Alexandria Villaseñor Is Mobilizing Young People to Fight For Climate Change
Alexandria Villaseñor has already spoken at the Democratic National Convention, founded an international non-profit, Earth Uprising, and, next year, she'll be attending the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. At just 15, she's become an international voice in the fight against climate change, after stumbling upon climate activism almost randomly. It happened in November of 2018 when she was visiting family in her hometown of Davis, California for Thanksgiving. At the time, one of the worst wildfires in California's history was tearing through the state. "The smoke was seeping into my home so my family had to roll up wet towels and put them under windows and doors to keep the smoke from coming in," Alexandria told Seventeen. Because of her asthma, Alexandria couldn't stay in California any longer and she was sent back to New York City where she had recently moved with her mom. There, she spent the next few weeks researching the connection between climate change and wildfires. About a month later, on December 14, 2018, the information she had learned pushed her to start striking in solidarity with Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement.
For over a year, up until the beginning of the pandemic, Alexandria missed school every Friday to sit outside the UN. "I decided to take all of the eco-grief and climate anxiety that I was feeling and turn it into action." Since then, Alexandria has centered herself in the fight against climate change, representing the youth voice at major events and conventions, and holding our politicians accountable for the change that must be enacted.
What was it like to strike outside the United Nations?
I first started when it was really cold, so December of 2018. Being from California originally, I was not prepared for that weather at all. Usually, I'd sit at the United Nations for four to six hours. During that time, other young people started coming and press came a lot of times as well as UN officials because we were right there. The bench that I would sit at was about 100 feet away from the entrance to the UN so there would be a lot of UN officials that would come out and say hi. It's such a receptive place to protest because the United Nations is a global hub. It's where the whole world comes together and since this is such a global issue, the spot was so impactful. Then, after protesting there for about 12 weeks, I started to get invited in. From then on, the people like the UN Envoy [on Youth] and others in those areas at the UN started to become really big supporters of the climate strike and the movement.
What inspired you to start Earth Uprising International?
Earth Uprising International was founded April 22nd, 2019, so this year was our one-year anniversary. Now, we are in cities all across the country and we have ambassadors in over 50 countries as well. The idea around the organization is that it's so important to be educating young people, not from top down, but peer to peer. When a young person talks to another young person, it makes them so much more passionate about the issue and sometimes much more receptive as well. So, we have school groups and clubs that are youth-led and we have this youth-led curriculum as well. It's kind of like climate education 2.0 where, not only do we talk about the climate science and greenhouse effect, but we also go into intersectionality, environmental racism, and Indigenous cosmology because there's a lot of research that shows how these system of oppression did cause the climate crisis. So, once young people are riled up, once they get the education, they go and take action in their communities. They lobby their city councils and lead the transition to renewable energy locally. When we have people on the ground and local organizers, they take the lead because they know what needs to happen in their community. So, it's putting the power back in the youth's hands.
What is something that you wish more people knew when it comes to climate change?
When it comes to climate change everybody needs to know that we need everybody involved in it. Now is the time to be an activist. We can't gate keep and keep people out because their purity score isn't high enough or they don't recycle. There are some people that will meet climate activists and they'll be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't recycle." And, of course, it's important to be aware of your own carbon footprint and what you do for the environment, but it's so much more important that we have everybody involved. What we need is more systemic change because right now, 71% of our global greenhouse gas emissions come from 100 companies all around the world. We need more of that systemic change and not particularly individual action. We need the individual action of everyone coming together collectively to protest. So now is the time to open up the space and bring more people in. People can eat meat or use a plastic cup and they can still be an activist.
Do you think President-Elect Biden will help in the fight against climate change?
I worked with the Governor Jay Inslee campaign when the primary debates first started in 2019 because he was the climate change candidate and Biden actually ending up using Inslee's climate plan. Because of that, Biden's climate change plan is the most comprehensive one we have ever had. I think that it is such an important step, but now we're going to have to hold President-Elect Biden accountable. In his plan there's a transition to renewable energy by 2035, which is amazing. So, now we just have to make sure he follows through with that and that's our role as activists.
Answers have been edited and shortened for clarity.
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