Youth climate activists target Republicans in 2024
By Weslan Hansen, American University
NASHUA, N.H. – Adah Crandall came a long way to look Nikki Haley and Donald Trump in the eyes.
“Why are you letting our homes be destroyed in climate disaster?” asked Crandall asked Haley last week at a rally on the eve of New Hampshire’s primary before she was removed by security.
Crandall, 17, traveled across the country from her hometown of Portland, Oregon, where she is an organizer for Sunrise Movement, a national youth movement advocating for political action on climate change.
She was the first of several protestors kicked out of the event. Shortly after she was escorted out, other young protestors stood up and demanded action on climate change.
“How can you look me in the eyes?” asked another Sunrise protestor before being escorted from the room after mentioning Haley accepting campaign donations from companies using fossil fuels.
Two days later, Crandall and her Sunrise colleagues appeared at former president Donald Trump’s rally in Laconia where she echoed similar statements made at Haley’s event.
As she was escorted from the Trump rally, Trump supporters cheered and shouted “get her out.” Crandall said that while standing up to protest at a rally is terrifying, she believes that Trump being reelected is scarier.
“I was shaking in there right before I stood up, but to me, it's absolutely worth it, because it's my values, and it's my future,” she said. “In the state of Oregon, my home is literally on fire from climate disasters. I walk outside my house in the summer, and I'm literally breathing the smoke of wildfires.”
Sunrise Movement, founded in 2015, now has hundreds of hubs across the United States, where they plan to confront Republican candidates about their ties to the fossil fuel industry in the lead up to the 2024 election.
“I believe that young people have the power to change the path of this country, and to do that we need to pass ambitious, bold climate policy,” said Crandall. “So we've been out here confronting Republican presidential candidates about their ties to the fossil fuel industry.”
The Sunrise Movement Instagram account has videos of multiple members disrupting rallies. This strength in numbers behind the movement, Crandall said, has also given her the courage to stand up.
“I might have been one person in there right now,” she said. “But, across the country, we are thousands of young people who will not stand for Republicans and Democrats alike, who refuse to be held accountable to the fossil fuel ties that they have, and the way that they are actively enacting policy that's destroying our futures.”