Gen Z are the Climate Change Gangstas we Need to Support

Whitney Alese
5 min readSep 25, 2019

Generation Z is not here for the BS surrounding climate change.

Literal children are challenging adults who have failed the planet and them by failing to produce solutions they would willingly follow. And these children and teens are letting their leaders know that they will not go along with business as usual.

And that is so gangsta.

Straight hood…Greta Thunberg is the climate leader our time demands. Seriously. This young woman is not here for the BS inept and incapable world leaders are attempting to shovel at her. At 16-years-old, the has already chumped very publicly numerous world leaders, shamed Fox News for labeling her Aspergers as “mental illness”, and snapped back at world leaders, including the current occupant of the White House, during the United Nations Climate Action Summit, saying “How dare you?!”

Of course, not everyone can handle the criticism took Greta’s worlds to heart. Not everyone was moved. Trump, maturely, took to Twitter to tease Thunberg, who, given his previous comments on differently-abled people, had to mock her Asberger’s syndrome. As for the aforementioned Fox News, the network apologized to Thunberg after Michael Knowles (from the Daily Wire) called her a “mentally ill Swedish child.”

Meanwhile, Greta remains unflapped by either criticism or the applause by slinging increasingly dire facts straight from scientific reports, reminding folks that every half-measure on their part will be paid for dearly by her generation.

However, Greta may be getting all of the press but she is certainly not the only young person out to rip climate change deniers to shreds.

Isra Hirsi is a relative newcomer to the climate change fight, and she has already made a massive difference to the cause. During her freshman year, she joined a high school environmental club that she learned how, at its core, climate change affects…

Whitney Alese

Whitney Alese is a writer & podcaster, featured in WIRED Magazine (Sept 2020) & I-D Magazine (Dec. 2021), and NBC (Jan 2023). She is based in Philadelphia.