Youth-led US climate activists widen focus to fight authoritarianism
Source: The Guardian
Sun 5 Oct 2025 08.30 EDT
As the Trump administration cracks down on both environmental policies and progressive activism, the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate justice organization that popularized calls for a Green New Deal, is widening its mission to fight authoritarianism.
“Every day, Donald Trump is seizing power and shredding the Constitution,” Sunrise’s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, wrote in an open letter to Sunrise members, funders and allies. “What ordinary people do in the coming months will determine whether he and his billionaire cronies can cement their grip on power and turn this country into a playground for the rich and powerful.”
Unlike the majority of Sunrise’s past work, its newer efforts will not necessarily center the climate crisis. But Stevie O’Hanlon, a co-founder and spokesperson for Sunrise, said the projects will aim to build a world where climate action is possible. “In order to win the bold action that we’ll need to prevent climate catastrophe, we’re going to need a country where we have the right to dissent and protest,” she said. “How are we going to win on climate under authoritarianism?”
One key focus will be campus organizing to urge schools to resist Trump’s attempts to control their curricula and rules around political dissent, the letter from Shiney-Ajay says. Another will be garnering rapid responses to the administration’s deployment of troops and immigration policies to cities, and attempts to “infringe on our first amendment rights”. And a third expansion area will be training young activists to “recognize authoritarianism” and resist it using non-violent tactics.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/05/sunrise-movement-climate-activism-authoritarianism
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