Liam Castles doesn’t think changing the climate crisis should fall entirely on today’s youth — but that doesn’t mean he isn’t willing to step up and do something about it.
The senior at Cleveland High School is part of the Portland Youth Climate Collective (PYCC), an organization for and led by local high school + college students. Its mission is to mobilize youth leadership through shared learning, collaboration, and mutual care to build a stronger, more inclusive youth climate justice movement in the Portland area.
Liam and JJ Klein-Wolf, a sophomore at Ida B. Wells High School who is also part of PYCC, talked to us about the group’s big upcoming annual event: the 2022 Portland Youth Climate Summit.
Organized in partnership with Portland State University, Portland Community College + Portland General Electric, the summit aims to amplify local youth voices within the climate movement. Anyone can attend the event, which takes place Sat., April 23 at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
If you go, expect to see presentations on topics like transportation justice and coping with environmental anxiety and grief through art. There will be brainstorming sessions about building more climate-friendly communities, and other local environmental organizations will have tables with resources + ways to get involved.
“Often when I talk to other people about climate issues, what I hear from people is often a sort of feeling of hopelessness or feeling of not being able to do anything,” said Liam. “That’s something that, in many ways, we’re trying to directly counteract by giving people things to do — tools that they can use to change the things around them.”
Gen Z is, in many ways, leading the environmental charge. A recent survey found 77% of US teens feel that they have a responsibility for protecting the planet’s future. And if Liam and JJ are any indication, the young people of today are bringing their own unique experiences to the climate crisis arena.
“When I had my bat mitzvah, my main focus just happened to be reading about environmental justice and how ancient Jews used to care for the land,” said JJ. “I’ve kind of taken that value and a lot of other values that I have and brought that into environmental justice work.”
Liam said climate issues have been a part of his life for a long time, and holding an event at OMSI to address them is a full-circle experience.
“Growing up with OMSI and so many different resources around me that had to do with climate change or climate research, even as a little kid, yes it’s scary — but it’s also reality and I didn’t really feel like I really had any other choice but to do something,” he said. Liam added that historic wildfires + smoke are among the direct impacts he’s witnessed on a local scale that have spurred him to action.
It’s important to note that the poll we mentioned above found that just 45% of teens feel political and global leaders are taking meaningful action to protect the environment.
“I think while youth are the only people who have really stepped up to do anything about the climate crisis, it is also not the responsibility of high school students or middle school students to stand up and say that this is something that we should pay attention to,” said Liam. “Ultimately, as much as youth do, as much of a movement as we can create — we need adults too. We need adults to be here and care about the issue and do something about it and without that, it will be so much slower and ultimately we will have a worse world for it.”
If you’re interested in attending the Portland Youth Climate Summit, you’re encouraged to register in advance here. If you’re interested in learning more about PYCC and how to get involved, send an email.