If a week is a long time in politics, the past year has been an eternity for Jerome Foster.
Every Friday for 58 weeks in a row, the 18-year-old was holding forlorn protests outside the White House calling for action on global heating. Now, the computer science student has been ushered into the seat of American power to help craft climate policy.
In a sign of the growing political clout of the youth climate movement that has blossomed around the world, Foster has been included among a group of advisers to Joe Biden who will inform the US president on issues related to environmental justice, where low-income communities and people of colour face the greatest fallout from climate change and pollution.
“I didn’t expect this to happen so soon, it was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy,’ I’m the only person under 40 on the whole panel, so when I got there I was like, ‘Am I supposed to be here?’ But it was their intention to bring in the youth perspective on climate change. I was a bit startled at first but now I’m getting used to it.”
-Joreme Foster II
Comments