By Barbara Lazaridis, Staff Writer
On January 29, 2020, Bryn Mawr students gathered in four different dorms on campus to launch the decade of the Green New Deal. In hopes of growing a movement that has the potential to become key in the politics of the 2020 presidential election, 2471 different launch parties were hosted across the country. During these social gatherings, students watched two short films that explained the Movement’s strategy, talked about their hopes for this new decade, and brainstormed plans to organize.
The Sunrise Movement is a youth-led political grassroots movement that advocates for immediate action on the climate crisis by creating millions of climate-friendly jobs in the process. The organization uses non-violent action to make the climate crisis a key political issue.
The Movement has endorsed Bernie Sanders as a presidential candidate and advocates for the Green New Deal, the policy blueprint which aims to transform the US economy by replacing non-renewable with renewable and sustainable energy by 2030. This proposed legislation is designed to combat the climate crisis and provide security against the negative short-term impacts this drastic change may have. Ultimately, the Green New Deal would lead to the creation of many new jobs. With this opportunity, the deal aims to correct the United States’ foundational economic inequality and discrimination.
The short films shown at Sunrise launch parties, which were distributed the day before by the Sunrise Movement, emphasized the urgency of the climate crisis and the fact that we only have one year to shift the political climate of the US in order to elect a president who will prioritize the climate crisis and instate policies that will meet the scale of the crisis.
A group of dedicated Bryn Mawr students took on the role of climate activism in September 2019 when they began the school’s own chapter of the Sunrise Movement. Since then, they have organized meetings, recruited students to attend important strikes, traveled to Washington DC for a high-risk action, and held several events to spread awareness of the Movement’s goal on Bryn Mawr’s campus.
Image credit: The New Yorker
