By Jessica Goodheart for Capital and Main.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Capital and Main-Public News Service Collaboration
When Chevrolet debuted the Volt, a plug-in hybrid, back in 2011, Brett Beard began installing chargers in the homes of Southern California's electric vehicle early adopters. It was a niche group. "We were in movie stars' garages," remembers Beard.
Now the state is expected to need more than 1.2 million chargers by 2030 to meet the fueling demands of the 7.5 million electric vehicles anticipated to be on California roads, according to the California Energy Commission. The work of building out California's EV charging infrastructure has become essential to meeting the state's climate goals and to alleviating the "range anxiety" of a broader public traversing the state in their battery-powered cars.
The hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars budgeted to create that infrastructure also represent jobs for the union electricians at Beard's Santa Fe Springs contracting company, as well as thousands of electrical workers across the state. In the next eight years, according to one estimate, 2,609 California electrical workers, or 6.8% of the existing electrical workforce, will be employed in installing EV chargers.
With this sudden boost in spending, labor and environmental advocates have been working to pair public investment in EV infrastructure with training standards as a way to ensure the quality of the work and high road jobs. Assembly Bill 841, sponsored by California Assemblyman Phil Ting in 2020, requires at least a quarter of certified electricians on publicly funded or authorized projects to have participated in an 18-hour course, known as the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP). The skills requirement represents a broader effort by labor advocates to attach credentialing standards to jobs related to climate investment.
Beard took part in the early version of EVITP back in 2012. It was invaluable instruction at a time when the technology was little understood by his colleagues. "Electricians have pickup trucks," he points out. "They don't have electric vehicles."
Beard has since taken the class several times more as the technology has evolved. He and other supporters of the requirement say it is necessary to ensure that vehicle charging is both safe and reliable. Beard is watching the move to electrify heavy-duty trucks and school buses, as well as the development of "bidirectional" charging that allows car batteries to send electricity back to the grid. Charging stations with as many as 20 dispensers all powered by one large charger are on the horizon. "So you're talking about a huge voltage," similar to a battery storage system, says Beard. As increasing power demands are placed on the charging infrastructure, "Having the EVITP is going to save lives," he adds.
The requirement that at least a quarter of electricians on publicly funded jobs take an online class at a cost of $275 may seem like an uncontroversial proposition. But not everyone is enthusiastic. The Electric Vehicle Charging Association (EVCA), an industry group that represents companies like ChargePoint, initially opposed the requirement before withdrawing its opposition in 2020. Reed Addis, manager of EVCA, says his members remain "cranky" about the obligation placed on them. "We don't know of shoddy electrical work or shoddy installation work that would require this. So from our perspective, it was like, where's the impetus for this policy?"
The EVITP was launched in 2012 after a series of reports of electric cars catching fire. Some of those fires originated in the vehicle, but others started in the electrical systems of the buildings where cars were charging, leading to a recognition by the auto manufacturers that the electricians who were installing charging stations needed better training, according to Bernie Kotlier, national co-chair of EVITP. Based in Michigan, the nonprofit that runs the training program is guided by electrical contractors, electricians, first responders, utilities, electric vehicle makers, EV charging manufacturers and others.
Kotlier says there is no central repository of code violations, electrocutions, fires or deaths related to installation errors. Still, over the years, there have been scattered press reports of fires that have broken out while cars were charging that have not been battery-related.
In 2020, a child suffered minor injuries after a fire erupted in a Cerritos, California, garage where a Tesla was charging; it was thought to be related to the home's aluminum wiring. In 2019, a fire erupted in San Antonio, Texas, due to an overloaded electrical system. Such press reports about fires connected to electrical vehicles, however rare, also set back the industry, says Kotlier, who is also an executive director on the Labor Management Cooperation Committee of IBEW and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) California & Nevada. He says there are 2,300 EVITP-certified electricians across California, already enough to meet the state's infrastructure goals.
The EVITP program is supported by the 750,000-member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, though it is not a union program. Kotlier is keen to point out that participants need only be state-certified electricians to be eligible for an EVITP certification. There are other pathways to become certified besides the union's apprenticeship programs.
Yet some supporters see the EVITP requirement as a way to maintain job quality standards at a time when the move away from fossil fuels could cost middle-class jobs at refineries, power plants and in the auto industry. The goal should be to show "that the clean economy is better than the dirty economy that we have," said Marc Boom, director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "That transition is not going to be complete until there are good, high-quality jobs that come along with it."
The national environmental group joined the electricians' union in February in urging Congress to include an EVITP certification requirement in the Build Back Better Act. The Biden administration is recommending the program as a way to ensure "safe and high quality" workmanship under the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is expected to fund 500,000 EV charging stations nationwide at a cost of $7.5 billion.
Carol Zabin, an economist with the UC Berkeley Labor Center's Green Economy Program, explains it this way. The EVITP program is "basically building on the state-certified apprenticeship system," an earn-while-you-learn workforce training system that combines classroom training with years of on-the-job training. "Certification can really support good wages, and it does identify skills that help employers know what they're hiring," says Zabin.
But EVCA's Addis sees the EVITP requirement as "elitist" and costly at a time when the industry is trying to make electric cars as affordable as possible. "Because they've picked this particular program, given it a monopoly, you're not going to see as many people of color being able to participate and get that type of training," says Addis, who complained the test is hard to access for those in rural areas.
There is no data available about the demographics of EVITP-certified electricians in California, according to the California Energy Commission. The CEC has recently partnered with California community colleges to offer EVITP exams in rural areas of the state. Previously, the test was offered only in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
Diana Limon, dressed in a pale gray suit, is businesslike and direct. She's the training director for the largest school for electricians in the nation: the Electrical Training Institute of Southern California (ETI) in Commerce, California. The facility is jointly run by NECA and IBEW Local 11, whose jurisdiction covers auto-centric L.A. County. (Note: IBEW Local 11 is a financial supporter of this website.) The apprentices at ETI look a lot like the county, except there are more Latinos and fewer whites and Asian and Pacific Islanders. The current class of about 1,900 is 69% Latino, 9% Black, 4% Asian and Pacific Islander and 17% white. About 125 IBEW apprentices completed the EVITP program last year. They will receive their EVITP credential once the state fully certifies them as electricians.
"I think for us it's always about raising the standards," Limon says of EVITP. "When we do something wrong, people can be shocked, they can be electrocuted, or somebody else can be injured as a result of that, or there could be fire. So public safety is important to us and the safety of our members is important to us."
The Electrical Training Institute is located in the solar and battery-powered building where Frank de Leon apprenticed as an electrician beginning in 2004. He said he first learned about the possibility of becoming an electrician through the union's 2nd Call program, which sends members into the prisons to do outreach. "The union electrician job was like a dream come true for me," says de Leon, who thinks his basic math and interview skills helped him land the apprenticeship.
Now he's an EVITP-certified foreman with a union electrical contractor that specializes in EV charging. He says he will soon be installing 40 chargers at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County, where he was confined for 25 months in the late 1990s.
Jessica Goodheart wrote this article for Capital and Main.
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By Elizabeth McGowan for Energy News Network.
Broadcast version by Kathryn Carley for Virginia News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
As warnings about escalating climate disasters proliferate, it's tempting to pull the bedcovers up - way high - and stay in the dark.
Aware of that urge to hide, a nimble Charlottesville nonprofit has an antidote for the disheartened. The Community Climate Collaborative, or C3, is inviting Virginians to peek at its early success in weaning local businesses from fossil fuels.
Together, 16 members of the Green Business Alliance pledged last spring to cut their carbon pollution by 45% by the end of 2025. Just a year in, the alliance is upward of halfway there - already achieving a 28% reduction.
Thus far, calculations reveal that members have stopped spewing the equivalent of 4,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which translates to removing 1,000 cars from roadways for a year.
"C3 is tiny, but we're trying to contribute," emphasized Coles Jennings, the nonprofit's director of corporate sustainability. "There's just too much urgency to the problem."
Alarmingly, business operations overlap with more than 65% of Virginia's greenhouse gas footprint via transportation, manufacturing or commercial building energy use, according to Jennings' review of state Department of Environmental Quality inventory numbers.
Jennings doesn't pretend that a relatively puny carbon curtailment in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains will solve the global climate crisis. But, he noted, the alliance's esprit de corps can provide a glimmer of optimism.
That's why C3 aims to widen its regional reach and eventually duplicate its model statewide.
"These businesses are doing something that's really hard," said Jennings, who joined the C3 staff in December. "By taking action, members become a collective business voice for climate. Then they feel more comfortable speaking out.
"That's when they become influencers, pushing for climate measures."
Jennings, a professional engineer, said serving as a sustainability coach for alliance members has been the thrill of his energy consulting career because of their open-mindedness and commitment to progress.
For instance, he pointed to the willingness of InBio to follow through on recommendations suggested by an energy audit. By upgrading its heating and cooling systems, the professional laboratory services company trimmed its gas consumption by 40%.
"That was super validating for me," said Jennings, who conducted the InBio audit as a freelance contractor in 2019. "I know we're not reversing climate change with one company's gas usage, but it was a really cool personal moment."
He also boasted about how The Center at Belvedere, a nonprofit community gathering place for seniors, constructed a new airtight facility that's 2.5 times as large as its old one, with the same carbon footprint.
On the renewable energy front, half of the alliance members have added a total of 640 kilowatts of solar arrays to their properties.
One of Jennings' favorite tales entails Tiger Fuel, a family-owned fuel distribution company that has, perhaps counterintuitively, championed eco-values by announcing it had acquired a solar company at the alliance's May 2021 launch in Charlottesville.
It's an unlikely avenue for a company that distributes heating oil and propane gas and operates a network of gas stations, car washes and convenience stores.
"Lots of companies in their shoes would look at climate action as a threat to their business and actively resist it," Jennings said. "But instead, they're asking how they can get ahead of it."
'Busy as all get-out'
Life has been "busy as all get-out" in the year since Tiger Fuel purchased Charlottesville-based Altenergy and grew to 363 employees. The latter, rebranded as Tiger Solar in February, has offices in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C, Idaho and Michigan.
"We are absolutely happy we did it and also proud," President Gordon Sutton said about branching into solar. "I don't see a lot of people scrambling to do what we've done. It's never been our intent to be a pioneer. It just felt right for us."
C3 first invited Tiger Fuel to the alliance table due to its decades of service in the region and its serious approach to reversing climate change.
As teens, Gordon and his younger brother, Taylor, had pumped gas, checked oil, and cleaned windshields as their father, David, guided the morphing of the company beyond service stations and fuel delivery. The sons both returned to Tiger Fuel after post-college adventures.
Six years ago, Gordon and Taylor, now chief operations officer, figured solar arrays would match Tiger Fuel's ideals when the price of panels and federal tax credits aligned to fit their finances.
By 2018, they hired neighboring Altenergy to install 17.5 kilowatts atop one store and two canopies sheltering gas pumps.
The brothers are in the midst of having Tiger Solar bedeck a mix of car washes, canopies, stores and one bulk facility with at least another 500 kW. Tiger Fuel would do 100% coverage, but not all canopies can support the weight of arrays and the company doesn't own the real estate at all 11 stores.
Gordon Sutton praised C3 for holding Tiger Fuel accountable for slicing its carbon footprint during a hectic year. The nonprofit deserves credit, he said, for strengthening bonds among enterprises that are secure enough to act quickly and ask one another for environmental advice.
For instance, Tiger Solar has completed a pair of solar installations - one 170 kW, the other 111 kW - at two Staunton dealerships owned by fellow alliance member Carter Myers Automotive.
"It's kind of fun to be engaged in an industry where there's so much tailwind," Sutton said about the solar side of his venture. "It feels like every time we do a project, it's received with a lot of fanfare.
"People are paying more attention because, as a company historically engaged in the distribution of fossil fuels, we're a bit of an outlier."
Still, while the laurels are welcome, the darts can sting. Sutton said he's aware some solar competitors have tried to undermine Tiger Fuel's newest venture as a green sheen exercise.
"This is not some sort of hocus-pocus greenwashing thing," Sutton said about the dedication of Tiger Solar's 50 or so employees nationwide. "This is real people doing real stuff in real time."
Altenergy, founded in 2004, had completed 1,700-plus solar projects totaling at least 42 megawatts. Tiger Solar has added 2.8 MW to that figure.
Sutton views that growth as a baby step. He is intent on extending Tiger's Virginia reach and also convincing owners of other competing fuel distributors, gas stations and convenience stores to join his solar fold.
"We are having conversations," he said. "None has yielded big results yet, but I'm confident they will."
Next? An appetite for more
C3 was adamant about crafting a program centered on smaller businesses because those with fewer than 500 employees are the backbone of Virginia's workforce.
The alliance also includes for-profits Red Light Management, WillowTree, Harvest Moon Catering, Quantitative Investment Management and accounting firm Hantzmon Wiebel; clean energy developers Apex Clean Energy, Sigora Solar and Sun Tribe Solar; Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital and nonprofits Legal Aid Justice Center and CFA Institute.
Luring them to become the alliance's "freshman class" began with relationship-building because it's not every day businesses trust a climate organization with their utility bills.
Energy usage metrics mined from those bills guided the individualized "emissions diet" plan for each business. Each participant began with a different baseline so they wouldn't lose credit for pre-alliance improvements.
Jennings is C3's chief data collector and reviewer responsible for providing participants with reports and updates.
"What's really exciting and unique is the community focus and flavor that's missing in the Fortune 500," he said. "We're bringing in a whole range of businesses that otherwise wouldn't touch this stuff because they don't have the staff to do this type of analysis."
Jennings is fully aware some communities become hamstrung on climate action because well-intentioned and well-researched promises never evolve into doable plans. It can be an arduous and exasperating chore.
However, he figures his nonprofit's endeavor will only boost area efforts to curb emissions. Alliance members are crucial players if Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County are to slice planet-warming emissions by 45% (relative to 2011) by 2030.
With such an enthusiastic inaugural membership, Jennings is convinced the project will expand even after the final emissions measurements are released in spring 2026.
"They have such a common thread and an appetite," he said. "My hope is they'll ask 'What's next?' after outgrowing the core mission pledge."
Eventually, he envisions cracking tougher nuts, such as converting fleets to electric vehicles and forming overarching climate action plans that extend beyond carbon footprints.
In the meantime, he wants alliance members to buckle down on energy audits so they can maximize every electron of efficiency instead of leaping immediately to sexier solar.
"I came across this quote somewhere and use it all the time," he said. "'You have to eat your energy efficiency vegetables before you get your solar dessert.'"
Elizabeth McGowan wrote this article for Energy News Network.
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New Mexico residents have two weeks to submit written comments to the Environmental Protection Agency about its proposal to implement stronger standards aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas wells.
Sister Joan Brown, executive director of New Mexico's Interfaith Power and Light, has been advocating for tougher rules for decades. Along with others, she spoke at this month's EPA hearings, and said many speakers were confused by the government's inaction.
"It gets difficult when you're working with ordinary people, and ordinary people of faith, and they say, 'Well, we already did this - isn't that done yet? Why does this take so long?' We need to move on this and quickly," she said, "and we can't have any more delays."
The world's largest methane cloud hangs above Farmington and the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico in the San Juan Basin. The state also is affected by methane from the Permian Basin, an oil-and-gas-producing area in the state's southeastern corner, on the border of West Texas.
Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson said he thinks it's important for the EPA to do more to fight climate change as a national-security issue. He said the country's reliance on oil and carbon-based fuels could be reduced if more states turned to renewable forms of energy "that provide opportunities to develop a truly 'green' economy that'll put a lot of the people that are presently working in coal mines and in the oil industry, put them to work installing solar panels and wind turbines."
Brown said flaring - the process of burning, rather than capturing methane - is always a major concern, along with aging equipment.
"We go to the Southeast, the Permian Basin a lot, and we see storage tanks that are just corroding and tanks that had huge gaping holes in the top," he said, "and as we have more and more storage, and also older infrastructure, that's a huge problem."
Brown said her faith community would like to see approved monitoring technologies and subsequent data made available to the public, so more people know what's going on and can better engage.
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By Marianne Dhenin for Prism.
Broadcast version by Eric Tegethoff for Oregon News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
As local governments look to channel thriving climate justice youth movements toward civic engagement and policymaking, dozens of city governments around the country are establishing programs that give youth an opportunity to influence municipal decisions addressing climate issues. These programs—which have sprung up in San Antonio; Portland, Oregon; and elsewhere—also offer students training and networking opportunities, teach practical skills, and will hopefully open new career paths for the next generation of climate leaders.
“It is not just giving youth a seat at the table; it’s about youth being active participants with the adults in the conversation [and] the action that comes after that conversation,” says Nancy Deutsch, director at Youth-Nex, an interdisciplinary center to promote effective youth development housed at the University of Virginia.
It’s unclear, however, how much youth councils are actually affecting larger public policies implemented by adults in municipal government. While these programs are meant to encourage youth participation and investment in policymaking, Deutsch stresses that “the onus [is] on the adults to demonstrate that they have changed how they make decisions and to document how the system has changed as a result of the youth council.” The success of youth climate council programs ultimately depends on how they affect the skills and attitudes of participants, as well as whether the councils’ suggestions end up shaping city policies and practices.
Success requires support and inclusion
Youth councils can take many forms, but organizers say that what makes them effective is transparency and clarity about the scope of their role as part of local government and the degree of autonomy and oversight they require. Deutsch says that the development stage is critical to organizing a successful youth council because it needs a solid foundation and clearly defined role and responsibilities from the outset.
“Before starting a council, the city should have outlined what the council members will do, how their ideas will be put into practice, and what their power is within the city government and policymaking system,” Deutsch said.
On the San Antonio Mayor’s Youth Engagement Council, Austin-based nonprofit EcoRise is responsible for much of this work. It facilitates the youth council with support from the mayor’s office, the Office of Sustainability, and the Hollomon Price Foundation. Administrators at EcoRise select council members through an application process, and councilors serve for one academic year and attend at least two monthly meetings. The major components of the San Antonio council are standardized and include a speaker series, student projects, and facetime with municipal leaders to give council members a chance to influence decision-making and hold leaders accountable for their action or inaction on climate change.
“Students are being directly connected to not only professionals and organizations, but members of the Office of Sustainability and the mayor as well,” says Laura Fuller, communications and design manager at EcoRise. “It was really powerful to see last year. They were grilling [the mayor] and really wanting to know answers and see accountability.”
Over in Oregon, the Portland Youth Climate Council is much more diffuse. Members do not serve fixed terms, the recruitment process is informal, and access to municipal leaders is less direct. Since joining last year, 14-year-old Joel Guren says the group has discussed significant issues, including Portland’s pedestrian design guide update and the need to improve Portland’s urban tree canopy. Without a strong support structure however, Guren says that the youth council struggles to get through to city leadership.
“It’s a group that was created to advise the city council, but they’ve kind of forgotten about us,” they said.
Portland City Council did not respond to inquiries by press time.
Detajha Woodson, Youth-Nex’s program and outreach associate, is establishing a youth council in Charlottesville, Virginia, to integrate the perspectives of young people in developing youth-oriented programs at Youth-Nex. She hopes to set a foundation for equity and inclusion of marginalized students, particularly students of color, that flows upward from the recruitment stage. Woodson has designed an application with open-ended demographic questions and questions about what issues applicants most want to address in their communities, which will help the Youth-Nex team select councilors who represent diverse communities and needs.
“I want this to be very inclusive, very diverse,” she says.
Deutsch and Woodson agree that compensating students for their time is essential to building an inclusive program because it shows students that their time is valued and makes serving on a council more feasible for participants from low-income backgrounds. But Woodson noted that it can be complicated to pay students when information like social security numbers or other forms of personal documents are required to do so—that kind of information requirement can exclude or deter students based on their immigration status.
Students on the San Antonio council will be compensated for the first time during the 2022-23 school year. Brittany Jayroe, director of youth programs at EcoRise, says students will be paid stipends “in the way that best fits their needs to remove barriers to participation.” EcoRise also offers its youth council application materials in both English and Spanish to make them accessible to a greater number of potential applicants.
After joining a youth council, students also need a solid mental and emotional support structure to facilitate their work. Accommodations such as flexibility for councilors who work part-time jobs, have caretaking responsibilities, or just need to take some time off to focus on coursework can encourage participation. Some youth council programs have built-in counseling services, but in San Antonio, staff at EcoRise often fill this role in a less official capacity.
“When I felt really overwhelmed and just very stressed by the content of the program [or] just because of all the things going on in my life, when I’ve reached out to Sharon [Huerta] and other members, they’ve been really helpful and always there to support us,” said 16-year-old Caroline McGuire.
Youth councils are proactive, but do city officials pay attention?
While the structure of the San Antonio program allows youth council members direct access to municipal leaders, administrators at EcoRise say it has been hard to gauge the youth council’s influence on city decisions. During the program’s first year, students were tasked with developing policy proposals and presenting them to the city council. Fuller says it isn’t apparent whether the policymakers incorporated student ideas into their work.
“I’ve reached out to the city myself to ask like, ‘What’s up? What happened?’ and haven’t gotten a response,” she said.
San Antonio City Council did not respond to inquiries by press time.
Portland’s youth council is facing similar struggles, particularly with its relationship to the rest of the city’s officials. Despite the Multnomah County and City of Portland’s 100% renewable energy by 2050 resolution including a clause to create the youth climate council, Guren says the council is treated like any other outside organization.
“I would like it if they treated us as more a part of things, instead of just another organization that’s helping against climate change,” they said.
Regardless of city officials’ lack of response to youth councils’ input, organizers are still moving forward and focusing on improvements. Before inaugurating its second cohort, program administrators at EcoRise decided to shift gears. Huerta, an EcoRise education specialist, says that this past academic year there was “more of a focus on research-based projects and doing more hands-on work.”
This decision was partly in response to the ambiguous response of city officials to the previous year’s policy proposals. EcoRise also wanted to embrace Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), an “innovative approach to positive youth and community development based on social justice principles in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, their communities, and the institutions intended to serve them.”
Deutsch says YPAR is an excellent tool for youth councils “because it both centers young people’s experiences and definitions of issues and engages them in not only researching the issues but in constructing potential solutions.”
The projects that San Antonio youth councilors developed and implemented this year followed this model. They were grouped under the themes of community health, biodiversity, food security, transportation, and recycling and waste management. McGuire worked with four other youth councilors on the community health team to develop a workshop to support vulnerable communities in Westside San Antonio.
“The major thing that we did was to distribute a survey and then get data from that to understand what the community needs,” they said. “We asked mostly open-ended questions. We wanted people to really tell us their experiences living in the area and where they see their needs are not being met.”
The food security team also tailored its project to support underserved communities in Westside and Southside San Antonio. Symphany Brietzke, 17, who worked on the project, says she understood the need for material support in the Southside because she lives there and has “seen [the need] firsthand.” For Brietzke, the resources made available through the youth council made it possible for her to support her vulnerable neighbors. After conducting research about community needs, the team collected food and hygiene product donations and built two “Little Free Pantries.” Modeled after Little Free Libraries, community members can take food or supplies from these stocked boxes in public parks that are maintained by local park staff.
Going forward, Huerta says EcoRise is “looking at reflections and lessons learned of how we can merge the first year, where we really focused on policy proposals, and also this year, how more research-based action would work.”
The team also hopes to improve communication between youth councilors and city administrators by inviting administrators to council meetings and rolling out a mentorship program to partner students with administrators, allowing them to form stronger relationships.
Guren says that in Portland, the path forward is less clear. Without an active link to city leadership or liaisons like those at EcoRise, the councilors have limited power. As Deutsch pointed out, adults must take an active role in making youth council programs work, and initiative to improve communication will need to come from the city.
Empowering the Next Generation
Despite challenges, youth climate councils in their various forms have significant effects on their student participants. Despite frustrations, Guren says they “really enjoy helping with the climate movement” and that the Portland Youth Climate Council has provided a space to engage with peers and work on issues that matter to them. McGuire also says the experience “has really opened my perspective of what environmental science can look like and my role in this whole climate crisis.”
For Brietzke, who graduated this past summer, her time on the San Antonio youth council shaped her career trajectory. She has her mind set on a degree in biology and plans to continue educating people about climate change-related issues. She got some of her first experience as a public speaker on the topic at an energy and water event at the Tobin Center earlier this year, thanks to youth council connections.
“This is the next generation,” says Fuller. “They’re going to continue to grow up and take on these projects, maybe with even more momentum than they would have if they had not been on the council, and that will bring about real change.”
Marianne Dhenin wrote this article for Prism.
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