Inside Activism: Memories, Mishaps and More
In this episode of Our Future Now!, National Children’s Campaign co-founders Natalie Mebane and Jonah Gottlieb are joined by Jaime Henn co-founder of international climate organization 350.org and current director of Fossil Free Media to discuss their favorite moments as activists, funny stories from the frontlines and why you don’t have to know what you’re doing to start making change.
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In this episode of Our Future Now!, National Children’s Campaign co-founders Natalie Mebane and Jonah Gottlieb are joined by Jaime Henn co-founder of international climate organization 350.org and current director of Fossil Free Media to discuss their favorite moments as activists, funny stories from the frontlines and why you don’t have to know what you’re doing to start making change.
Learn more about 350 by visiting their website at: https://350.org/
[00:00:00] Natalie : Our feature now is produced by goal 17 media storytellers for the common good.
Jamie : And I think that’s when change happens is when you’re pushing in, because the status quo wants you to play by their rules. Like they can accommodate activism that comes to them in the format that they expect.
Natalie : Hi everyone. I’m Natalie and I’m the co founder [00:00:30] and vice president of public policy and government relations of the national children’s campaign.
Jonah: Hi, I’m Jonah Gottlieb and I’m the co founder and executive director of the national children’s campaign. Welcome to our future. Now, on today’s episode, we’re telling stories from our lives in the movement and our favorite memories of working together to fight for a better world.
We’re
Natalie : joined today by Jamie hen, the co founder of the international climate organization, three fifty.org and currently the director of [00:01:00] fossil free media. So welcome Jamie. We are so happy to have you here today.
Jamie : Oh, thanks for having me,
Natalie : Jamie. I know you have been doing this work for super long time.
What made you build what you built? Because you built something with your friends. And your professor that has changed the world.
Jamie : I first got involved in climate activism, um, really in college, uh, in sort of the early two thousands, which were these days where like, there really wasn’t much of a [00:01:30] national or international student youth movement that was focused on these issues.
They were like, A campaign here and there, but none of it are really quite come together. And so while I was at a school in Vermont at Middlebury college, um, a lot of those efforts started bubbling up. Like people started having regional youth climate convenings there. These were the early days of the energy action coalition, which went on to become power ship and a lot of other work now.
And so we started just getting involved. I’d been working on other issues, like fair trade and global [00:02:00] justice, and I’d always been interested in those things. Um, and climate just seems to be the issue of the day that nobody was talking about back then. I mean, it was just like, Most of our organizations maybe had a global warming program or something, but didn’t it, wasn’t the focus of that work.
This was still a pretty new issue. Um, so we got sucked in with a lot of young people who are doing activism and got involved in a variety of different campaigns. We had no idea what we were doing. Uh, you know, we’re just trying to cause trouble on campus and across the country. Um, and around the same time filming Kevin, this environmental [00:02:30] writer who wrote the first book.
On global warming back in the late 1980s and been a journalist on the issue, he was really looking to get more involved in activism. I think he was realizing that just putting words on the page, wasn’t creating the type of change that he wanted to see. And so he reached out to us as he was a scholar in residence at Middlebury.
So he’s kind of like a. Quasi professor who would teach a class here and there. And so he reached us out us as like the students on campus who were causing trouble and maybe knew how to build a website or two, um, [00:03:00] and said, let’s start working together. And so we helped organize this first big national day of action on climate change in 2007, called step it up.
Um, and it just took off. I mean, we put out this call to action for people to organize events and rallies in their towns. Um, Across the country. And, uh, I think everybody had just been waiting, needing to do something on climate, like an inconvenient truth to come out, but nobody was really organizing people.
In the sense of a movement. And so this day of action completely [00:03:30] took off for 1400 events, all 50 States, it got on the front page of New York times, CNN, lots of coverage. And suddenly we had like 60,000 people on an email list, which was like a lot of people back in 2007. And so things really grew from there and that same spirit of kind of putting out calls to action.
Giving people away to take part in a really distributed manner, being super open source about it so that everybody could find a way to do something creative, to bring their skills and energies to the [00:04:00] movement. That was really a spirit that kind of continued through three 50 and took that same model to the global level.
And then, you know, The rest is just a lot of wild stories and we bring them together.
Natalie : Jamie hearing, you kind of reminisce a bit about how you got started. Like you were just putting on events, you weren’t, you didn’t necessarily even have an angle and end game of what you were going to do. You were just doing what you felt like was necessary being a young climate activist, and then luckily you meet.
You [00:04:30] know, this is like, I mean, your story of meeting bill was probably a little cool or like I just met him outside, taking him away. But like, you met him as a teacher in your school, and then you guys built this together. And just knowing that, like you didn’t, we have an end game and an end goal of what you were creating.
You were just doing it because it was necessary. And yeah, you got, like you said, with energy action coalition. That’s how I got started energy action coalition and going to the first ever power shift in 2007. And bill McKibben was a [00:05:00] speaker. I feel like to me, that’s where I feel like I started in this work.
Because I had just finished school and wasn’t sure what to do. And I knew that I would find my path and power shift really helped direct me to that next step. So that’s kind of neat that we, we kind of started at the same time and with a similar path of how we can.
Jonah: So when I was in DC for that lobby week back in March 29th, gene, when you know, I met [00:05:30] Natalie, I met Bernie. So Natalie was about. A year and a half ago that we actually met in Washington, D C see, you know, we brought 200 people to the Capitol. We visited all 541 offices in three days. And so we were just, I was dead.
I had pulled like two straight, all nighters after a red eye and just writing speeches and planning all these panels and stuff. And so I remember that second day of the event I had just met. Right. I had like four hours of panels. And then I’m [00:06:00] going in to Bernie Sanders office. And so we had reached out to all the 20, 20 candidates.
He was the only 2020 candidate who was a member of Congress that wanted to meet with us. And it was a super busy week on the Hill. And he was on his coming in to meet with us on his lunch break because he was in hearings all day. And so we show up at his office and we’re just talking with his staffer.
We’re talking to Katie Thomas, who our listeners may have heard at a episode a little while ago. And so if you didn’t hear that one, check it out. Um, but we’re talking [00:06:30] with Katie and she’s just like, Bernie is going to come in at any second. You know, he’s going to come, come in really quick. And so. And so I’m sitting like, you know, right near the door.
Um, and my head just keeps dropping onto my shoulder and I just keep just about to fall asleep. Cause I’m listening to, you know, all the kids and I close my eyes, my head’s on my shoulder. Um, I’m just ignoring the camera crew. That’s like getting all this video footage of me falling asleep in Bernie’s office.
And then the, these double doors just slam open and it’s just Bernie [00:07:00] Sanders. Just hello? Hello. And the kid next to me, screams. And I’ve just jolt up and then the kid across there may shouts you’re my hero. And then Bernie is just like, yeah, I know now let’s get down to business. So, you know, he just starts talking to us about on the climate steps.
Like you, people are leaving, you doing the movement and just, you know, talking to us at 90, just, he grabbed me his, you know, salad from a staffer, walks into his office, closes the door and then he’s [00:07:30] gone.
Jamie : I mean, I think that’s the amazing thing about being in a movement, right? Is you get to connect with so many interesting people.
I think that’s what I like the most, the uncelebrated parts of activism in many ways is getting to actually connect and make so many friends like in wild places. I mean, both like to this people around the world and then like Senator Sanders, you know, that you get to have those experiences. Um, so I always tell people, I feel like people look at activists and they’re like, Oh, man, that must be so depressing.
Like how do you work on global warming every day? Like how do you stare into the [00:08:00] abyss? Like, it just must be miserable. Like activism looks like the saddest most depressing thing to do. And in fact, like. It is sad and depressing. A lot of the time it is super hard. As Jonas said, like you do spend a lot of all nighters, you kind of burn the candle on both ends, but you get to have these incredible experiences where you get to meet people at the people’s climate March in 2014, you know, we’d land up and we’re lined up at the very.
Like around central park, you know, preparing to take 400,000 [00:08:30] people through the middle of New York. And we trained all of these volunteers to active security and we train them like the various curious, do not let people in to the main part of the Mart, the front of the March, because that’s for VIP, is that for our spokespeople.
So like, don’t let any riffraff into this area. And I get this call call from Bernie who’s at the. Edge of the VIP section, say like they won’t let me in through the section and like, he’d send out, gotten [00:09:00] my number from someone. So I had to go up to these volunteers who were locked arms and Bernie’s like, in know, he’s looking like Bernie.
He like has a big coat on. You know, he looks a little disheveled and this was 2014. So he wasn’t quite the like national celebrity that he is today. So people just didn’t recognize him. And he’s like, I’m a us Senator. And they’re like, I’m sorry, sir. You can’t come through here. Like, you’re not a VIP. So we had to go and escort Bernie, like back through.
And I was like, this is just one of those things that comes with activism where you’re like escorting a Senator through your [00:09:30] own security guards that you trained, um,
Jonah: yeah. To do well
Jamie : to, well, to get to the front of the March. Um, So, yeah, you do have those funny moments. I mean, that’s why it’s so fun to be doing this work is you get sucked into these situations where you’re like, never thought I’d be doing this, but here we are.
Yeah.
Jonah: And I think like you bring up a good point about like the perception that people have of activists and like it’s true. We’re facing these problems, you know, every single day in our work, but that’s also, I think one of the most [00:10:00] rewarding things is we have this purpose that it’s just driving us when I was just walking through the halls, just like.
Bringing, you know, hundreds of young people from around the country, into these meetings with elected officials. Like that was the moment that like, I was like, this is what I want to do for the rest of, in my life.
Jamie : Like,
Jonah: it just hit me just like, this is the thing that my life can be devoted to is just getting young people, you know, The opportunity to be [00:10:30] powerful and to use their existing power, to make these huge changes.
Natalie : And like, when I look back, like you said, there was a moment where you kind of made a decision where you like, this is what I want to do forever. And it just makes me think of. You know, all three of us were together in September of 2019. And. I was on the [00:11:00] train late. I was late. I wasn’t, I didn’t get much sleep.
Okay. And I was heading to
Jonah: you didn’t get much sleep. I took a red eye to the lighthouse.
Natalie : You had more sleep than me on that red eye. It was September 13th last year. And I’m on the Metro and I’m on my way and the ass. I know I’m late and I’m getting all these text messages, right. People like Natalie we’re here.
I’m like great information. Thank you for telling me. And then finally you text me a picture, Jonah. It’s a selfie [00:11:30] and you’re like, Hey, and it’s you Jamie hen, and a few other things, activists, and you guys were all together this picture, and you were like, Hey, we found Jamie Han. Right. And I just get this amazing selfie of y’all and I’m like, okay, I feel good.
Jamie’s on the ground. He has it. We’re good. We’re going to do this March the strike. This was the strike in DC with Gretta Thornburg. And that week, that was like, [00:12:00] if I ever have to reminisce on a
Jamie : week
Natalie : that week leading up to it, that was the week. I mean, it was more than a week, but it was like, I have to say this.
That was the busiest most exhausting and also the most fulfilling. Week of my life. I might say life slash career. Like I felt like I had attempted everything that I’d ever wanted to do for work in one week.
Jamie : Yeah, no, I love hearing that. I mean, I [00:12:30] think that, you know, always sort of had this sag and all, uh, I’ll do a PG 13 version of it, but like, we sort of had to stay up, like it’s going to be a mess, but it’s going to be great.
I think that that’s been mostly my attitude towards a lot of activism. I think that if you get too concerned about everything going perfectly, according to plan, or you only make a plan where, you know, you can control every element of it, you’re just not going to be able to do. The big transformative, disruptive stuff we need to do.
I mean, there’s [00:13:00] no way to map from a to Z how you create a movement to solve the crisis. Like anybody that tells you, they have that perfect theory of change is lying to you. It’s not the type of thing that you can get down on paper. You know, we were booking congressional hearings without being sure if Gretta or everybody would be able to show up.
Um, you know, we didn’t have full control over her schedule. She added her own priorities, which was great. And we also were working with members of Congress who very much expect everybody to run by their book and Gretta ran by her own [00:13:30] book, which has made her such a powerful leader in this state. And so being willing to kind of play that the game and having someone like you, Natalie, who like.
Knows how to run DC, but is willing to take a risk and set up a meeting with Chuck Schumer, which with a bunch of teenagers and like roll in there and just be like, this is going to be great, but I don’t really know how it’s going to go. That’s what I love about this work. I mean, that’s, what’s so great working with young people.
That’s, what’s so great working with activists. It’s like you get to push the envelope. And I think that’s when change happens is [00:14:00] when you’re pushing it because the status quo wants you to play by their rules. Like they can accommodate. Activism that comes to them in the format that they expect. And so then they get to stay in control.
And I think when we get pushed them off, Into this other space when we make them a little nervous, when it feels a little wild, when it feels like it has that edge, that’s when you actually begin to be able to kind of affect the type of change that we want to see. So that week was the definition of that.
[00:14:30] And it was like, you know, held together by duct tape and chewing gum, but it somehow worked. Um, and I think that was the week really when Gretta herself and the kind of youth of strike. Really went to this totally new level. I mean, she was a bit of a celebrity coming into the U S and there was some coverage and there’ve been momentum, but that was the week where it really just completely took it to this kind of global phenomenon that we saw a few weeks later.
[00:15:00] Jonah: And I think that week is just a really great example of just adults taking risks on kids. Like Jamie, you had no reason to trust Natalie other than, you know, you knowing Natalie, when she said, Hey, I’m going to bring all these teenagers into meet speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and AOC. And you know, they’re just going to talk about these massive strikes they’re holding.
And you’re just like, all right, go for it. [00:15:30] Because that space really isn’t created that often for us. And so for you and Natalie to be so intentional, About making space for young people to get in the room with some of the most powerful people in the world was just incredible.
Jamie : No, John it’s. So, I mean, it’s so great to hear that because again, as Natalie and I probably share, like, those were the risks that people took on us.
And so you get to pass that on. And like, I love that. I mean, I think that that’s, that’s kind of the work that. Means the most to me is trying to [00:16:00] create those opportunities for people. Um, and it doesn’t always go according to plan, like things can get messed up and you sometimes, you know, things don’t always go exactly.
Right. But yeah, the payoff is so huge because again, if you’re just doing it by the book, if you have the same old speakers, if it’s all adults, right. It’s a, it doesn’t have the power. That’s not how movements get done. It never has been. I think that that’s something that I always try and remind myself.
And hold onto, um, and really admire the work that you all are doing. [00:16:30] And just like Natalie, your, the time that you spend working with use with, you know, children’s campaign with zero hour with everybody is so powerful because it helps keep those connections. Tied together. And then it helps open up the space for these incredible things like the global climate strike.
Natalie : Jamie, I want to thank you so much for joining us here today. You know, we’re really happy that you could be here with us. Is there anything that you’d want to leave our listeners with any final [00:17:00] thoughts on, on a message that you want to tell
Jamie : them? Well, thanks for having me. I mean, this has been super fun, fun.
It was great to be with you guys. You know, I think my final message would be for people to really dream big and then just go for it, like get started. I think the hardest part about activism is sometimes taking that first step. Um, so. Don’t feel like you have to be perfectly prepared. Don’t feel like you need to know what you’re doing.
Don’t worry about having a, all the talking points perfectly down. [00:17:30] Uh, it is so much better to get into the mix and join this fight and get active, um, than it is to sit on the sideline
Jonah: as always, we are in the midst of our vote for our future campaign. If you’re interested in attending a virtual vote for our future event. You can go to vote the number for our future.org/events. Vote for our future.org/events. And if you want to join our [00:18:00] team, you can go to tiny url.com/team NCC and join our fight on behalf of America’s children.
Natalie : Thank you so much for listening to this episode of our future. Now our feature now is produced by goal 17 media. Storytellers for the common good. We would like to give a special thanks to our media partners, parents tology I’m Natalie
Jonah: and we’ll see you next time on our future now. [00:18:30]
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