On Earth Day, youth activists can change the narrative

In 1969, Denis Hayes was 25 years old in grad school. After just one semester and a 15-minute meeting with Sen. Gaylord Nelson in Washington, D.C., Hayes traded in his academic books for a picket sign and became a central organizer of the nonprofit group Environmental Teach-In, Inc., which would found Earth Day in 1970.

After the first Earth Day, a momentous accomplishment in and of itself, Hayes and his colleagues continued their activism by campaigning against the “Dirty Dozen” of incumbent anti-environment congressmen. Ultimately defeating seven out of the 12 congressmen, the group’s advocacy was also integral to the passage of the Clean Air Act shortly after the 1970 midterm elections.

Today, youth activists are following in Hayes’s footsteps to be the driving force behind environmental activism in the United States and abroad. Fifty years after the first Earth Day, in a January 2020 poll, 80% of voters aged 18 to 29 said that global warming is a “major threat to human life on earth.” In February of last year, 77% of right-leaning 18- to 35-year-olds said climate change is important to them, highlighting the cross-partisan nature of the youth climate movement.