Victoria Barrett is one of the 21 plaintiffs, aged 10 to 21, in the high-profile Juliana v the United States lawsuit, which faulted the US government for failing to protect its citizens from climate change.



As an environmental activist, Barrett represents marginalized voices at international conferences and has addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the topic of youth involvement in its sustainable development goals. Barrett, 19, attends University of Wisconsin-Madison on a full scholarship and intends to pursue a career in politics. Her essays have been published in educational magazines and websites and on Medium.

Last month, a young environmentalist, someone like me, tried to hold you accountable for your actions, as we should with all public servants. At a town hall meeting, Rose Strauss, a Sunrise Movement activist, asked you why you accept fossil fuel campaign donations when we know climate change is going to harm young people at an unjust rate.

But, instead of doing your duty as a politician and being transparent with your actions, you responded by calling her “young and naive”. Later, Rose wrote in an op-ed about that moment: “I felt a pang in my heart. I felt belittled. Insignificant. I wanted to scream.” Mr Wagner, you spoke without forethought or care and made a young person trying to think of solutions to big problems feel small.

You call us young, but we will be disproportionately affected by climate change. You will be gone, but your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren – we will pay for your mistakes.

You call us young, as if our shorter time on earth means we can’t see the suffering that exists because profit is put over lives, stories and experiences. As if our shorter time on earth means we can’t see what is right and what is wrong.

You call us young, but we just want to be considered. We’re tired of the complacency we know is no longer an option. The greed of you and like-minded individuals holds back entire generations, and I don’t like faceless people controlling my future.

And you call us naive. But we’ve been born into a world already headed towards climate disaster, with no other option than to fight to protect this planet which you and your fellow politicians have willingly put at risk with your apathy.

You call us naive, as if climate change is happening in a far away future in a far away place. But it’s happening now, and it’s happening everywhere, and it’s happening to all of us. Wildfires rage on the west coast, uprooting and taking lives. Record high temperatures have developed new diseases for farmers in Central America. Coastlines all over the world continue to erode as sea levels continue to rise.

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You call us naive as we try to pick up the pieces of a breaking world so that we have the opportunity to build something when we get the chance. But instead you could be supporting our voices, considering our position as the future proprietors of the society your generation of lawmakers is molding.

My understanding is that to be naive is to show a lack of experience, a lack of judgment and a lack of information. You are the naive one.

You don’t have the experience to imagine a life harmed by your decisions to cater to fossil fuel interest, you don’t have the judgment to consider people you choose not to see and you ignore the information necessary for you to make the right choice.