Climate Activist Varshini Prakash: Young People Will Inherit This Earth

All Ears with Abigail Disney

This week on All Ears, Abby talks to Varshini Prakash, who co-founded the Sunrise Movement, a youth-centered activist organization created in 2017 to end climate change. Sunrise has mobilized two incredibly valuable resources for grassroots organizing: young people and the internet. As the 27 year-old Executive Director of Sunrise, Varshini talks to Abby about how she fell into organizing, and the event that put Sunrise on the map: a 2018 sit-in in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office that became a global sensation (they were joined by new-and-not-yet-sworn-in Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). As a result of the viral event, Sunrise’s visibility ballooned, and in 6 months they grew from 20 local chapters nationally, to over 350. Varshini talks about the challenging task of converting energy and ideals into concrete policy wins, and how two years as a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party earned her a seat at the table in the halls of power. Also, Abby reflects on how Sunrise has overcome some of the miscalculations of past environmental movements and offers Varshini some unsolicited advice from a surprising source.
Varshini Prakash on Twitter: @VarshPrakash
SHOW LINKS:
The Sunrise Movement
Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can
Watch the sit-in at Nancy Pelosi's office in 2018
The Sunrise Movement Actually Changed the Democratic Conversation. So What Do You Do For a Sequel? (Politico)
How Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders joined forces to craft a bold, progressive agenda (Vox)