Young Americans voted in record numbers during the 2020 election and played a key role in tipping the scales to Joe Biden. The Sunrise Movement and other environmental groups mounted extensive campaigns to register and mobilize voters to oppose President Trump and vote climate champions into office. 

Biden’s climate platform isn’t the Green New Deal plan that many climate activists called for, and Democrats will have a tough time passing progressive climate policies unless they win both Senate runoff races in Georgia. Still, Donald Trump’s defeat gives the planet a better chance of avoiding an apocalyptic future. 

Political Climate's Julia Pyper speaks to first-time presidential election voters, Troy Distelrath in Michigan and Gabriela Rodriguez in Florida, about what they want to see next from their political leaders.

Plus, while Biden’s win represents a new era in the climate fight, the United States remains deeply divided and the policy path forward remains murky. So in the second half of this episode, Julia speaks to Andreas Karelas about his critically acclaimed new book Climate Courage, and how to advance climate solutions in these polarized times. 

Listen and subscribe to Political Climate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you get podcasts!

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University of California at Santa Barbara Political Science professor Leah Stokes is a renowned expert on U.S. energy & climate Policy—and she’s also a young person, living through climate change in California. 

Hear about Leah’s journey to becoming one of America’s most outspoken climate-academics, as well as her thoughts about the historic 2020 election, and the prospects for climate action and the Green New Deal under the incoming Biden-Harris administration. 

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Subscribe to GenGND's newsletter: https://generationgnd.substack.com/subscribe

Listen to Leah’s Pod, A Matter of Degrees: https://www.degreespod.com/

Buy Leah’s Book, Short Circuiting Policy: https://www.leahstokes.com/book

Buy All We Can Save: https://www.allwecansave.earth/

Read Biden has a Climate Mandate in the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/08/opinion/biden-has-climate-mandate/

Read Climate Change in My Backyard in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/california-floods-mudslides-climate.html

The 2020 Presidential Election Campaign has been unprecedented in a number of ways -- including how much it has been driven by the climate crisis. A look at how the Green New Deal has shaped this election and how the climate movement has pushed Joe Biden, who is running as a pragmatist, to adopt an ambitious, even visionary climate plan.

Featuring Sunrise Movement’s Alex O’Keefe and Varshini Prakash, Saikat Chakrabati of Building the Dream, VOX’s David Roberts, and Joe Biden’s Director of Climate Outreach David Kieve 

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Read Joe Biden’s Climate Plan: https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/

Join The ‘Biden Climate Voters’ Group: https://joebiden.com/climate-voters/

Mobilize Voters with Sunrise Movement: https://www.mobilize.us/sunrise/

Detroit is a microcosm of many of the issues the Green New Deal is trying to solve: it’s faced flooding and extreme weather and has suffered severe consequences of pollution, environmental racism, deindustrialization, and austerity. In the Green New Deal, many community activists in Detroit saw hope. 

Featuring Detroit activist Theresa Landrum and former Detroit health commissioner Abdul El-Sayed

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Amy Westervelt of the DrillIed podcast co-hosts this episode as we delve into the question of why it's taken so much time, and a movement led by teenagers and 20-somethings, to push politicians to get serious about climate action.

Featuring bestselling authors Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben.

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What is it like to spend your whole life in California, only to have the state you love more deeply than anything turn into a hellscape of wildfire?

Meet 23-year-old Sunrise Movement activist and writer Nikayla Jefferson. In this episode, she describes her life growing up in San Diego, experiencing the rise of wildfires, and how she found her voice in activism and writing.

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In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, and the Green New Deal became her signature policy. But how did a bartender end up defeating a powerful incumbent? Meet the group of former Bernie Sanders campaign volunteers who decided to shake up Congress, and recruited AOC and the #Squad to run for office. 

Featuring Alexandra Rojas and Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats, and former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Saikat Chakrabarti. 

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What motivates young people to dedicate their lives to climate activism? Fear of the future under climate change is one motivation… Another is the opportunity to build a better future under the Green New Deal. 

Featuring Varshini Prakash and Alex O’Keefe of Sunrise Movement, and three of the young activists who had a viral confrontation with Senator Dianne Feinstein in early 2019.

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In the past two years, climate change has gone from the backburner to the center stage. Why? It all started with a protest in Nancy Pelosi’s office in 2018. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teamed up with a then-obscure youth activist group called Sunrise Movement to launch the fight for a Green New Deal. It took a lot of planning, courage, and also luck to make it happen, and we’re bringing you the inside story. 

Featuring Varshini Prakash and Sarah Duckett of Sunrise Movement and Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats.

Support GenGND: https://www.patreon.com/generationgnd

If you're suddenly hearing more about climate politics these days , that's no accident. A new generation of activists have pushed the issue to the top of voters' minds and politicians' platforms. This is the story of the people doing the pushing.

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