Episode 2: Jamie Margolin

“It’s time to live out youth to power in all its forms. Be the one who stands up and speaks truth to power, even when it is difficult and unpopular. Be the one who draws the line and says, No more. No more destruction of our environment and planet, no more violence in our communities, no more discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or ability. Be the one who dares to imagine and create better possibilities, solutions, and ways of living in place of those old systems that have only harmed us.”

      -   Jamie Margolin, Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It (Hachette Books 2020)

These words of wisdom come from young Jamie Margolin, a high school senior in Seattle.  Jamie sprang onto the national scene in 2018 as a founder and co-executive director of Zero Hour, a climate activist group for young people, run by young people. Zero Hour is aptly named:  it reminds us that we have no time left to mess around - it is zero hour on the climate crisis; we must act now. Jamie and her colleagues organized the first-ever national youth climate march in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2018.  And 2019 was the year the world grasped the scale and severity of the climate crisis in large part due grassroots groups like Zero Hour. 

Jamie  took a break from her high school studies and climate leadership at the end of a long week of Earth Day activism to sit down with the Mother Earth Podcast.  Listeners will be rewarded with a genuine voice of youth concerned about the climate crisis. In our conversation with Jamie, she takes us on her journey from being a thirteen year-old writer for online teen publications to the improbable founding of Zero Hour starting with a social media post, and offers us a timely youth perspective on the climate crisis and the explosion of youth activism.

Jamie also discusses key insights from her new book, Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It, available June 2nd. Since Jamie and her young colleagues had to learn activism the hard way--on the job and on the fly--she now has written the how-to manual for other youth activists. Youth to Power is the book Jamie wishes she had when figuring out how to start and run Zero Hour. This how-to guide is a must read for any young person trying to better their world through activism. It’s chock full of valuable lessons clearly explained, including how to craft a vision, how to organize and run an effective team, handing the press, dos and don’ts of social media, lobbying politicians, managing relationships with corporations, when to rely on adults, balancing activism duties with your studies, and even how to maintain your mental health when taking on the world.  Jamie’s book offers remarkable wisdom for someone her age. And she selflessly shares the limelight by starting each chapter with advice from other youth activists.  Greta Thunberg provides the book’s introduction.

You can learn more about Jamie, Zero Hour and  her work by visiting our website at https://www.motherearthpod.com/ and checking out the show notes for this episode.  For People and Planet, thank you for listening.