Hey there, GreenNewDealMaker…
What’s happening?
Ok—we won’t even get into (points at EVERYTHING) all that…
Now, on this week’s GenGND podcast we’re doing things a little bit differently. Every once in awhile, we’ll be releasing special episodes with someone who inspires us in the climate movement.
For our first GenGND Conversation this week, we’re heading out to the fire-striken West Coast to hear the story of the California born-bred-and-living Sunrise Movement activist and writer Nikayla Jefferson. Here’s a quick taste:
Nikayla (with flag) protesting alongside members of Sunrise’s San Diego Chapter
We’ve spoken to Nikayla a couple of times over the last few months—and each time, we’re left at a loss for words by her incredibly powerful storytelling about living in the midst of a climate-changed California; of what it’s like growing up with fire since before you can remember, of living with it into adulthood, and the omnipresent feeling of watching what you thought was your birthright, your home, burn. As the dreams of what once was The Golden State—as told by parents and grandparents—turn to dark nightmares, filled with the ashes of today and flames of tomorrow.
What you’re about to read are very lightly edited versions of two emails that Nikayla sent to GenGND Producer Nate Birnbaum…We’re sharing her words, and her stories on the pod, with Nikayla’s permission, and with the sincere hope, and belief, that even though reading the words (and listening to the stories) may tear your heart open, the feelings that come rushing out will lead, and inspire, you to take action.
AUGUST 23rd
Hey! Just listened to the teaser podcast. I’m driving through California right now, back to San Diego. I’m in tears. It feels like the world is ending. Over 500 fires and record heat. I don’t know what it will take to convince this country that climate is a crisis and it's going to take a war effort to fight it. I went on this road trip to figure out if I even belong in this fight — it takes a heavy emotional toll that can be too much sometimes. But driving through California, on fire, again, I know I belong and this is my fight.
Anyway, I’m just feeling a lot right now and I’m more than happy to help with the podcast. Let me know how we can get connected.
Nikayla
Nikayla and Nate recorded most of the conversation you’ll hear on this week’s episode in the immediate aftermath of her drive through a California on fire.
A few weeks passed, and California was hit by another round of devastating and historically destructive wildfire—this cycle choking the West Coast under a layer of smoke for several weeks. So, we reached back out to Nikayla to check in on how she was doing, hoping to talk to her again about what had changed over the last month.
In the process of scheduling a follow-up, Nate received this beautiful essay, totally unprompted, from Nikayla which we thought ought to be published alongside her story on the podcast…
SEPTEMBER 22nd
Nate,
These are my current thoughts so you know where my own head is at on “hope” and the future for tomorrow...
I'm an organizer in the climate movement. I consider it my job to lie to others, to point to an oasis somewhere on the horizon and promise Moses is waiting to guide us to existential security.
But I feel like a fraud. My public performance has shifted from hope in the known--Bernie and his commitment to our generational dream, to faith in the unknown--Biden and his vague, but strong condemnation of the climate crisis, to recycled statements of the power of young people and our moral authority and revolution and--bullshit I hope is enough to give the under 35 enough reason to keep on.
But in a last ditch effort to cope with my climate grief, in private, I turned away from my own performatively hopeful prophetic visions of the future.
In private, I find faith in the evident--humans and our improbable tenacity for life.
The story of us reads like a two-hundred thousand year saga of triumph and tragedy. We conquered the six continents by foot, and then set our sails for islands unknown, guided by nothing but a feeling and a mind map of the stars. We carved cities from mountains, and constructed temples tall enough to reach the Gods. From stone to steel, from the archaic to the automated, our technology is now so advanced it blurs the line between man and machine.
Over one-hundred billion individuals wrote our story, and wrote it through actual plague, dramatic climate change, atomic world wars--they persevered through suffering, climbed back from the edge of extinction, and they did it to give the next generation life. But now it’s 2020, and our infatuation with the shiny, the cheap, and the convenient threatens to write a premature ending to our story.
I still have faith we will survive. It’s what we do best. But I still have to publicly spew performative hope because even though I know while we as a single species will survive, many of the individuals will die.
And that fact, makes me want to permanently turn into private life and spend days lost deep in our story to feel anything except the present moment--to be somewhere not here and in some time not now. I struggle to write hopeful op-eds, tune my optimistic voice on podcasts, and give Zoom speeches that inspire. But that is my job.
To my fellow organizer friends, I phrased it like: the Titanic is sinking, what role do you default to on the ship? Most said "organize the lifeboats" or "muscle the water pumps.”
But I tell myself that I would play the violin on the deck, to calm and soothe the huddled in their final hour. But really, it is to warm my soul one last time in the frigid air. To stir the depths of our origins in an attempt to awaken that part of us that felt the moon and stars and the night were not cold, and distant, and indifferent, but our omnipresent ancestors watching over us and awaiting our return home. (In this simulation, I know how to play the violin, and I would draw the bow to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.)
Because I think it is our best rendition of the human condition. And at the end, I want to feel, and make everyone else feel, like a raw and naked and wonderful human.
This email lacks a coherent point or thesis. I've given up trying to make sense of my own paradoxical thinking on hope or life. We live in the end of truth and empathy and I will lie and make-up desperate sense for the sake of others, but not here in this Gmail confession box.
This is my truth, and it is as warped as the world. I tell it to you, a stranger, but someone who would probably pick-up the cello and without a word, play beside me.
Nikayla
(Picks up cello to play alongside…
…Puts down cello, realizing it’s a very difficult instrument…
I think we'll just listen to Nikayla’s stories, read her words & follow her lead : )
Which reminds us—if you want to hear MORE from Nikayla, and our friends at PATAGONIA (ya, we know we’ve got some pretty cool friends…) you should tune in to their GOTV conversation with Patagonia Trail Running Ambassador (and badass climate activist in her own right) Clare Gallagher, on Patagonia’s INSTAGRAM LIVE Q&A, THIS THURSDAY (October 8th) @ 8EST/5PST
…And if you’d like to read more of Nikayla’s words, here’s a chronological list of her Op-Eds over the last year+ (the pieces in The Boston Globe & DRILLED were co-authored with her UCSB Professor Leah Stokes—a renowned and outspoken Energy Policy expert who we’re going to be speaking with in an upcoming #GenGNDConversation…Stay tuned, & please SUBSCRIBE, so you don’t miss it!)
THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS THE STORY OF THE CENTURY, The Hill
THIS ELECTION IS BIGGER THAN OUR GENERATION, OR EVEN OUR COUNTRY, GRIST
OUR RACIST FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY SYSTEM, The Boston Globe
RACIAL JUSTICE IS CLIMATE JUSTICE & IT CAN’T WAIT, DRILLED
I SAW WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE HELL LOOKS LIKE. NOW I’M JOINING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE STRIKE. YOU SHOULD TOO, The Los Angeles Times
Also, we want to quickly plug last week’s GenGND pod episode since we didn’t manage to get a newsletter out amidst all the chaos...
It’s the inside-story of AOC, like you’ve never heard it before, told by Justice Democrats Co-Founder & Executive Director Alexandra Rojas, AOC’s former Campaign Manager and Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti, and Justice Dems Spokesman Waleed Shahid:
But don’t worry, even if you’re just catching up on Episode 1 or 2 of the pod, like our pal Evan Weber (whose a Co-Founder and the Political Director at Sunrise,) there’s plenty of time to listen, subscribe and STAY TUNED for more #GenGND…
Thanks for sharing these AMAZING photos from the night before The Pelosi Sit in, Evan!!
AND, finally, here’s our full Green New Reading (& Listening) List…
Probably THE single most important piece you’ll read this week, no surprise that it was written by our most favorite climate-writer out there, a true ‘GenGND ICON’…
2020 THE YEAR OF CONVERGING CRISES, by Mary Annaïse Heglar in Rolling Stone
And here’s an imporrant, devastatingly reported, piece to pair with the above…
THREE SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker
Alright, how about some practical advice for WTF to do now? Let’s listen to one of the ZERO HOUR Co-Founder’s input…
PRACTICAL, SMART ADVICE FOR CHANGEMAKERS, FROM A YOUNG CLIMATE ACTIVIST, by Jamie Margolin
And finally, this week we’re SO EXCITED to catch up on the newest season (5!!) of THE PODMOTHER Amy Westervelt’s incredible, award-winning, muck-racking, podcast, DRILLED.
This season, La Lucha En La Jungla looks at the decades long battle between indigenous groups in the Ecuadorian Amazon and Chevron. And it is FASCINATING—but don’t take our word for it, take THE NEW YORKER’s…They ALSO called it “Fascinating.”
Oh, and while you’re at it, you should catch up on the FIRST FOUR SEASONS of DRILLED, because the Fossil Fuel Companies B.S. never stops or sleeps—so why should you?
Onwards.
Nikayla Jefferson contributed to this #GenGND newsletter alongside Nate Birnbaum, with editing by Sam Eilertsen.
Moving, eloquent and motivating!! Wonderful to be introduced to inspiring upcoming leaders/movers/shakers in the Climate Movement!