The Clean and Green Club

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We Rise: The Earth Guardians’ Guide to Building a Movement that Restores the Planet by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

Martinez has been an activist for 11 years—and he’s not even old enough to vote. Only 17, he became aware of the earth’s current distress at age six and has been organizing ever since. Not just organizing. Performing original rap music and traditional dance, speaking at major conferences and even becoming only the second non-diplomat, non-politician to address the UN General Assembly, being featured in a film on youth activism, receiving an award from President Obama, standing up as one of 21 youth activists who are suing the US government to enforce climate change, and now, releasing his first book (with a major publisher, too—health and organic gardening leader Rodale). He was at the 20th Anniversary Rio Conference, organized a youth presence at COP21 (where the Paris Climate Accord was hammered out), and performed for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

I was a child activist too, starting—not counting an action against smoking I took in my own home at age 3—at age 12 when I went to my first demonstration, opposing the Vietnam war. And I, too, have been an activist ever since. Now, as I turn 61 next month, I’m seen as an elder—but I’ve got a few decades before I catch up with some of my activist friends in their 90s and 100s, such as Arky Markham.

But I was 16 before I turned vegetarian, 17 when I started speaking on the issues of our time, 20 before I participated in an action that definitely made a difference in the world (the Seabrook occupation of 1977), and 23 when my first book (on why nuclear power is a terrible idea) was published. So I’m in awe of this kid. We can think of him as a Malala Yousafzai for the United States. By the time he’s my age, he could have credits like toppling the whole fossil-fuel power structure or maybe managing a successful campaign to create a world unity government. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know he’s destined for greatness.

Martinez comes naturally to a holistic, intersectional approach that sees the relationships among multiple issues. Whether it’s getting big money out of politics, raising climate awareness among youth, or supporting the intersectionality of opposing different “isms,” he’s on the job. Raised in Boulder, Colorado by indigenous activists (his parents founded Earth Guardians, where he works as Youth Director), Martinez is strongly rooted in his own Mexica/Aztec tradition and very knowledgeable about the traditions of many other indigenous cultures, around North America and the rest of the world. This culture, where every living thing is sacred, informs his activism and his lifelong vegetarianism. It also provides a solid frame of earth guardianship and water protection from which he reaches out on a host of other issues.

That ability to see others’ oppression no matter what shape it has taken leads to deep wisdom: “Rather than pointing fingers, let’s work with people to help make better food choices” like eating less meat rather than instantly going cold turkey to vegetarianism (p. 135, pun intentional). That philosophy extends beyond food, to other areas where we can build connection, change our habits, and come together stronger.

And shifting our internal compasses to accept victory is part of that. He quotes activist Mika Maiava of Samoa: “You need to win from within, so that even if people look at you like you’re losing, you’re not losing because you’ve already won in your heart.” (p. 71)

At the same time, in a world where 200 species go extinct every day (p. 85), he demands immediate progress on climate change. And he’s doing what he can to create an empowered intergenerational movement to get us off fossil fuels into renewables, to create a humane and nutritious and just food system, and to secure the rights of every ethnic and cultural group on the planet. He’s doing his part to build a coherent, focused movement that can actually generate this needed shift, using every nonviolent tactic from lobbying through nonviolent direct action. Direct activism, he reminds us, “doesn’t wait for permission from leaders to act.” (p. 102)

He’s also very media-savvy. He understands the power of Standing Rock pipeline opponents self-identifying not as protestors but as water protectors—“defined by what we love and seek to defend” (p. 180). And writing in the earliest days of the Trump administration, he recognizes how the 2016 US election changed things for climate activists.

The book is well-researched, with plenty of facts and figures to back up his assertions. Even I didn’t know that not only does the fossil fuel industry receive $548 billion a year in direct subsidies, but also leaves us holding the bag for $5.3 trillion in externalized costs, for example (p. 144). On the positive side, he cites a study of college and university campuses investing in “green revolving funds” to finance the campuses’ own energy improvements; they show an astonishing 32 percent return (p. 219). The advance copy I have was in need of another round of proofreading, but hopefully that was fixed in the final printing.

Martinez is also using the book to spread messages from many leaders in the fight for global and local climate justice; the book includes his interviews with such luminaries as India’s environmental economist Vandana Shiva, Paul Watson of the environmentalist direct action group Sea Shepherds, climate activism pioneer Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org), actor/activist Mark Ruffalo, Bernie Sanders’ campaign liaison to Millennials, Moumita Ahmed, and several others including his own grandfather.

It gives me lots of hope to find a book this comprehensive and also (in places) really fun to read, written by a teenager. People like Martinez are our future, our bright hope. His book is well worth your time.