Act: Inspiration

How the Youth Movement Turns Political Words into Political Will

By Joel Stronberg, originally published by Civil Notion

October 24, 2019

polar bear

This marks the addition of a new audio feature on the Civil Notion site, which I’m calling A Piece of My Mind.

In this first episode, I examine the alchemistic role of the climate youth movement in turning base political words into precious political will.

A year ago, there was no debate in Congress about climate change. Now conservative Republicans are being forced into a dialogue they had hoped to avoid about a problem they’ve been unwilling to admit even exists. The Democrats, for their part, have embraced climate change as a central theme of their 2020 political campaign. What’s changed is the entrance of the youth climate movement onto the scene.

Lead image courtesy of Jean Beaufort/public domain

Joel Stronberg

Joel B. Stronberg, Esq., of The JBS Group is a veteran clean energy policy analyst with over 30 years of experience, based in Washington, DC. He writes about energy and politics in his blog Civil Notion (www.civilnotion.com) and has recently published the book Earth v. Trump: The Climate Defenders’ Guide to Washington Politics based on his commentaries. He has worked extensively in the clean energy fields for public and private sector clients at all levels of government and in Latin America. His specialties include: resiliency; distributed generation and storage; utility regulation; financing mechanisms; sustainable agriculture; and human behavior. Stronberg is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops.

Tags: American environmental policy, American politics, Greta Thunberg, school climate strikes, youth climate movement

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