Bittersweet – Climate Generation

I write with a bittersweet announcement. I am moving on from Climate Generation at the end of December.  It has been an honor to share my thoughts with you each month here.

For 19 years, Climate Generation has been supporting educators, young people and communities to build climate change literacy and ignite action to arrive at a just and abundant world beyond the climate crisis. This critical and powerful work is essential and will continue with the current team and new leadership.

My time with Climate Generation has been an amazing three years. I have appreciated each of you and the solidarity we built to continue the work despite unprecedented threats from the federal administration, entrenched climate change denialism and the erasure of critical resources. Climate Generation has persevered in spite of those challenges, filling a critical need in the climate justice movement. I am so proud of the work we have accomplished together in this time. Some of the highlights include:

• Increasing the quality and impact of YEA! (Youth Environmental Activists!) programming with adoption of the Youth Program Quality Assessment tool and experiential learning frameworks.

• Retooling our Window into COP program by leveraging relationships to send locally based, intergenerational, and mostly BIPOC delegations to the COPs (Conference of the Parties, also known as the United Nations Climate Talks)

• Launching the Schools As Solutions Fellowship to support educators in becoming climate justice changemakers.

• Adding two youth seats to our Board of Directors.

• Helping to pass groundbreaking legislation, including  the 100% Clean Energy bill, the Cumulative Impacts Bill (protecting environmental justice communities), and Ethnic Studies (bringing the experiences of ALL Minnesotans, especially those that have been marginalized, into our curriculum).

Climate Generation has put together a Transition Committee with board and staff representation and is working with Mighty Consulting to bring in an Interim Executive Director. I deeply trust this leadership team and am confident that they will chart the path to carry Climate Generation forward.

I am excited about the work that Climate Generation will continue doing to ignite and sustain the ability of educators, youth, and community to take action on the systems perpetuating the climate crisis. Together we are building a movement.

In solidarity,