“You’re suing Trump!” Avery recalls her classmates said when they flocked her at school on November 9. “I’m like, ‘Yep.’ What did I get myself into?”

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When Avery and I spoke on the phone for the first time, about six months before the election, I asked her why people should care about the lawsuit. She became breathless as she described the stakes. In short, she said, the case will decide how future generations will survive on earth: “If they’re going to have to wear air masks every time they go outside or if they’re going to live in pristine environments where they can swim in cold water in the summer and fish and hike in old-growth forests and not worry about climate change.”

Avery started caring about the environment around the age of 5, when she read a book about snow leopards. Finding out they were endangered made her “super heartbroken.” Her mom suggested they raise money for the animals, so one day in December, Avery threw a party with a small suggested donation. She and some friends made leopard Christmas ornaments and decorated cupcakes with spots. By the end, she had raised $200 that she donated to the Snow Leopard Trust.

The following year, Avery and friends made more ornaments and raised money for wolves and, more recently, for salmon. Avery had seen some spawning in nearby Whittaker Creek and marveled over how they were swimming the same water as the previous generation of the fish had done, and the next generation would. It was a blow when her parents told her on the drive home that some salmon, too, are endangered.

It wasn’t long after that she became involved with Our Children’s Trust, the legal heft behind the lawsuit that works on climate cases with young people, lawyers, and scientists around the world. The organization is based in Eugene, Avery’s hometown. When she signed up for a summer camp the group organized one year, she spent a week learning how to testify at city council meetings, painting a mural on the building of a bicycle shop downtown, and screen-printing shirts with polar bears.

Avery was especially inspired by Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, who volunteered with the camp before becoming the lawsuit’s namesake. “She’s insane,” Avery says—a compliment. Our Children’s Trust was clearly impressed by Avery, too. The group asked her to join the lawsuit, and after considering the commitment—years—she was onboard. In a photo taken on the federal courthouse steps after the first hearing of oral arguments in March, Avery and the other plaintiffs are standing in front of a sign that says “Our future is a constitutional right.” Avery, who still isn’t tall enough to sit in the front seat of her parents’ car, looks tiny next to Julia Olson, one of the lawyers representing the group, in the first row.

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Avery’s mom, Holly McRae, admits Eugene can be a bubble. The city is surrounded by natural wonder: Whittaker Creek, where Avery watched salmon chug upstream, is less than an hour from the McRae’s house; Willamette National Forest and the Oregon coast are both less than two hours away. In Eugene, the McRaes have found a community of likeminded people who care deeply about the environment and social justice. Holly works as an events coordinator for the McKenzie River Trust, and Our Children’s Trust recently hired Avery’s dad, Matt, as a climate-policy strategist. Before that, Matt worked for the city as a climate and energy analyst.