“We're getting to the point where I don't know exactly the amount of time that we have left to try to mitigate the climate crisis, but it is something that has been placed on our generation,” Zane Taylor says. “We've seen that policy makers are not willing to work with it, especially among the older generations. So it's really thrown on our generation specifically.”
Taylor, a UNR student in international affairs, and summer intern at the Unitarian Universalist Association office at the United Nations, has been busy helping organize an online webinar on climate change scheduled for August 4th.
The event will be free to attend and feature a diverse set of speakers. Participants who register online but don’t attend the webinar will receive a Zoom recording of the event after its conclusion. Titled “More Than We Inherited: Youth-Led Climate Justice Initiatives”, Taylor says the name reflects the responsibility of the younger generation to take action and preserve the Earth’s climate.
The United Universalist Association office is one of many faith-based organizations operating at the United Nations. The world body is more known for its veto-marred Security Council meetings and different aid organizations, but it also has offices for different religions. “It is a faith that originally started as a denomination of different Abrahamic religions, so Christianity, but we've shifted away from the scope of having a shared deity or a set holy scripture,” Taylor said of Unitarian Universalists. “We go off of seven principles that hope to reconnect us to the interdependent level of life. Those include stuff along the lines recognizing the inherent work and dignity of every person, the right of conscience and the use of democratic processes within our congregations and within society as a whole.”
Taylor said that the upcoming climate event welcomes and hopes to inspire participants from all generations and faiths, whether that be persuading someone to join a local organization, signing a petition, or urging a local politician to vote a certain way.
“We're trying to get youth involved in the climate fight because the youth and at the domestic level is where the change needs to happen before it can go international,” Taylor said. “A lot of people think that the United Nations has all this power to affect a lot of concrete policies where the United Nations is mainly a system to get international collaboration.”
Anyone interested in registering for this event can visit https://uua.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErf-uurDIiHtGOrt_tWulCwrhg6mwLmzcA