our world's climate crisis is a media profound severe and life threatening to much of the world's population resources and species it's killing us and is the greatest threat along with nuclear war to our survival we desperately need a radical magination that is able to grasp and address the issue intellectually scientifically morally politically and economically a tran formative new narrative with practical and concrete policies actions and solutions that can turn the crisis around it's zero hour there are guidelines and lessons from our past that can be beacons for the way forward we've had chances in the past to address these issues and didn't we have to incorporate these same age old lessons now once and for all or else it's zero hour if we look at the ancient insights of torah as rabbi ottawa sco of the shalom center has about healing the relationship of earth and human earthlings there echoed for the earth and its workers from being made to work and of release for debtors from all their debts the torah warns us that if we refuse to let the earth rest it will rest anyway the spite us and upon us through drought and famine and exile that turn an entire people into refugees this ageless warning has now become a crisis of our planet as a whole and of the entire human species human behavior that overworks the earth especially the over burning of fossil fuels has brought about a systemic planetary response that endangers human to human communities and many other life forms as well scientific projections of the future make clear that even worse will happen if we continue with carbon burning business as usual the reverend william barber resurrecting martin luther king's poor people's campaign of one hundred and sixty eight has integrated environmental justice as a major part of the platform racial inequality influences the way we understand climate change and barbara puts it very clearly jesus said love your neighbor i don't care how many times you tell me you love me if you put coal ash in my water you don't love me because if there is nothing wrong with the coal ash then put it in the wealthy communities harbor points to a passage in genesis in which god gives man dominion over the fish of the sea and over the foul of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth but as he further points out dominion in this sense means to care for not destroy the st commandment is to take care of creation to destroy creation is fundamentally a religious it's a violation it's a sin earth is the only place we have to live jesus never said we must help corporations poison the water and barber often wears a sash that reads jesus was a poor man it's zero hour as barber further puts it we should understand the connections between systemic racism poverty ecological devastation the war economy and militarism and an excess of materialism that fosters a distorted moral narrative of christian nationalism there interlocking in the injustices we can't ignore any of them it's zero hour our guest today on the  a terrific young woman who is the founder and co executive director of an international use climate justice movement called you guessed it zero hour that led to the very st use climate march in washington d and more than twenty five cities around the world during the summer of two hundred one thousand she's playing a nd climate summit which will be held this summer july th in miami she's also plaintive on our children's trust use versus gov washington state lawson is suing the state of washington for denying her generation's constitutional rights to a livable environment by continuing to make climate change worse certainly sounds like an interesting lawsuit which we'll all be following jamie is a colombian american writer public speaker and a climate justice organizer and activist in her local community of seattle zero hour is environmentally focused use lead creatively minded and technologically savvy nationwide coalition movement for sounding the alarm and calling for action on climate change and environmental justice they are an inclusive movement taking heed of what we see as the greatest crisis threatening their generation susan adieus to me by my good friends and comrades in the chrono and carol oral from the people's party movement who described her as quote unquote a kick ass latino organizer and activist that i had to have on the show in the four years of doing th so i don't think i've introduced anyone as kick ass i'm very pleased to introduce her as the st and her st book used to power the ultimate guide to being a young activists will hit bookstores worldwide in two thousand twenty and sure that will make her a kickass author too it's a terrific honor and privilege to welcome jamie margolin to the radical magination thank you so much jamie for being here it's really diffe moment in my life that the climate crisis was not looming over me in my entire general it's not like many adults who just learned about it through like an inconvenient truth or just like a single documentary or learned about it very recently this crisis h looming over my life and all the decisions i want to make ever since i can remember as a young person i'm constantly being asked to plan my future what do you want to be when you grow up what do you want to do what college or if you are you going to go to i'm going to my senior year of high school so that means that's going to be asked a lot but it's hard to plan for a future when you don't even know if it's going to exist and like how do you plan for a future on an unloveable planet descending into climate breakdown and climate chaos so i've had that fear looming over me for a long time and it wasn't until about two thousand and sixteen that really when i was fourteen years old that i really started to take action because no one tells young people like myself exactly how to take action there is no expert in struction manual which is  writing the book and there is no no one just tells us how to get involved so i was just there sitting with that worry for a long time until the twenty six thousand election i an e mail popped up around in my inbox i think it was like an automatic  from the democratic national i'm not national democratic seattle campaign headquarters this is around the general election when it was very clear that it was between either don't turn for hillary clinton and to me that was a no brainer so i went and i started volunteering at the democratic campaign quarters in seattle is my st time being a part of something bigger than myself and i was just organizing i became an interim there i was a crack to living in the campaign office and i thought that by doing that work and getting and keeping a climate denier out of office i would be doing my part to stop the climate crisis but that didn't go well and then i later realized that it simply having someone in office who says they believe in climate change is not enough that does not constitute a climate champion and that does not make it enough to stand up this crisis so i joined a local environmental organization here in my hometown of seattle called plant for the planet i around december of two thousand and sixteen i started volunteering our  meetings i started lobbying i started working on local grassroots initiatives here in seattle and really the more i did more i learned the more i realized how urgent this is and the more i realized how bad our politicians actually are at least solving this and how  insufficient even the the climate champions are being on taking action so the more i did the more demar i realized how much more needs to be done and so i did this work for about two years in seattle and known as paying attention to us and no one was really listening there was no press coverage there was no we're working in the shadows pretty much doing the best we could with what we had pretty much working full time outside of myself being in high school  and so i had an idea ever since the st women's march of a youth climate march on washington of young people rising up and demanding an end to business as usual on the climate crisis and a shining light on the injustice that is being done to us that had never been done before like a big mainstream used climate march that has been covered and so i realize i need to to be the one to start it because if i don't who will  for a while i didn't because i was really nervous a national mobilization takes so much work takes so much dedication takes so much effort and i didn't know if i was prepared for that and i didn't know how to do that so i kind of pushed the idea down until about the summer of two thousand and seventeen days hurricanes happened hurricane harvey hurricane and all of these natural disasters that completely devastated so many parts of the world and then to make matters worse here in seattle there was a massive wildfires that happened in canada that blew over seattle and just covered the entire city and smog so the entire city it was almost the our air quality is a worse than beijing china for a few days it was terrible and never experienced anything like that and so all these things added up and it was just a perfect storm of like you know what screw it we have to organize a smart because all of these climate disasters are happening is literally apocalyptic and the media and our leaders are just going on like a large hurricane ok cool we're just going to stand you know they stand the middle of the storm and report it the everything's blooding and all that but they don't actually talk about the climate crisis and and around that same time the united states pulled out of the paris accord so it was then that i just decided to jump in and start organizing zero hour i posted on my social media we were i was going to organize a youth i met march and asked who wanted to join me and a few young people reached out and said i'll join you i'll help one of them which is my current co executor director not even the czar and we just started going from there working from there and so we spent almost an entire year organizing building mobilizing we had nothing no money no notoriety no like none of us come from rich families political families or famous families so there was none nothing to fall back on but just the grit and determination and hard work over the course of a year we built this movement and then on july st of twenty eight we marched on washington and twenty five cities around the world other young people joined us and you're preparing for another one th summer yet in miami and the south with our is used live but it's in our general generational and you do have coalition partners as well know we do we have tons of partners many many organizations work with us and it's intergenerational in that we have adult mentors on our team and anyone can for example for the youth climate summit in miami that is taking place july th through the th anyone can attend of all ages and the way to get in touch with hour as an organization really get involved with the movement go to this is your hour dot org and on there you can register for the summit is not too late i know it's coming up but registration is still open and we still have capacity from our people at to attend so you can register for this time and you can donate because we are a completely grassroots volunteer run organization we have no staff i do not get paid to do this work in fact the haemorrhage money journalists work on the opposite side  and so we really rely on grassroots or nations you can read more about us who are oppressed page you can if you're a press and you want to reach out to us and do an interview with one of the many young people who work with us you can go to the media page and then we're on social media it's just this is your hour twitter and that's how you get in touch with us and we have people constantly monitoring those accounts you can also e mail info at this is your hour dot org if you have a special inquiry or a request for someone from our team or an organization our question so we're very reachable we're very tech savvy so just the internet is the best way to reach us it sounds like that sounds like you and you have this incredible ted talk that we're going to be listening to asus and this is a brilliant talk and it's a little longer than we usually have on the group but it's so incredibly wonderful and ties in the issues of poverty and racism colonialism  patriarchy and so on that what we decide to do is show you on this clip here for the next several minutes to hear you on that here you are on your to talk yes i saw these issues where both addressing the of the climate crisis and solving the social justice issues that oppress us so many people pin the start of the climate crisis to the industrial revolution that was when we started digging for coal mining fossil fuels out of the ground and burning them but it actually started long before that colonization started the climate crisis and all the practices that brought with colonization european settlers destroyed natural habitats hunted species to death centuries with colonialism came the idea that everything on this earth is made for extraction and that everything is to be bought and sold according to an article but early western colonialism and encyclopedia britannica when colonizers arrived to the americas the immediately thought of the way and the water and all of the natural resources in front of them as there is to claim an extract by this entitle me because unless someone had explicitly bought the land with a system of currency they valued and it was seen as free pickings so with colonialism came the idea that nothing not dare not water not trees not animals not a land was sacred or priceless and this mindset is the of how we got to climate disaster so that's why before the st call was mined even before the st factories were opened the seeds for the climate crisis had already been planted and the colonialism that caused the climate crisis is still playing out today for example former colonized countries at the least amount of carbon dioxide but feel the worst effects of the climate crisis and even though yes countries in the global south like india do emit large amounts of it's is because the united states shifts our factories overseas so for people of color can do our dirty work american corporations save money exploiting workers in india and polluting their air water and people while the poor communities are poisoned and suffer rich communities and the united states by these products and enjoy the luxuries of these products without actually having to feel the toxic effects of producing it's the same how long else system of forcing people of color to produce and pay the price for luxuries for those rich white countries colonialism never went away it just evolved and then there isn't that system of oppression very much intertwined with colonialism racism there is compelling evidence that increasing social inequality is linked to environmental degradation and that the health of people of color and those living in poverty is negatively impacted by being exposed to higher levels of environmental pollutants  white wealthy counterparts if you ask majority of fossil fuel projects an energy extraction sites are built in low income communities immigrant communities and communities of color why because these communities are already victims of the racist system of oppression and governments and corporations can exploit their vulnerability a two thousand and eight report coauthored by the n r d c if you data collected over twenty years and found that more than half the people living within two miles of toxic waste of saudis and the united states are people of color are reported two thousand and sixteen by the center for effective government now called the project for governmental oversight found that people of color are nearly twice as likely twice as likely as white residents to live within a fence line zone of an industrial facility the effects of the climate crisis such as extreme weather conditions have devastating consequences for communities of color and low income communities and the aftermath of such disasters efforts to rebuild communities of color and low income communities are often completely inadequate compared to efforts to rebuild a higher income and white community the most powerful example of this in equity is the communities of color in new orleans that were affected by hurricane katrina black homeowners received eight thousand dollars less per family and government aid than white homeowners due to disparities in housing values and two thousand and thirteen but eighty percent of the mostly black residents of the city's lower th ward had not returned to their community to do an adequate recovery and rebuilding efforts by the government none of these examples are quinces because the people of color and immigrants are already victims of racism they're more vulnerable to corporations targeting them because the wealthy white citizens have the money power and our current racist system on their side corporations would not be able to get away with building toxic chemical extraction plants in those wealthy white neighborhoods take for example the zip code to access pipeline a fossil fuel pipeline designed to transport up to half a one million barrels of crude oil daily from north dakota to illinois according c news the construction of the pipeline was originally going to be built through majority white and non indigenous community but when that community rejected it and the interest of protecting their water and the health of their citizens it was then rerouted  indigenous land and even though there was massive pushback against the construction of this pipeline on the secret indigenous land the outcry of the native peoples was ultimately not respected at all and the pipeline was built anyway on the indigenous land prominent activist reverend jesse jackson called the reroute of the dakota access pipeline the right best case of environmental racism i've seen in a long time on top of colonialism and racism there is another system of oppression affecting us patriarchy women are more affected by the climate crisis than met rose's primary caregivers and providers of food and fuel for communities make us more vulnerable when flooding and drought occur according to the c and central africa were to ninety percent of lake chad has disappeared nomadic indigenous groups are particularly at risk as the lake shore line recedes women have to walk farther and farther to collect water for their communities in the dry season many head off to the towns leaving women to take care of their communities with dry seasons now becoming longer and longer due to climate change women are working harder and harder to feed and care for families without support and has less and less resources that's an example of the climate crisis disproportionately affecting women and women being victims of patriarchy having the burden of dealing with the effects of the climate crisis and it falling on our shoulders and it is not just women and rural areas who are affect women are more likely than men to experience poverty and have less socio economic power according to the united nations this makes it difficult to recover from disasters which affect infrastructure jobs and housing to the patriarchal system of oppression that has been holding us back house one thousand years we are more affected by the climate crisis even as we bear the weight of rebuilding and caring for communities after disaster this is how systems of oppression and you're trying with the climate crisis people of color women people with disabilities people with chronic illnesses square people homeless folks everyone who is already oppressed vulnerable and disadvantaged by society by it is just proportionately affected by the climate cris and these same systems of oppression also helped cause the climate crisis now climate change on its own seems like you're such an insurmountable problem by itself factor in the full story of the problem becomes even bigger than that in order to save our lives futures the planet and everything we hold dear change needs to happen on a much bigger scale than we initially thought climate change demands much bigger and harder solutions than we initially thought the media our leaders businesses and global corporations need to address climate change not as a stand alone issue floating separately from everything else but instead as the grand culmination of all our societal injustices that have been building up for centuries and it is our responsibility to stick church to power to call it the systems of oppression and demand the level earth that we all deserve we have to demand that those in power get the roots of the climate crisis and tackle the systems of oppression that caused it in the  articulating the interconnectedness and the more ality the need to bring in the economic political fica logical and more analysis and all all of this so in your mind that starts with the broad solutions on to communities are feeling the worst effects of the climate crisis and giving still giving corporations the ability to keep polluting while these communities still feel the worst effects of the climate crisis and there is continuing of snatching land from indigenous people and violate the continual violation of treaty rights if you're looking for examples of modern day colonialism we keep going into other countries we keep messing messing stuff up there interfering with our military war and then also trying to impose our own solutions on our own like each community knows what's best for itself but here in the united states in a lot of countries you keep trying to impose their practices and everything on to these communities which is extremely harmful and so it's not like we're just recovering from past colonization like people are still being colonized like the colonization is still happening and that we cannot colonize are way out of the crisis caused by colonizing and so when you look at the the people in power the people who have done to colonize ing who support those kinds of policies also proposing climate solutions that kind of maintain the power structure it just doesn't work so a lot of times what a lot of i guess centrist climate solutions solutions are proposing is really trying to solve this issue caused by all these power structures and all this violence maintaining that same system of violence which just doesn't work i like to describe it best this way einstein describes the definition of insanity as trying to solve an issue with the same thing that caused it and that is what a lot of climate communities of all this who gets a social justice impact who gets and so the fact that this bill is being brought by people who are start like the st politicians i feel like who are really understanding that wink and and and how this is going to affect communities is like it's a great start it is ok so there is a certain small group within the political system that you feel you can work with but other than that you're it's going to have to be one local mobilization of people  raising of consciousness and working on it on the part of the local level is that the major thrust at this point and we have to check this issue are all angles there still has to be work on the national level there also has to be at the same time work on the local level when we're in such an emergency it's not an either or kind of thing it's just how much can you do like everyone doing everything as much as they can as fast as they can that's really what emergency response is and what needs to happen what about links to a rather feeble anti war movement in the country is that we're going to show a couple weeks on on that as well but even military industrial complex is very much linked with the climate crisis  so the united states military pollutes more than most small countries combined and so we have to address if we're going to address carbon and the climate crisis it can't just be we can't just pick and choose our about what what's convenient and what we want to address it also means talking about the hard stuff like the fact that our military which continues to colonizing and go in and cause all sorts of problems is also worsening the climate crisis and so that is something that we cannot ignore and that we need to talk about and that we need to we need to work on and kind of address if you like you know it's military glutes more than most small countries combined like that in itself is really something how much i see your movement somehow indorsed a specific candidate yet because i there isn't a candidate obama yes one hundred percent there are some that i'm like absolutely not like no way like joe biden absolutely not he literally wants to find a middle ground between fossil fuel industries which is pretty much just a form of climate denial it's under a lot of like the the other like kind of centrist like guys who are probably not going to make it that long they're just kind of look like every place the white m ever those guys at the debates like i don't one hundred percent know but i feel like there are some candidates that i'm just like i'm kind of waiting and seeing like i'm but kind of waiting and seeing a little a little skeptically because like for example but o'rourke during the debate he was saying that i think that climate change is the most defining issue of our time but he's really only been speaking out about climate change since young people like us in the sunrise movement and zero hour have really been putting pressure and al his like like it's not i'm not going to him personally i'm suing the state of washington along with twelve other young people but like for me i feel like there's hope there and he's like really on to something but i kind of with every candidate they always they have like with most of the can't not every ad like something good but then i always have to hold on to kind of with a grain of take everything with a grain of salt because like within he speaks amazing but then like what kenny do because he's part of the structure of that three the policy not just that but here and here in seattle washington i'm his constituent and like we saw like i haven't seen the progress here so if it can't happen in washington state how's it going  might be participating in our summit and some way and so like for me with these politicians it's a balance of critiquing them but i also like seeing how i can work with them so even politicians that i don't agree with fully or that even i'm kind of in a lawsuit with like n z like i'm still friendly with his campaign staff friendly with him and like kind of seeing what we can do because in the end i don't benefit from picking fights with my leaders it's not fun it's not doesn't help anyone when i have to pick those fights if they're not going to do  so the last two so this this lawsuit actually started even before i came onto it so the lawsuit started about i think it was before the two thousand and sixteen election where young people petitioned the department of ecology to come up with a clean air role and really just take more action on climate the department of ecology was like that's not our job which is hilarious because that is literally in their job description is to protect local environment but ok and so i'm not going to go through like the the back and forth back and write the corporal but pretty much this is the gist of what happened you extend a hand of friendship saying hey government i want to work with you government is just like oh sorry that's not our job you should like ask the courts and or ask someone else like go ask your mom go ask your dad kind of thing and then actor trying to extend the hand of friendship for so long young people like we'll shoot nothing's going to happen we have to we have to move on to a constitutional case of like ok now we're the government because we tried so we tried to work with them like in a friendly way and now we're just like listen you are physically denying our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness by actively making the climate crisis worse and  by continuing to allow fossil fuel projects to be built there was a new era new fossil fuel projects still being built in my home washington there is the tacoma liquid natural gas terminal which is built on indigenous land i'm pretty sure violates the treaty rights but i have to i have built in seattle not in seattle the city itself not the downtown area but like in washington and it's continuing to harm communities continue so how can they do this that is actively deny rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness because without clean air clean water and a live future how are you going to have life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as guaranteed to us in the declaration of independence as well as on the public trust doctrine of the washington state constitution so what happened is we're kind of in the appeal mode now of the case because the it was kind of struck down by the courts to courts did not wall in our favor so now we're appealing that pretty much not letting it go at it trial so it's just been this legal back and forth that's been going on for years and we'll see what happens at that but it's not looking too great right now but we're still fighting all right well you might look into connecting with reverend barber and poor people's campaign because he is in the sense also in the courts on a variety of issues to achieve rights for poor people  voting rights and so on so there's some connections i think that you both have just made reverend william barber of poor people poor people's campaign this is really going to be their national summit right you're going  have people from all over the world who's going to be the how many people are going to you're expecting so we're expecting around two thousand three hundred dollars people maybe four hundred dollars people it really depends it also depends on if you registers so if you want to go to this  young activist fighting for water rights in flint michigan and making sure that we don't forget flint and huge environmental crisis we have some organizers from the bronx from the organization uprose as well as daphne theo's who is a  another kick ass young but you know woman just want a local election and she's twenty one so she's pretty amazing we have this year our team is going to be speaking reading workshops showing people like how to build a movement i will be speaking in my fellow teammates will also be speaking and talking about you know we built this movement from scratch and we had to learn the hard way and so we're helping all the young people and older people they're just giving them all the skills that we've learn my family's home country of colombia who are fighting to protect the amazon call into the summit we have some flying out from uganda for our global panel we have it's just the list goes on and on and on but it will be a web site soon but the point is this is really it's not just another like conference it's show a short little clip to on a little more about your work and the summit perfect us listen jamie as you point out this is really started with just a few people it is grown unbelievably think the real  more and more more and more people because i think that's where the power is going to lie i agree with you at this point the power structure or with other than the few selected politicians it's beyond their see their abilities the strategies of policies that bring more and more people in to protest mode is really what's going to make your movement a success which i believe it can and has to have to be what do you think about  t you mentioned the sunrise movement and france's pivot is really been very prominent in that in that as well you there are yeah yeah sorry i are you familiar with her work and the strategy to desensitize tactics working outside the system to create enough pressure from outside that's really what your our focus is on that  that's the way to fight this we have to be fighting this other different angles so zero are what we do is the mobilization aspect the building public anger public pressure to put on these systems and  institutions of power then there is also the grassroots approach which is like ok what can we do now in our community because while we're waiting for the systems to change because that's going to take a while and we have to actually now then there's a legal approach and  lobbying approach and there's a there's so many approaches have to be taken like that's what i said before everyone doing everything as much as possible so i really i think that strategy is that what we focus on but that's not the sole strategy to and the climate crisis is just what we're you see it as a moral issue one hundred percent it's a moral issue if if you think about like the meaning of life when you think about you know at least the biological meaning which is like to keep your species going forward this is pretty much hitting the self destruct button not only on humanity but for all life on earth and it's just so unfair for my generation to have to live  pretty much be handed down and unlovable planet and on the global future chaos uncertainty violence this is just if you care about life on earth at all you know it's so funny to me as all these pro life politicians will be out here being like oh we care so much to say you're pro life then be consistent like why are you supporting all these wars why are you supporting that as the military industrial complex which is really helping cause the climate crisis and we're going to war over oil a lot of the time which is the climate crisis so it's we're colonizing and ruining the earth and we're creating the whole mess and the climate crisis destroys life on earth it poisons people the fossil fuel industry poisons people kills people kills  animals it's already making people you know refugees all over the world all over the country a lot of people sleep violence at the order crisis right now some of that violence is worsened by you know lack of resources and the climate crisis happening and hitting these countries really really hard and so it's it's really a moral issue which is why i get so disgusted when i turn on the t v and i see all these christian politicians right like that they don't actually align like you like what you are saying to me personally i'm jewish but i am pretty atheistic i'm not very religious but i know a lot about like religion and i study and i go to a catholic school it's a whole thing so i like studying legends even even though i kind of see it from a part because i'm more of religion touting how moral they are and getting up on talk shows me like oh jesus and you know using their religion as it as as an excuse lately for these abortion bans while they support these corporations destroying life follow all life earth and so it's just been really disgusting for to to watch of that if you're going to say that you're a moral person that you're a religious person be consistent with what your religion says because i did hear jesus saying bless it are shell  whatever turn the t v channel and then you forget about it i really want you to see this interview and continue to be engaged and we have zero hour of creative movement where everyone can be engaged of all ages so if you want to connect with me personally for all the work that i do or just hit me up and you can very much tell it's me so just following it shoot me a message and we can talk if you want to get involved a zero hour movement go to this is your hour dot org to register of registration they will pop up on the website go to this is there are a dot org slash miami to learn more about the summit speaking how you can get involved so that way you can register for the summit and i really hope to see everyone as possible in miami we really do and zero hour here to jamie thank you so much