebukes from
Republicans were predictably unanimous, but there was
pointed criticism from longtime climate advocates on the
left as well. Speaker Pelosi dismissed it as “the green dream,
or whatever they call it; nobody knows what it is, but they’re
for it, right?” while Michael Bloomberg, who in June
committed $500 million to help transition away from the
fossil-fuel economy, cautioned against promoting a “pie in
the sky” proposal.
In July, centrist Democrats in the House presented a more
moderate plan to curb carbon emissions by 2050 rather than
the Green New Deal’s eyebrow-raisingly ambitious goal of
- “We are inspired by the energy, activism, and outside
mobilizing of the Sunrise Movement and the millions of
young people across the country who are using their power
to bring about transformational change,” Speaker Pelosi
wrote me in an email. “Guided by their voices and the vision
and values of our caucus, House Democrats are taking
decisive action to defend the people and places we love.”
When I speak to Jody Freeman, a professor of environmental
STAR POWER
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is
the Sunrise Movement’s most visible advocate—
and nothing less than an idol to its membership. SARAH SILBIGER/
THE NEW YORK TIMES
/REDUX PICTURES
