24 CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // JULY 2019
THE BUZZ
LUCIA PAULSEN, MARY ELLIS STEVENS,
AND KATE HARRISON, girls who haven’t
yet celebrated their 15th birthdays, stand
in front of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Government Center uptown on a Friday
in early May. Around them, a group of
about 20 others, mostly teenagers, sup-
port the North Carolina Youth Climate
Strike, which the three girls have led
since early this year. They’re holding
signs that say, “System change not cli-
mate change” and, “The oceans are rising
and so are we,” as Paulsen, Stevens, and
Harrison pass around a microphone and
call on city leaders to act against climate
change—fast.
At 11 a.m., they put down their posters
and microphones, cover their mouths
with surgical masks, close their eyes, and
lie on the concrete. Eleven minutes later,
a timer rings, and the protestors stand to
address the group again.
The elevens aren’t random num-
bers. In October 2018, the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change released a report that stated
policymakers have until 2030, only 11
years—hence the 11 minutes of the
Youth Climate Strike’s “die-in” protest—to enact changes to prevent the worst
eects of climate change.
This particular Friday marks Stevens’
10th strike. She’s an eighth-grader at
Trinity Episcopal School and a rising
freshman at Myers Park High School,
and she has skipped school every Friday
since February—not to hang out on the
couch and watch TV but to demand pol-
icy changes from local elected ocials.
Her strikes count as unexcused absences,
but her teachers are supportive so long
as she makes up the work. “As a 14-year-
old, I can’t vote. I can’t run for oce,”
Stevens says to the group. “My one and
only job is to go to school, so I disrupt
the system, and I don’t.”
Paulsen and Harrison, both 13, are
students at Metrolina Regional Scholars
Academy and serve as the club’s co-
presidents; Stevens is vice president. The
three are part of a global network of
young activists who call for radical action
to reverse the eects of climate change.
Some Fridays, which the organization
calls “Fridays for Future,” Stevens sits
alone outside the Government Center,
rain or shine, usually in a T-shirt with
the phrase, “Change begins here.” Somedays, friends like Paulsen and Harrison
are able to join.
The group is much larger on this
morning for the nationwide Youth
Climate Strike event. The teenagers
huddle together and li their signs as
Stevens continues to speak. “Young cli-
mate activists are told all the time that
we are the future by the same people
that got us into this mess, by adults that
continue life as it is,” she says. “Don’t
tell me I am the future. Go out and
do whatever it takes to give me that
future.” —Emma Way ANDY McMILLANENVIRONMENTTEENS TAKE TO THE CONCRETE
OVER CLIMATE CHANGE
They skip school, loiter, and yell—all for a good cause(Left to right) Lucia
Paulsen, Kate
Harrison, and Mary
Ellis Stevens.Students outside the
Government Center
in May conduct
a “die-in” protest
to urge action on
climate change.