Generation Climate Change

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2019

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is one of those episodes I want to put the hard sell on. It’s one of the most important conversations I’ve had on the show. The fact that it left me feeling better about the world rather than worse — that was shocking. Varshini Prakash is co-founder and executive director of the Sunrise Movement. Sunrise is part of a new generation of youth-led climate-change movements that emerged out of the failure of the global political system to address the climate crisis. They’re the ones who made the Green New Deal a litmus test for 2020. They’re the reason there might be a climate debate. They’re the reason candidates’ climate plans have gotten so much more ambitious. Behind these movements is the experience of coming of age in the era of climate crisis and the new approach to organizing birthed by that trauma. We also talk about Sunrise’s theory of organizing, why it’s a mistake to say you’re saving the planet when you’re saving humanity, Sunrise’s motto “no permanent friends, no permanent enemies,” the joys of organizing in the face of terrible odds, and, unexpectedly, the Tao Te Ching. This is a conversation about climate change and about political organizing, but it’s also about finding agency amid despair. Don’t miss it. Book recommendations: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr. This Is an Uprising by Mark Engler and Paul Engler Tao Te Ching by Laozi ******************************************************* The Ezra Klein Show has been nominated for best Society- culture podcast in this year’s People’s Choice Podcast Awards! Cast your vote for The Ezra Klein Show at https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup before July 31st. One vote per category. Please send guest suggestions for our upcoming series on climate change to [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.
0:08.0	As state legislatures consider more than 500 anti-trans bills, the latest episode of Into the Mix asks how best to support and protect transgender youth.
0:19.0	Like Ali Aske, a young man who, despite growing up in a loving and supportive home, felt the need for friendship with other trans and queer kids.
0:27.0	At just seven years old, he took initiative and built a lasting community.
0:32.0	That story on Into the Mix, subscribe now.
0:57.0	Go to chevrolet.com slash electric to learn more.
1:28.0	Hello, Vox was a client show on the Vox Media podcast network.
1:33.0	I love this episode. I'm really excited about it. I think you're gonna like it too.
1:36.0	But before we get into it, in a related sense, I asked a couple days ago on the podcast about climate change guests you would like to see, because I'm gonna be doing a series on that.
1:45.0	This episode itself is not technically part of that series, so it was obviously very related.
1:50.0	But what I asked for then was sort of guess who represented an unusual angle on the debate.
1:55.0	I got lots of great, great, great suggestions, and I'm gonna use some of them.
2:00.0	But I realized too that I should probably ask the more obvious question and not assume I know the answer to it, which is, who is the one voice you really do want to hear from in climate change?
2:09.0	Doesn't matter if they're the most famous voice in the game. Like, who is interesting to you there?
2:14.0	If you want to email me at as a client show at Vox.com with like the one person who you would like to hear and a real climate change above all others, I would be grateful for it.
2:22.0	Again, that is as a client show at Vox.com. But related to that, my guest today is for Shini Prakash, and she's the executive director and a co-founder of the Sunrise movement, which is the youth led climate justice movement.
2:34.0	This genuinely transformed the conversation in this space.
2:37.0	Going back to when they did a sit-in in Etsy Pelosi's office, which led to Alexandria, Calcio Cortez coming and supporting them, led to at least some movement in the house towards the Green New Deal, towards the Climate Select Committee.
2:47.0	They've been a driving force behind the idea of a Green New Deal.
2:50.0	And there is something in the moral clarity and the approach and the kind of effort to manage both an inside and an outside game of their work that has really been effective.
3:02.0	I mean, it is rare for an organization to change as much at least about the conversation as they have as quickly as they have.
3:09.0	And I think there's something also particularly important that this is a youth movement.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.