Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.July 26, 2018
😈 Gen Z are Lazy, Entitled and Pollution Hating Jerkz Not sure if you've heard, but there’s a new cult in town. It’s run by teenagers who want climate justice and a livable future. Sounds scary!
Zero Hour 🌎 is a climate group led by youth of color from different parts of America. Understanding that combating climate change requires urgent action, they recently released an ambitious
platform of demands that outlines what different levels of the government must do in order to safeguard their future. Last Saturday, they held marches across the country, which received overwhelming support from parents, scientists, celebrities, politicians and other climate groups.
But not, surprisingly from the shrinking tribe of
climate deniers 🙉 🙊 🦕🦖 . The planet's actually really cold, schooled a few anonymous experts. It’s a hoax, yelled others. What snowflakes, said some others who clearly like being original. In response to the youth's brave stand last weekend, the
denier blogger community mainly screamed back that teenagers are being brainwashed, exploited and indoctrinated to believe lies about climate change. (
We’ve heard those talking points before. Remember the shameful piece in the Federalist about children victimized by gun violence?)
Watts Up With That featured a guest post (or rather two lines followed by copy-pasted content) complaining that “c
limate indoctrination”
begins at a very young age.
Ed Straker 🦕 from American Thinker wrote a blog post to share his belief that Zero Hour is a doomsday cult with a “militantly brainwashed doomsday leftist” leader. Apparently, Straker is very scared of
16-year-old founder Jamie Margolin 🦅 . Margolin, Straker writes,"may seem young, but never forget that many of the Red Guards in Mao's China who committed unspeakable atrocities were young, too.” Straker never gets around to really explaining how Zero Hour is a cult, but does complain that Margolin doesn’t smile enough. (Again, very original stuff.)
Fire up your tiny violins for Straker's next complaint: he notes that the group doesn’t appear to be led by men, especially white men. “Are boys not as easily brainwashed as girls?” he wonders. (We're...not going to touch that one.)
But easily the
most prolific hater of the youth climate march was blogger
Tom Nelson 😈, who repeatedly barraged the Zero Hour teen team with denier tweets, calling them brainwashed, a scam and BS, anti-science, and so much more.
He 🦖 even gloated that there was low turnout as videos showed the youth resiliently rallying and marching in the pouring rain. We've got a sneaking hunch Nelson might have been a big old bully in high school the way he keeps attacking these teens.
Unfortunately, 2018 seems to be the year of
militant attacks from the right 😈🦖 against young people doing their best to preserve their future. At least there are school kids like those in
Zero Hour giving us hope. The Zero Hour team prepared this platform after carefully reviewing the requirements in the Children’s Climate Lawsuit against the federal government. The demands of this landmark lawsuit form the basis of our platform because these requirements follow what scientists have told us is necessary to safeguard our future on this planet.
Our platform also specifies the need for climate justice, including equity, racial justice, and economic justice. For example, we include the necessity of protecting and supporting treaty rights because treaty rights are the only truly
rigorous laws already in place that protect the land, the water, the wildlife, and the people. Historically, treaty rights have not been enforced or respected due to racism and colonialism. This demands a change. Treaty rights are fundamental to achieving climate justice and climate justice benefits all people, including all races, classes, genders, sexual orientations, religious faiths, and all species. Zero Hour believes that no one should be left behind.
Our platform’s demands are mostly directed towards the federal government. However, we want all elected officials at state, county, city and other local levels to use this platform as their guide to take action in the capacities they can. A just transition requires action at local levels that we have outlined in our just transition document.
We have included strict deadlines in this platform because this is Zero Hour. We must take rapid action to protect our future. However, for a just transition to be truly just, it requires time to ensure that we include everyone and leave no one behind. That is why 2040 is our just transition deadline.
These demands are also directed towards the people, because Zero Hour believes that the people cannot wait for elected officials to take action. The people must act and Zero Hour shares this platform as a way for the public to
understand what is actually required to protect life and achieve justice on this planet.
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/pathway/
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/
@ThisIsZeroHour
#ThisIsZeroHour
ThisIsZeroHour.org
http://thisiszerohour.org/files/FurtherInfo_ZH.pdf
PLATFORM DOCUMENTS
People’s Platform
Letter to Politicians
Our Guiding Principles
Just Transition