Aru Shiney-Ajay’s awakening to the climate crisis began in her late teens. During family visits in India, she watched in horror as loved ones suffered one disaster after another: deadly floods in her parents’ home state of Kerala and record breaking Air pollution in Delhi is one of them.
“The climate crisis wasn’t just something in the background, it was something that was already there,” she said. “That was really what drove me to get involved with Sunrise.”
The Sunrise Movement was founded in 2017 by young climate activists frustrated by the mismatch between an accelerating global disaster and the slow pace of existing environmental organizations.
Their movement would be different: a movement organized for and by young people, and one that would not be afraid to confront powerful figures directly and dramatically.
Only a year later they broke through on the national scene, when about 150 members organized a sit-in at the office of new Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to demand that the newly elected Democratic majority commit to a Green New Deal.
Then a Swarthmore College student and volunteer trainer, Shiney-Ajay had helped coordinate the much-talked-about Capitol Hill action. After its success, she decided to leave her studies and work full-time for Sunrise.
Last October, after months of searching and a 95% confirmation vote From Sunrise’s volunteer delegates, Shiney-Ajay was appointed as the organization’s executive director.
She is only the second person to lead the organization, which is based in Washington, D.C., and has thousands of members in 118 hubs in cities, towns and campuses across the U.S., including 15 hubs in California alone.
“She is one of the sharpest and most compassionate leaders I have ever met,” Founder-CEO Varshini Prakash said in a proposition last year. “I am confident that Sunrise will reach new heights under her leadership.”
Shiney-Ajay, 26, took over at a highly charged time in American politics. While the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has galvanized young progressive voters deeply skeptical of both President Biden and former President Trump, the outcome of the November election remains a toss-up. Protests over violence in Gaza and Israel have electrified college campuses. Meanwhile, temperatures are rising and acres are burning, and the time left to save a sweltering planet seems to be edging closer to zero.
Read more: Police arrest young climate protesters for blocking street near Kamala Harris’ home
The Times spoke with Shiney-Ajay this summer. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How does it feel to lead Sunrise after you signed up as a volunteer?
I feel like I can pursue my purpose in life. It has given me a lot of meaning and energy to face some of the biggest crises humanity has ever seen, and to do so with hope and determination, with people I trust by my side. Sunrise gave me that when I was a member, and it feels like a privilege to be able to give that back to thousands of other people.
What appealed to you about Sunrise as a new member?
I’ve never seen an organization that has such a vision of what it will take to stop the climate crisis, and is so serious about the force it will take to achieve that goal.
They said something like, “Okay, the way we’re going to do that is we’re going to push the Democratic Party to see the urgency of the climate crisis. We’re going to expose the corrupt influence of fossil fuel billionaires on our politics. We’re going to tie the issue of good, green, union jobs to climate change, to make it clear that it’s not a choice between jobs and climate.”
Those were really clear interventions that opened up a whole new spectrum of possibilities.
What does Sunrise mean when you say you want a Green New Deal?
The easiest way is to think about the New Deal, which was not just one bill, but a series of bills, executive actions, and local rulings that stretched over several years. [during the Great Depression]It changed the legislative landscape, as well as the economic and cultural landscape of society.
That’s what we need to stop the climate crisis. It’s legislation at every level of government, change in every sector of society. That’s what the Green New Deal is about.
What era is Sunrise in now? What are your priorities right now?
After [Congress passed] the inflation reduction actwe decided it was time to take some of those wins and start collecting them locally. So we launched the Green New Deal for schools and the Green New Deal for communities.
Read more: Now that Democrats are in power, a bold environmental movement is confronting them
It was a way for us to win things locally, but also to develop our leaders and build our base, and we’ve been doing that for a couple of years now.
Whatever happens with the elections this year, we are really strengthening ourselves to bring the fight back to the federal level. We are starting to do that this year with the Climate emergency campaign.
What is that?
It’s a campaign to get President Biden to declare a climate emergency, which essentially unlocks a bunch of different executive powers. We’re facing record temperatures, floods, fires, hurricanes. This is an emergency, and we need to use the full power of the federal government to do everything we can to stop it.
What do people misunderstand about your organization and the people it represents?
What we’re asking for is not unreasonable. It’s not impractical. It’s actually the thing that’s most in line with the physical reality of the world. As you get older, I think you start thinking within the constraints of the political imagination, rather than the constraints of what literally has to be done to keep millions of people alive.
People sometimes think the Green New Deal is idealistic or impractical. Actually, I think it’s the politicians who are impractical about the reality of our situation.
Sunrise is explicitly for young people. Should members pack up and leave when they are 35?
As long as young people are in charge, we welcome all the hands we can get. There are many people over 35 in hubs who help us with logistics for training or give us their wisdom on how to plan actions or pass legislation in their city.
What does this generation understand that the previous generation did not?
This generation has grown up with the consequences of the climate crisis, which we were already aware of in primary school, so we know that this is an existential threat.
I also think that this generation is just really focused on fairness and equality. And we’re not really single-issue voters in the way that people thought of voters maybe 15 or 20 years ago.
When we spoke earlier this year, before President Biden withdrew from the race, you said that your members were deeply discouraged by the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch. What is your position on the election now?
Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and our climate. Losing another four years to a president who actively promises to drill more fossil fuels would be planetary suicide. That’s why Sunrise will do everything in its power to prevent him from being elected.
Vice President Harris’ climate record is far more promising. As California’s attorney general, she sued oil and gas companies for pollution and sued the Obama administration for fracking. As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s most significant climate legislation to date. With her in office, we actually have a chance to win bold legislation that can address the climate crisis.
What is your message to young voters?
Our generation can turn the tide of politics. When we marched, voted, and walked out en masse, we won climate legislation, a gun violence prevention office, student loan forgiveness, and prescription drug price caps. If we vote for Harris this November and then march, protest, and call for the scale of legislation we need, we will win the world we deserve.
Why has Gaza become an important part of Sunrise’s message?
We are a youth movement, and the reality is that there are now a huge number of young people who are speaking out against the war in Gaza. We think it is important to understand this as an election issue, alongside climate. The scale of death and destruction has been enormous, and that has made it a huge issue for many young people.
Read more: How a drilling project and Israel-Hamas are overshadowing Biden’s climate record with young voters
What difficult decisions do you have to make as a leader?
Whenever legislation is passed, there is always the question of how much to say, “That’s not enough,” and how much to say, “I’m glad you did that.” It’s a strategic calculation every time.
One of the strengths of youth is that we can demand the biggest, the boldest. But if you only demand the biggest, the boldest, then sometimes it’s hard to ever feel like you’re winning, and people leave because they feel like you’ve never won anything.
How have you evolved as an activist? Is there anything about 2024 Aru that would surprise 2017 Aru?
I think I’ve gotten a lot better at being really disciplined about hope. It’s easy to feel like everything is falling apart when you look at the world. One thing that Sunrise has taught me, and I’ve learned from the world around me, is that hope comes from collective action, but it’s also something that you have to practice. You don’t even know what spark is going to set something on fire. Just by holding that hope inside yourself, you can ignite it in other people.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.