Speak Green • Youth Speaks

Reframing Climate Change Through Culture

CLIMATE CRISIS • MISINFORMATION • ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Problem

Climate change is a global issue that inequitably impacts communities of color through limiting critical analysis of corporate economic systems and educational practices that keep people unaware

Pictured: James Redford (left) and Robert Redford (right) of the Redford Center.

Data

In 2021, at COP26 in Glasgow, the ministers of education recognized “the large remaining gaps in providing everyone with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed to effectively participate in the transition towards climate positive societies.”

40%

of Black populations are more likely to currently live in areas with the highest projected increases in extreme temperature related deaths

43%

of Latinx populations are more likely to currently live in areas with the highest projected reductions in labor hours due to extreme temperatures

84%

of parents support climate change education in U.S. public schools

75%

of U.S. public school science teachers cover climate change in their cirriculums

100

companies make up 70% of global greenhouse emissions

53%

of the world’s national education curriculum reference to climate change, and as a low priority

Solution

Speak Green engages youth artists in a cultural strategy that places them in direct conversation with policymakers and institutions actively impacting climate change.

In 2006, Youth Speaks partnered with the Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve and the US Green Building Council engaging Black, Indigenous, Asian American Pacific Islander, Latinx and Arab poets aged 13-25 to shift the narrative towards green economies and the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities of color across the United States.

Youth-Centered Communications

Conversations with Climate Advocates

Shift the Language

Stories

We believe in centering the narratives of young people in their own abilities to think critically, communicate effectively, and listen actively through diverse collaborations and relationships. Creativity springs from these relationships and in turn, renewal and change naturally occur building healthier ecosystems and climate conscious communities.

Outcomes

Engaged 1,000 youth in action and practice

Expanded “environmental movement” to include racial and social justice

Speak Green poets present at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House Stage, the Goldman Environmental Prize, and the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual Greenbuild event