Giving Compass' Take:

• Youth activist, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, shares three essential tips for how to inspire and motivate your friends to take action against climate change. 

• How can donors support youth climate activists to fortify movements? 

• Here are five youth climate activists you should know. 

Grist 50 Fixer Xiuhtezcatl Martinez just turned 20, but he’s already built up an impressive resume as an activist and the youth director of the international conservation org Earth Guardians. The multihyphenate Martinez, who’s also a hip-hop artist and an author, has delivered several U.N. speeches, given multiple TED talks, and sued the federal government over climate inaction. For the climate-justice movement to succeed, he says, a multimodal approach is needed — a notion that has further taken root in the ongoing protests against police brutality, and has helped to amplify the link between systemic racism and climate change. “Our generation has a diversity of ways to tap into different movements that is really powerful,” he says.

Martinez spoke with Grist about why this matters — and offered a few ideas about how to inspire and motivate your friends to take action. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

  • Start small by starting local I’ve been reflecting on my journey as a climate activist and youth leader, and I think some of the most powerful work I’ve done has come from when I had a really deep understanding of what was going on in my own community.
  • Let your personal passions power change Encouraging young people to challenge traditional notions of activism and organizing really inspires me. Our generation can leverage social media, leverage organizing tools that past generations didn’t have.
  • Get culture This music has been really inspiring, and it’s exciting for me to understand the cultural and historical context of the music I make. A lot of organizing in the environmental space has traditionally been pretty white and very comfortable in its own lane, and art and culture infuses itself into these movements — just breathes life into them.

Read the full article about how to care about climate change by Adrienne Day at Grist.