Living in the COVID-19 World ... and Beyond #19: The Creation of a Climate Crisis Action Group
In September 2021, I initiated convening a group at my synagogue about the climate crisis. Not a single adult member of the congregation signed up to participate. However, two young people did express interest. So, I shifted my focus to work with the temple’s youth coordinator and eventually assembled a group of four teenage Jewish girls, ages twelve – fifteen. The girls all went to different schools and knew each other only minimally through the synagogue and I had not met at any of them in person beyond a brief hello in passing.
We started meeting in November over Zoom. Our initial meetings were challenging. I developed ideas, tried to encourage their participation, some girls kept their screens off during our discussion, and none of them seemed to have any ideas of their own about what they wanted to get out of being in this group or about what we should be doing during our time together. I persisted … and kept bringing new ideas – a video by a young person about maintaining hope as an activist, a presentation by a Jewish climate organization about steps we can take in our own homes/personal lives to be environmentally conscious, and a music video by young people about climate issues. Nothing really seemed to resonate and stimulate their interest and engagement.
In March, I found out that a member of our city’s Board of Representatives was proposing a resolution to have our city declare a Climate Emergency. I brought that to the girls and they got excited. One girl started to take leadership and read some quotes from Greta Thunberg. The girls wanted to do something. I found out that a Committee of the Board of Representatives was going to have a virtual meeting at which the proposed resolution would be discussed, and that the public could attend but not speak. Two of the girls said they would attend the meeting as would I. I attended the meeting and listened, and the webinar format did not allow me to see whether any of the girls were in attendance. The committee decided to put the resolution on hold for a month because some committee members were absent and there were multiple versions of the resolution. I wrote a brief summary of what happened and sent it out to the girls before I went to bed.
The next morning, I received an email from one of the girls that she had written the night before. She had attended the meeting and was very upset that the resolution had been tabled and she wanted to organize a school strike or protest. We emailed back and forth and called for another meeting of our group. She took visible leadership and shared her thoughts about what we could do. The other girls were reluctant to miss school but gladly signed up for an action of some kind.
At our next meeting we planned our action … to create and pass out flyers in front of the public library supporting the city declaring a Climate Emergency. The girls took responsibility for doing some publicity and creating the handout. I was assigned the job of securing whatever permits we needed to have a small protest. My job put me up against some fears that I dd not know I had. I figured that I needed to contact the police department to get permission for our action. I was scared that the police would ask for my name and address, that they would require me to come to the station and fingerprint me, that they would try to convince me not to do this action. It turns out that my fears were unfounded. The police were pleasant, and we did not even need a permit and instead just permission from the library which I easily secured. I could feel myself not wanting to contact the police initially (I delayed a few days) and then I decided that I did not want anything to stand in the way of these girls being empowered to do what they wanted to do. My wanting to back them was sufficient motivation for me to overcome my fears.
Meanwhile, the resolution came before the Committee of the Board of Representatives again and passed this time.
We had the action of distributing handouts about the climate emergency on a rainy and chilly Sunday afternoon. The next day the full Board was scheduled to have its monthly meeting with the Climate Resolution on their lengthy agenda. It was the worst possible weather for an outdoor action and 3 of the girls showed up (the three who had committed to being there). I met some parents who arrived to drop off the girls and one parent who came to pick up her daughter stayed and passed out flyers with us for a while. It was great to finally meet the girls and be in person and it was an empowering afternoon for them and for me. We were actually doing something that we believed in. The girls were enthusiastic about taking some action.
The next day was the Board of Representatives meeting. I found out that the public could make comments at that meeting if you signed up in advance. One of the girls and I signed up. At the virtual meeting, each member of the public was given 3 minutes to speak. I spoke and shortly thereafter one of the girls in our group spoke. She was absolutely great – a 9th grader putting her thinking out and demanding action. There were about forty items on the Board’s agenda and our resolution was somewhere around 30th on the list. Around 10pm I dropped off the meeting, as did my fellow group member, and went to sleep.
The next day, I wrote the Representative who had sponsored the resolution and found out that the Resolution had passed, and then communicated that out to the girls and their parents. It was all quite joyous.
To top it off, and to my surprise, an article appeared in our local newspaper a few days later in which the girl from our group was quoted as was I based on what we had said at the Board of Representatives meeting. Here is a link to the article in case you want to read more: https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/For-coastal-Stamford-climate-change-means-more-17065376.php
As a friend said to me: you are a climate activist and a youth organizer. The girls are eager to think about what we do next, as am I.