Sarah Goodspeed: A Quest to Educating Youth

I was able to connect with Sarah Goodspeed soon after I reached out to her about our potential interview. Of course, I should’ve expected such a quick response, since Sarah has a constant connection with the generation below her. Working to fight environmental injustices that young minorities face and helping young people deal with climate change has helped Sarah keep in touch with youth. Sarah doesn’t just get how to talk with my generation; she knows how to bring us to lead.

On April 24th, 2019, I had the chance to chat with Sarah over the phone about her experiences working to fight environmental injustices. I hoped to uncover some new perspectives about how to take part in environmental justice movements, as well as to better understand how young people can make a difference in society. I know that what Sarah does is extremely important, as she helps to shape the future of many young individuals who feel the need to act and make change now to save their generation’s future.

Sarah Goodspeed is a Youth and Policy Manager at Climate Generation. Although I knew what a Policy Manager’s job might entail prior to my interview with Sarah, I could only guess at what her role could be as a “Youth Manager.” Does she manage people’s days? Does she schedule their meetings? Does she teach kids? It turns out that Sarah does a little bit of everything. Sarah offers mentorship and organization for young people so that they can take action against injustices. Climate Generation helps to teach young individuals about environmental justice and organizes groups of people to lead programs and movements aimed at combating climate change. Sarah’s notion that “Every person has power and should claim their stake in the movement” is a vital message for young people. She follows up on her belief by helping people “claim their stakes” in movements. With the help of the mentorship these young folks receive, they are able to find their voices and share their experiences to make change in the world.

Today, Sarah focuses on mentoring young people who hope to make change and fight against climate change and other injustices in society. However, she did not always have this role. As an undergraduate, Sarah studied at the Scripps College, where she was able to connect with the South Central farm and urban community garden. Unfortunately, the garden was eventually shut down, leading Sarah to realize how important the garden was to the community and how easily an underrepresented population could lose a proactive community center. By campaigning for this community garden, Sarah was able to witness first-hand the impact of a positive program disappearing. As Sarah noted, “Back then, there were not a lot of classes taught about environmental justice, so a lot of what I learned was self-taught.” Because of a lack of availability of an environmental justice education, Sarah’s community experience was key for her. Seeing the community garden disappear opened Sarah up to the world of environmental justice. Little did she know, Los Angeles wasn’t the only place with a lack of environmental justice education.

When she returned to her home state of Minnesota, Sarah quickly noticed a lack of knowledge of environmental justice around her. Few people around Sarah had even heard of environmental justice as a concept, and even fewer had dealt with environmental issues on a personal level outside of the most impacted communities. To address this, Sarah used her experiences and education from California to teach her fellow workers in government about the necessity of understanding the intersectionality and indispensability of different people. While working for the state and county, Sarah used her inside access to broaden her coworkers’ understanding of environmental justice. Her professional connections with state workers made it possible for her to introduce them to an environmental justice lens. But, when she more recently moved to working at nonprofit organizations, Sarah lost this inside power.

In our interview, Sarah noted that there are benefits to working for the state and outside of state-run organizations. While working for the government, Sarah had more power to make change. However, Sarah also felt that the state often used their power to “push issues into different areas without realizing intersectionality.” Therefore, it was often hard for Sarah to sway the people in power to fully realize their impacts on environmental injustices. Working for nonprofits is hard as well because Sarah has less access working from the outside. Yet, Sarah gets to connect with the community at a closer, more personal level than before, which helps her better understand the issues that the community faces.

Now, Sarah works at Climate Generation, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate and organize the youth to combat climate change. Sarah works as a Youth and Policy Manager, organizing and mentoring high schoolers about how to engage with community leaders. She works with local teachers to develop curriculums for teaching kids about climate change and environmental justice. Sarah also connects with government agencies to help the youth have their voices heard on larger stages. Sarah works with Youth Environmental Activists of Minnesota (YEA! MN) which recently focused on Minnesota Can’t Wait, which is a campaign that works to create a clean, equitable environment in Minnesota. As stated on their website, the program involves “Visiting and listening to people, business, and communities impacted by climate and environmental injustice, and having tough conversations with all clean energy stakeholders.” These goals demonstrate the need to listen to people impacted by environmental justice issues, rather than having other people making decisions on the behalf of those affected by injustices. Sarah is also an advocate of the Green New Deal, and she interacts with the community to help them better understand the benefits of the deal and the need to go out and support it. Sarah continues to make inroads for young people to make change by supporting important policies and by teaching these people how to take action themselves.

It is hard to pinpoint an exact issue that has inspired Sarah, as she works in so many programs and works with a variety of young people, meaning that she is always trying to solve a unique injustice. While it is hard to identify just one injustice that Sarah works against, I would say that the most relevant injustice that Sarah deals with on the most frequent basis is climate change and how it affects young people of color. Sarah acknowledges that climate change is the biggest issue we face today, and that the people most affected by climate change are marginalized youth. Sarah works with these youth as they find their powerful voices. Sarah has a role in fighting climate change because young people often want to see change, but because they are young, they do not have access to power and may need help taking action. This is where Sarah helps, as she mentors and organizes the youth in their movements and through innovative and collaborative programs.

It is important to look at the history of climate change and how it has impacted youth and minorities to understand why Sarah’s work is so important. In a Minority Rights briefing by Rachel Baird, the author of the book Climate Change and Minorities, she acknowledges that “The close relationship of some indigenous peoples and minorities with their natural environments makes them especially sensitive to the effects of global warming (Baird 1). The history of inequality for minorities in America leads to climate change impacting these communities more than most other communities in the nation. Indigenous people are traditionally more in touch with nature due to their cultural beliefs and historical way of life, so climate change, by changing the land, actively strips away key elements of their culture. In addition, minority communities make up a demographic that is most affected by environmental issues. “Minorities tend to live in places that are worst hit by the impacts of climate change – their poverty exacerbates their vulnerability (Baird 2).” Systemic racism and inequality has pushed communities of color to areas of the United States where they receive the least amount of relief and where poverty leaves them less resilient. Lower quality drinking water, more food deserts, and harsher weather and storm patterns are examples of issues that impact poor and minority communities more than others. Poverty adds to the issues facing minority communities, who already have to deal with discrimination and marginalization. Overall, the history of inequality for minorities in America leads to climate change impacting these communities more than most other communities in the nation.

It is important for Sarah to work with young people of color because they are most affected by climate change. We can analyze how climate change impacts young people by using David Pellow’s four pillars of critical environmental justice: Intersectionality, scale, embeddedness, and indispensability. Minority youth face intersectional issues: they have been historically disenfranchised, traditionally have less power than senior politicians and business workers due to their lack of experience and education, and face high levels of poverty stemming from a lack of support from the government.

The scale of climate change is so huge, and one person cannot make all the change we want to see in the world. So, Sarah works to mentor and mobilize people at a local level. She lifts up voices of those most impacted by climate change to lead solutions that address the intersections they experience. As Sarah explained to me, one of the best parts of her job is that she gets to “work with high schoolers who have never been to the capitol, and helps them to speak to the people who represent them, while being on an equal platform where their voice matters.” Sarah works with local high schools and brings these students to a national platform to make a change on a global level. Sarah can use her privilege and experience to help ambitious activists find their voices to be the next generation to take on the global issue of climate change.

With embeddedness, we see that young minorities are discriminated against and have been throughout history. Young minorities often are the most discriminated against because they represent the future of a “different” population. Out of the minority populations, Native Americans in Minnesota are a specific example of an oppressed group. Throughout history, the government has violently marginalized Native Americans by taking their land and forcing these people onto reservations. As a result, we see high rates of poverty and incarceration in the Native American population. Sarah works to address this by providing mentorship to Native American youth in high school. By helping these young people speak out on their experiences, Sarah helps the Native American youth fight against historical discrimination and the present-day threat of climate change.

Finally, we see indispensability because the minority youth population are seen as more dispensable and less in need of protection than others. Most young people are valued more than people of other ages because they are seen as the future and as innocent people with potential to fill. However, being from a minority population makes these people less valuable to those in charge because they are different. Some even see young people as more dispensable because they lack the full education or experience in the world to be useful. By using David Pellow’s four pillars of environmental justice, we can understand how and why young minority members are most affected by large issues like climate change. Their lived experiences guide the complex solutions that will address the root causes of climate change.

Sarah’s work has a lot of personal benefits, but also has barriers to success. Sarah gets to work with many interesting and ambitious students in Minnesota. Climate Generation helps teenagers plan monthly environmental justice meetings and spreads education about climate change injustices. Sarah’s work can also be challenging. She noted that “teachers might fear bringing climate change in the classroom, but they can gain confidence.” With this newfound confidence, teachers can better understand how to portray environmental injustices and climate change in a more positive light to show students that there is hope at solving these issues. In addition, Sarah recognizes that climate change can be a “really politicized issue, and entering its space can be sensitive.” To solve this, climate change must be discussed more and people must be more open about discussing their experiences with climate change.

Sarah left me with an important message that “mainstream often advocates technological or economic solutions but don’t address root causes such as racism, capitalism, etc. Instead, mainstream solutions are just bandaids that also hurt and cause wounds to be deeper.” “Mainstream solutions are just bandaids that also hurt and cause wounds to be deeper.” This was important to me because it gets at the idea that climate change is not a simple issue, and that the people who have historically discriminated against minorities should not be the people trying to solve the issues that impact minorities the most. Climate change is complex, but it is necessary to talk about it with the people who are most impacted by it, rather than trying to fix it without input and leadership of impacted communities.

After my interview, I can safely say that Sarah Goodspeed holds a vital role in the future of our generation. Because young minorities are most impacted by climate change, they are the ones that desire to make change in the world. When these people are given the power and education to speak on their personal experiences, they can make change. Sarah helps these people realize their importance and indispensability, and trains them to be prepared to stand up to community and state leaders and share their stories. By giving a platform to these young folks, Sarah is helping them save their own generation.

References

Baird , Rachel. “The Impact of Climate Change on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples.” Minority
Rights, Minority Rights Group International, Apr. 2008, Accessed May 7. minorityrights.org/wp-content/uploads/old-site-downloads/download-524-The-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Minorities-and-Indigenous-Peoples.pdf.

“Sarah Goodspeed.” Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy, Climate Generation, 2018, Accessed 24 April 2019. www.climategen.org/who-we-are/our-team/sarah-goodspeed/.

“Take Action.” MN Can’t Wait, Minnesota Can’t Wait, Accessed May 1. www.mncantwait.com/take-action-petition.