ECO Scouts

“When there’s about 200 species going extinct every day, it’s quite scary. So you have to do everything you can.”

From her small town in the remote, mountainous Scottish Highlands, this 13 years old is helping to build a UK movement of children demanding more action on climate change. Holly Gillibrand is a young ambassador for Scotland: The Big Picture and a campaigner for animal welfare charity OneKind.

Holly Gillibrand (born 2005) is a Scottish environmental activist. She enjoys football, the outdoors, and rock climbing. She was inspired by Greta Thunberg, and starting at age 13, she skipped school for an hour every Friday as part of the school strike for climate. She is an organizer for Fridays for Future Scotland. She has made changes in her daily life to reduce her carbon footprint. She has gained support through social media.

She was named 2019 Glasgow Times Young Scotswoman of the Year. She was also named one of 30 inspiring women on the BBC‘s Woman’s Hour Power List 2020 and was interviewed on the show.She has written for the Lochaber Times.

In August 2020, she supported Chris Packham in a national campaign that aimed to stop wildlife crime. In November of that year, she and other youth activists had a Q&A with Alok Sharma. She serves as youth advisor for the charity Heal Rewilding, whose goal is to return more land to nature.

Follow Holly on Twitter @HollyWildChild

  “It is my future, it is the younger ones’ future, and it’s less the older ones’ future.”

Isra Hirsi is the 16-year old co-founder and co-executive of the US Youth Climate Strike, the Inspired by the Flint water crisis, Isra fights for climate justice. As a black Muslim woman, she emphasizes the importance of intersectionality in the movement for climate justice. She is also a part of MN Can’t Wait, a youth coalition of organizations calling upon the Minnesota government to take action. Isra Hirsi (born February 22, 2003) is an American environmental activist. She co-founded and served as the co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike. In 2020, she was named in Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 Government and Politics list.

Hirsi grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the daughter of Somali American U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omarand Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. At the age of 12, she was one of the participants protesting for justice for Jamar Clark at the Mall of America.^] Hirsi attended Minneapolis South High School, from which she graduated in 2021. She became involved in climate activism after joining her high school’s environmental club in her freshman year.

Hirsi coordinated the organization of hundreds of student-led strikes across the United States on March 15 and May 3, 2019. She co-founded the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, the American arm of a global youth climate change movement, in January 2019. She acts as the co-executive director of this group. In 2019, she won a Brower Youth Award. That same year, Hirsi received the Voice of the Future Award. In 2020, Hirsi was placed on BET‘s “Future 40” list.

It is reported that Hirsi will attend Barnard College of Columbia University in fall 2021.

Follow Isra on Twitter @israhirsi and Instagram @israhirsi

“If you need a new female role model, meet Luisa Naubauer. At 23, poised and calm, she is talking the talk and walking the walk. She is a geography student, activist and member of the german environmentalist Green Party, and in the last year, she has become the German face of the “Fridays for Future” climate protection rallies.

As of the beginning of 2019, Neubauer became known as one of the leading Fridays For Future activists. Many media outlets refer to her as the “German face of the movement.” Neubauer rejects comparisons of herself and other strike organisers to Greta Thunberg, saying: “We’re building a mass-movement and reaching out quite far in our methods of mobilising and gaining attention. What Greta does is incredibly inspiring but actually relatively far from that.”

Neubauer does not see the strikes as a means of directly affecting politics. More important is the work behind the strikes: “What we’re doing is incredibly sustainable. We’re creating structures and turning the events into educational experiences. And we’re leading debates on the principles of climate protection.”

Following the protests of Fridays For Future Germany against Siemens for a specific infrastructure project in Australia, Neubauer met Joe Kaeser in January 2020. On 13 January 2020, it was announced that Neubauer had turned down an offer by Joe Kaeser to sit on the Siemens Energy board. In a statement Neubauer said that “If I were to take it up, I would be obliged to represent the company’s interests and could never be an independent critic of Siemens,” she explained. “That is not compatible with my role as [a] climate activist.”. Joe Kaeser stated that he did not offer Neubauer a seat in the companies’ Board, but that he is open to have Neubauer on a Board on environmental questions

On the day before Siemens announced that they will keep the contract with Adani to provide the rail infrastructure of the Carmichael coal mine in Australia. Neubauer told the news agency DPA: “We asked Kaeser to do everything possible to stop the Adani mine. Instead he will now profit from this disastrous project.” She added that this decision was “so last century” and that Kaeser was making an “unforgivable mistake”.

Follow Luisa on Twitter @Luisamneubauer and Instagram @luisaneubauer

“The journey of looking at myself and my identity… made it clear to me that something had to be done. How could you not when people are dying?”

Vic is from low-lying land in New York and has felt firsthand climate impacts in the form of Hurricane Sandy. Vic is a Fellow with the Alliance for Climate Education, spoke at the COP21 U.N. Conference on Climate Change and spoke at the U.N. headquarters in New York City. After marching in solidarity with more than 400,000 people at the People’s Climate March in New York City, he organized his peers in local frontline climate campaigns. Vic is now an undergraduate student at UW-Madison and is also among 21 youth activists who are actively suing the government to take action on climate change.

Follow Vic on Twitter @vict_barrett and Instagram vicbarrett_

“Don’t be intimidated by what you think you can’t do. Do what you can. Learn about the issue. It’s important to focus on making better choices and decisions, not on finding the ‘right’ solution or answer.”

Kallan Benson is the national coordinator for Fridays For Future USA and co-organizer of the Outreach Working Group for Fridays for Future International. In less than one year, her efforts have built a broad collaborative movement, with nearly 140 weekly strike communities across the country. She co-directs a collaborative art activism initiative, Parachutes for the Planet, which invites participants to express their concerns about the future through community art. Her activism helped win a state-wide fracking ban in Maryland and bills to reduce fossil fuel dependence in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Follow Kallan on Twitter and Instagram @releaf4us

“We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of each other.”

Xiye Bastida is a teenage climate activist currently based in New York City and one of the lead organizers of the Fridays For Future youth climate strike movement. Bastida was born and raised in Mexico as part of the Otomi-Toltec indigenous peoples. She sits on the administration committee of the Peoples Climate Movement, where she brings the voice of youth to existing grassroots and climate organizations. She received the “Spirit of the UN” award in 2018.

Follow Xiye on Twitter @xiyebastida and Instagram @xiyebeara

(born 18 April 2002) is a Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi–Toltec nation. She is one of the major organizers of Fridays for Future New York City and has been a leading voice for indigenous and immigrant visibility in climate activism. She is on the administration committee of the People’s Climate Movement and a former member of Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. She is co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, an international not-for-profit organization that is inclusive and intersectional “just as the climate movement should be.”