I’m 17 years old, and I’ve been a climate justice organizer since I was a freshman in high school . I started as a community organizer with “Plant for the Planet” in Seattle, giving climate action presentations to middle and high schools , testifying at bill hearings in my state legislature, and lobbying my City Council to adopt warning labels on gas pumps.

I was born after 9/11, in a world full of “ifs.” My classmates say things like, “I never want to have kids because the world will be totally unlivable for them” or “I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up but I honestly don’t think there will be much sea life left by the time I’m older, so I have to pick something else.”

In the summer of 2017, after climate-change-fueled wildfires in Canada blew smoke over the Pacific Northwest and coated Seattle in a thick gray smog that made me sick, I decided to take my local activism to the national level. I had a vision of young people marching in the streets demanding climate justice . I decided to make it happen. I founded an organization called Zero Hour because #ThisIsZeroHour to act on the climate crisis. We have no more time to wait around.

Zero Hour organizes mobilizations, events and campaigns to bring youth voices to world leaders — all while being a bunch of scrappy kids just trying to survive high school . Worldwide, we have nearly 100 chapters, and counting.