Free Republic

When I was about 15 years old, I star­ted organ­iz­ing around climate change, work­ing with friends to organ­ize teach-ins at high schools and middle schools around the region. At 18, I atten­ded the United Nations Climate Confer­ence in Peru in 2014, the meet­ing that preceded the Paris climate summit, where a land­mark global agree­ment on climate change was signed. If I could go back in time, I would have never atten­ded the confer­ence — it aroused in me an over­whelm­ing feel­ing of power­less­ness and hope­less­ness that led me away from the climate move­ment for years. The huge jump in scale...