Youth Climate Conference held at college

A sense of urgency, camaraderie and excitement was on full display at the Wisconsin Youth Climate Conference hosted here at Madison College on November 22. More than 200 youths, ranging in age from junior high to college, and some from as far away as Onalaska, converged on the Truax campus to demonstrate, observe and network for the sake of climate and ecological action.
Most attendees were in high school, including the four leading members of the event’s steering committee: Ella Ahner, Ayelet Blum, Madeleine Bohn and Nina Zhu.
“It’s really inspiring to see how many people can come together to manifest change,” said Ahner, who attends DeForest Area High School. “This conference is proof that we can work together for a better future.”
“This conference was a turning point for me,” said Zhu, now a senior at Memorial High School, recounting her attendance during her freshman year. “It inspired me to join other organizations and the committee. I hope this conference has the same impact on others that it had on me.”
More than 30 schools were represented at the event. Students from more than 20 of those schools presented at exhibit tables to share the accomplishments of their organizations.
“This conference is a way of bringing us all together to make change as a collective,” said Blum, a junior at Madison West High School. “The climate crisis is affecting every one of us, and if we can all work together we’ll make a bigger impact.”
“It’s powerful to see all these different green clubs with their individual projects coming together,” added Bohn, a senior also from Madison West. “These people are doing some incredible things, and I know a lot of attendees walk away feeling inspired, myself included.”
Facilitating the youths’ in their planning and execution of the conference was a cadre of sustainability enthusiasts with ties to green efforts across Dane County.
“We’re a fun aggregation of people from many different walks of life,” said Armila Aeilts. Aeilts teaches Environmental Science here at Madison College, and is the only faculty on the steering committee. “We have a lot of different perspectives and skill sets and opinions coming in to make this conference a success.”
The elder members of the steering committee are unified on empowering the youths to take the lead in planning the conference. “The power of it is that the youth are picking what we’re talking about and how we’re talking about it,” said Kathy Kuntz, the Director of the Dane County Office of Energy and Climate Change. “The folks like me on the steering committee were just logistical support. The youths are leading the conversation.”
The entire conference comes as a result and acknowledgement of the real-world ecological facts facing younger generations. “Young people today are not just witnesses to the climate crisis,” said Zhu as she introduced the event’s keynote speaker. “We are inheritors, and we refuse to inherit a planet that’s destroyed.”
The keynote speaker was Jerome Foster II, who, starting while he was 18, served as an advisor to the Biden administration on its Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
“For so many of us, we feel like we don’t have a place to sit at the table of the future,” said Foster, acknowledging the immense difficulties of resisting and shifting the tyranny of the status quo. Yet Foster exhorted the gathered youths to action, encouraging them to recognize the unique advantages that youth brings to the political process. “We’re not jaded by what is politically normal or politically possible. We’re motivated by what’s morally possible.”
Before and after the keynote speech, attendees presented their own schools’ initiatives and toured others’. Among the tables was Madison College’s own Green Club. Helping at the table was Avery Kluever, a high school student taking classes full-time at MC and a new Green Club member.
“It’s always important to look for ideas because you can’t really think of everything yourself,” said Kluever, gesturing at the numerous displays around the room. “I’m hoping to see what other people are doing, and bring ideas back to our Green Club.”
“I feel like Madison College should make a bigger deal about all the sustainability things they’ve done,” said Ruby Katsihtis, a MC sophomore also helping table for the Green Club. “They have the solar panels and the compost machine, and they have done so many other things. But they don’t really make a big deal about it. Those are things worth talking about and promoting.”
“Everyone who’s here showed up of their own accord, and they’re leading by example,” said Quinn Mattsson, president of the Madison College Green Club. “That’s the first step: showing up.”
When asked for his advice to youths just starting out in sustainability movements, Mattsson nodded toward the core principle of the entire conference. “Find people who are excited by the same things you are, and people who are doing the things that you’re excited about, because they’re out there. You just have to find them.”