Health Voices

Running out of Time: How Zero Hour is Addressing the Climate Change Crisis

• Public Health Coalition at Yale • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Zanajee Artis, co-founder and executive director of Zero Hour, shares how this youth-led climate justice organization evolved from organizing mass protests to fighting systemic environmental injustice. Inspired by the impact of Hurricane Sandy on his Conneticust coastal hometown, he co-founded the international organization Zero Hour in 2017. Through education, policy advocacy, and grassroots organizing, Zero Hour works to phase out fossil fuels while addressing the interconnected issues of environmental racism and corporate influence.

In this episode, Zanagee shares insights on how climate change intersects with social movements like Black Lives Matter, immigration rights, and the fight for democracy, emphasizing the systemic nature of the crisis. We discuss the role of youth activism, the importance of education in countering misinformation, and the current battles against liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion, oil and gas subsidies, and corporate influence in government. With the stakes higher than ever, this conversation highlights why young people are uniquely positioned to lead the charge for a more sustainable future and how you can get involved in the movement. 

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Speaker 1:

People just don't know what's happening, and I think when people know more, they can do more, and we already know that the public agrees that climate change is happening and that we should do more. They don't know exactly how they can help make that happen, and so we're providing avenues to do that, but also teaching people the basics about organizing, about getting involved in the civic process and using their voice for protest. I didn't know what a subsidy was three or four years ago when I first started working on this issue. I didn't know what liquefied natural gas was. How do you liquefy gas, one might wonder. I had no idea, but there are so many ways to learn about these issues and then get involved, and I think education is how we succeed as a movement.

Speaker 3:

Zanagi Artis is the co-founder and executive director of Zero Hour, an international youth-led organization focused on addressing the climate crisis through advocacy, education and policy reform of young people in the fight for climate justice, pushing for policies that center around a just transition to a sustainable renewable energy future and improving the environmental health of people around the world. In this episode, we discuss the inspiration for Xanergy's activism, the various projects that Zero Hour is involved in and how the organization is evolving to meet challenges posed by the Trump administration.

Speaker 2:

Angie, I was reading online the work you do with Zero Hour with all your colleagues in the organization and it really is just tremendous, the sort of astounding amount of work you've been doing in just the last half decade or so since really the ball got rolling. One thing we wanted to really talk to you today was especially about the impact your organization, Zero Hours, had in terms of climate change advocacy and whatnot. But before we get into that, would you be able to tell us, Zanaji Artis, can you tell us about yourself, how you got into climate change advocacy and anything you might deem relevant?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. My name is Zanaji Artis I use he him pronouns and I've been organizing in the climate movement since 2017, when I was a senior in high school and did that through college, and I'm now working full time in the climate movement at the Natural Resources Defense Council, nrdc, and I'm continuing to lead Zero Hour as its executive director outside of that, and it's been a crazy journey organizing as a student, now organizing full time and yeah, it's really been an awesome time.

Speaker 2:

It's really quite a quite an extraordinary charge you've taken on. Can you tell us how did you get into climate change advocacy? Did you ever feel like you personally felt the effects of climate change, or was it something? Was there something else that drew you to advocacy?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I grew up in Connecticut on the coast, in Clinton, and was here when we experienced Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene, and I didn't really know much about climate change at the time, but Hurricane Sandy was in the top five costliest disasters in the country and a devastating impact on coastal communities here, and I never connected that to climate. But then I met some other young people who are doing organizing from across the country. Um, one of them was JB Mark Olin, our co-founder, and uh yeah, we decided to do the youth climate march, and this was also the summer after President Trump had been inaugurated. We were also seeing water protectors fighting for their rights at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and so I thought time for me to get involved. There are people my age over in Standing Rock actually facing down water cannons and police to protest for this, and so I got involved, learned about climate, what climate justice was, and the rest is history.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean that's really awesome. Can you tell us what about this movement that, since you started almost 10 years ago now, what inspires you? You know what keeps you going forward to say I want to keep fighting for climate change legislation, for reforms to lower carbon output and the like?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that it's really the idea that we can actually win and we can transform a whole energy system and also our society around ending extraction, ending environmental racism, ending all these systems of oppression that have put places of pollution, particularly in marginalized communities, and is triggering all these disasters all around the world, for our climate, but also for ecosystems and biodiversity. And there is so much that we can save, and every fraction of the degree matters for warming.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with that. I mean, on that, can you tell us a little bit like what does the day-to-day look like in your work with Zero Hour? What is it you do as an organization?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's really evolved over time. So we launched with the Youth Climate March, was this mass mobilization in Washington DC and in 25 other cities across the US and around the world. And then we got into environmental education really teaching people what environmental justice is, what we're fighting for and organizing for. Then we worked with Fridays for Future on the global youth climate strikes and really just getting young people involved in a movement that has largely been led by experts, scientists, lawyers, policy writers and really creating entry points for young people to protest and to teach people how to do that and influence policy in their own way. And then in 2020, we got involved with the election and we ended up with a Biden presidency and that was so different from when we first started under Trump and we actually had an opportunity to fight for policy. So then we switched to really campaigning for legislative wins and wins from the White House and we got some of those over the past four years and now we're in a whole new landscape again.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely no. That'll be something to talk about here in a bit, but one thing as well that's caught our attention when we were learning about Zero Hour and that I think our viewers would like to know as well is the name right, the term Zero Hour? What does this mean? What does it have to do with climate change and all you've talked about like with getting wins from the White House or pushing for the youth to get involved with advocacy?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean there have been different interpretations over time, which I'd love to see, but for us, it's really this idea that we're out of time to act and that we have zero hours left to act on climate change. Out of time to act and that we have zero hours left to act on climate change. And, of course, now we are eight years since our founding and we're still fighting, so it doesn't mean that there's nothing left, that we're out of time to solve climate change or fight for climate justice, but it's really the sense of urgency around action.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and I mean coming from someone who interested my case I'm pretty interested in learning about the science of climate change and what people like you are doing. You know, some days it's easy to wake up and see the news right, there's flooding or more forest fires or ever worsening droughts, and it's easy to just at least to me sit down and just give up, right, like, how do you, how do you deal with this? In a sense, is it possible to avoid succumbing to this sort of climate nihilism or sort of pessimism?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'd say it's a big challenge, especially, you know, we're going up against the oil and gas industry.

Speaker 1:

There are others working on the agricultural industry, on finance, but the primary focus of our work is tackling supply side oil and gas issues. And that's drilling, that's pipelines, that's ExxonMobil and BP trying to drill in our public waters and they're a multi-billion dollar industry and they're also paying our politicians industry and you're also paying off politicians. There's um people in congress who've profited off of oil and gas and at the same time, we're seeing disasters like what just happened in california and these crazy wildfires um hurricanes, monsoons, disasters all around the world, and there are people in power who are not taking action and they're denying the reality that we are in. So that's challenging because the science is there, we have the solutions, we know where we need to go to actually mitigate climate change, but we're getting wins along the way and we got a lot of things in the Biden administration. We're still working hard to stop oil and gas expansion and that's picking up momentum and most of the public agrees that we should tackle climate change.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, it seems to me a big guiding principle as well as and what you've told me and what we've read. Ultimately, like everyone agrees at least that we need to do something about it. Right, it's also just a matter of keeping up the fight.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have so much momentum and there was some challenges with COVID, as was the case for everyone, which really changed the dynamic of movement organizing. We were doing these mass marches and strikes all the time before COVID and that's declined. But what we're seeing is revitalization of different strategies. We're doing small, targeted actions that have a big impact and can really shape public messaging and it's recruiting more people. It's the movement no this momentum is great.

Speaker 2:

I really love to see it. The next question I sort of have on this issue, though, of momentum we'll just let later generations deal with, right Like do you see this as a sort of issue that we can overcome right now, or is it something that we're just going to have to deal with, that slowly we'll have to repair the damage, or where do you see the future of, let's say, action on climate change?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think we're getting to a stage where we really have to start considering adaptation more. Climate change is not something that we are going to stop per se. We're going to mitigate its impacts, we're going to limit warming, but climate change from emissions in the past decade even more are causing what's happening today. So we're going to still continue to see impacts from climate change, but where we're going is actually phasing out the problem. It's phasing out drilling, it's phasing out fracking oil and gas, coal and transitioning our agricultural systems to be more sustainable and really thinking through systems level solutions that will actually transform our society and create good jobs in the process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and you mentioned earlier as well the importance of how climate change interacts with other struggles. You know, opposing, let's say, environmental racism, or you know, unfortunately we here in the first world, like the United States or Western Europe or whatever, will suffer climate change, but it's the worst effects will ultimately be brunt by less developed countries, countries in, say, sub-saharan Africa or South Asia. To what extent do you think that like we could go about assisting other countries in adapting to climate change, especially since these countries will be hit the hardest by changes in climate and rain and such?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1:

Part of actually the origins of Zero Hour was that, at the same time that we came together to start planning the Youth Climate March, president Trump had pulled out of the Paris Agreement, and we're seeing that action return, with the executive order removing the United States from Paris. But that doesn't mean there isn't so much that we can do to engage on the world stage, including paying for losses and damages from countries that have already experienced devastating impacts from climate change while also being disproportionately smaller in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And that's a responsibility that the world should have, and at the last negotiations, countries came together to negotiate that and talk about that more, and I think that the numbers that they came up with are still far too short. But, yeah, the world has such a big responsibility to actually work on this and help the countries that are, you know, along the equator, that are experiencing the most impacts today Absolutely, and even in you know we might call the more developed countries right, it seems that marginalized communities will be also bearing the brunt of climate change.

Speaker 2:

Can you tell us a little bit with how climate change might affect marginalized communities just in our here in the States?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. I think that I mean there's a lot of marginalized communities to consider people with disabilities, um low income people, especially um black, brown and indigenous people and women, and that intersection that intersects in a lot of different ways. Um, for example, in the Gulf South, um Zero Hour is organizing to stop the expansion of liquefied natural gas exports facilities and um, these are facilities that are leaking methane, that are uh causing horrible air quality in the Gulf, causing increased incidences of cancer, heart disease, eczema, seizures, and it's lethal. And so we are really working to stop expansion in these communities who are already overburdened by petrochemical industry by offshore drilling off their coasts and now LNG, by offshore drilling off their coasts and now LNG. And the industry chooses these places in particular because there is a limited ability to resist.

Speaker 2:

No, and I think you bring up a really great point For our viewers who are new. Last season last year we hosted an expert on environment, public health and how the environment and public health intersect, and I think you brought up an interesting point. Can you describe what you see as environmental public health and how climate change in particular fits into how we ought to study public health in the context of the environment?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. I think there's a lot of conversation about what the difference are between environmental justice and climate justice and what's a climate organization? Who's working on the environment, and really those are both interconnected. And so when we're thinking about environmental justice, those are direct impacts in communities that are a policy decision and that's why we figure it around justice. So if they're deciding to site a pipeline that is at risk of rupturing and contaminating groundwater that people rely on to drink, that's going to have health impacts and that's environmental injustice. Thinking about air quality and flaring that happens from gas facilities that releases methane and benzene and all sorts of other chemicals that are in the processing process, that's also an environmental health issue. But at the same time, those facilities impact climate because it's releasing greenhouse gas emissions. It contributes to consumption all around the world of fossil fuels, and so there's this huge interconnection between local health problems and also our global climate system.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean. One thing you're really hammering home that if you would be able to elaborate more on is how all of these sort of systems interact. Right, it's not just climate change exists on its own, it's also how climate change is sort of built on our economy and current systems of oppression. Could you tell us a little bit more about, like, why you think it's important to address the systemic issues rather than simply focusing on climate change on its own?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So when I first got started organizing, I thought the most impactful thing I could do was to reduce my own plastic use and collect trash at the beach right down the street from where I grew up, and that just isn't the same as actually shutting down a petrochemical facility that's producing these plastics and pumping them all around the world, that's leaking plastic pellets, that get trapped in our waterways, that get trapped in ecosystems, and so to think about this as a system level issue is to really go back to the source and target an industry that has for decades lied about climate change, which our taxpayer dollars are still subsidizing to the tune of over $20 billion a year, and at the same time as we are paying this industry, they're polluting our communities, which is absolutely absurd.

Speaker 2:

No, it really is. It really is quite, quite impressive, right, Like just everything that has to be done to really, to really, understand climate change, not just as an issue of, oh, maybe we can carpool a little more or reduce our plastic uses, as you say. There's just so much more that needs to be done On that regard. Can you tell us how, if you see in any way how your struggle with zero hour might relate to any other important social movements for justice, say the Black Lives Matter movement or movements for women's rights?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that. So we talk about intersections all the time in climate, and the environment is the basis of all things, and so we try to be in solidarity with other groups as much as we can. We've just been working on some content related to immigration and these orders for deportation and ICE investigations, and these orders for deportation and ICE investigations, because migration is a huge issue related to climate.

Speaker 1:

There is no refugee status for people who have been experiencing climate disasters, and these are climate disasters caused by other countries, and yet we are rejecting the idea that people should be able to migrate here. There are wars being fought because of oil and because of natural resources like water, and that's also a huge problem, and that's linked to migration, it's linked to sexual violence, and so there's so many other connections. But here in the US, we have worked with groups like March for Our Lives, groups like the Women's March and groups that are working to defend democracy and the right to protest, because that is also a changing landscape in the US and we really need to consider what it means to organize in an environment where our government is not respecting the law.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And what's most astonishing, I think, when my partner Farid and I were learning about Zero Hour and the work you do, is that this is such a young person focused movement as well. And on that note, can you tell us, like how do you believe that young people should fight and lead the fight for climate action and against climate change? What do you feel is unique about Zero Hour being such a youth-driven movement?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think that I mean there are so many benefits to having a youth-led movement.

Speaker 1:

One is that, like so much time, so much more time to dedicate to this than, like, people who are working a full-time job maybe, are trapped at their desk all day, and young people have this fire and this visionary idea of what this world can be and what kind of a world we want to inherit.

Speaker 1:

And so if you are interested in getting involved in the climate movement and you don't know where to start, I would say to start in a place that you love. I got involved in organizing because I cared about my beach in Connecticut and that led me to learn about the Dakota Access Pipeline, to meet other environmental activists, to learn about the Dakota Access Pipeline to meet other environmental activists, and the starting point is really finding what you're most passionate about and learning about what the problems are with that. Like, there's so many people who are interested in our food systems and there's so many problems to solve in our food systems to be more sustainable, food systems to be more sustainable. So young people can bring those ideas and really revitalize a movement that has been fighting for decades and is still fighting and, frankly, not winning in the way that we really want to be to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Speaker 2:

No, and I think you bring us to a great point to sort of talk about the history of Zero Hour. If that's fine. So Zero Hour, especially when you started in it, began 2017, 2018 with the youth climate marches and all the sort of climate strikes that are especially popularized by Greta Thunberg in Sweden. Can you tell us how this starting point for Zero Hour really marked the trajectory for the work you do today?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I mean the Youth Climate March was a huge moment and I think it really launched a global youth-led call to climate action and it was this really interesting entry point for people, because I had never done lobbying, I didn't know what was out there on policy related to climate change. I just knew about the Paris Agreement and I knew that President Trump was rolling back EPA regulations and at the same time, we were seeing wildfires in the US and that that had to be linked to oil and gas and the science is there on that. And so I did what I could, which was go out and yell and be loud and protest, because I couldn't use my voice at the ballot box. I was too young to vote and, like everyone in Zero Hour at years now to center protests, and I think that it's because that was our launching point right, like especially when you're young and there's not much else you can do.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes all you can really do it feels like is, I guess, as you said, shout and hope someone hears you, and if there are a lot of people shouting together, maybe you're heard currently. Right, so you just mentioned that protest has sort of been a center of the movement since its inception currently. Can you also tell us what zero hours's initiatives are, perhaps what their current goals are, especially as we move into a new administration which has made pretty clear its disdain for any sort of environmental legislation?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So Zero Hour right now is really preparing for all of the above in terms of oil and gas. We know that President Trump and his allies in Congress are going to work to expand oil and gas on our public lands and waters and subsidies and all of the above. They want to drill in the Arctic, they want to drill in our public waters and we're going to be ready to fight them on that. And specifically, we're going to be campaigning on ending liquefied natural gas exports because they are such a huge threat to our climate. Methane um has 86 times the warming impact carbon dioxide over a hundred year timeline and we can't afford to add more methane exports.

Speaker 1:

The end of the world has to transition off of gas. This is not the transition fuel that it's been marketed, as it is not a clean energy source and there's methane leakage throughout the whole supply chain, from fracking to pipelines to exports. And the argument is that Europe needs it for national security. And that's simply not the case. Given LNG export facilities will take at least a decade to come online in the Gulf, so we're talking about entrenching gas infrastructure for decades to come and there is no immediate benefit to anybody.

Speaker 2:

It's sort of a huge step backwards, right A huge step backwards.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we really only started exporting gas in a really big way less than 10 years ago, and now there are a dozen facilities proposed in the Gulf. They're more under construction, banks are financing them and they're being given a green light by the government when it's not in the public interest giving. They're being given a green light by the government when it's not in the public interest, and so we're working to stop that, and we're also working against oil and gas subsidies. We think that's a huge issue, because our tax dollars, frankly, should not be paying an industry that profits in the billions of dollars every year. Price gouged everyone after COVID, and then it's like lying about climate change and not being a part of the solution.

Speaker 2:

Lying for decades. It's crazy 1960.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, we're working on those things. We're recruiting more people into the movement To organize locally. We're also joining efforts to stop Project Maple In Connecticut. It's a gas expansion pipeline and calling on Governor Lamont to stop that project. So there's lots of ways we're organizing against oil and gas all across the country.

Speaker 2:

Lots of work to be done and you know to our listeners and viewers, like I said, this is a truly, truly astounding work. Truly astounding work you're doing, Moving outside of the sort of view of the United States. Are there any current international initiatives Zero Hour has, or anything you'd like to have internationally?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so at the same time we're also working on stopping subsidies of fossil fuel projects around the world. So the United States actually finances oil and gas projects abroad as well, and it's over $40 billion, and there's a whole set of other countries who are also involved in those subsidies, and so we are working on that at the international level. We have organizers in the Philippines and in France and in other countries who are also fighting liquefied natural gas, because at the same time as we're exporting it, there are organizers in import countries who are fighting that on their side. And of course, the banks are global, and so we're also fighting on multiple fronts, including in Japan, to stop financing of oil and gas. Here there's a number of Japanese banks that are financing LNG exports in the Gulf and there are organizers from the Gulf South there right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it seems like, especially all so much of the threads we talked about, the importance of, perhaps one pillar of your work is the systemic issues. But, as you've told me about, there's so much right that people just don't know about the pipeline in Connecticut. Right Like these are huge issues for the climate that are just not talked about. And it seems to me that, from what I've read from Zero Hour, education is a big part of not just the advocacy and engagement side, but also maybe one of these sorts of pillars of Zero Hour. So can you tell me how much you use education and as part of your advocacy process to encourage individuals to support these goals which for a lot of people, seem pretty ambitious? Right, you talked about it's hard to go against oil and gas companies worth billions of dollars who receive tens of billions of dollars from the federal government every year. Worth billions of dollars, who receive tens of billions of dollars from the federal government every year. Where's the importance of educating people, especially when these goals may just seem futile to some?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, education is everything. The oil and gas industry has done such a good job to educate the public in their own way, and so we have to fight back against that. Educate the public in their own way and so we have to fight back against that, fight back against disinformation and misinformation. And people just don't know what's happening, and I think when people know more, they can do more, and we already know that the public agrees that climate change is happening and that we should do more, but they don't know exactly how they can help make that happen, and so we're providing avenues to do that. But they don't know exactly how they can help make that happen, and so we're providing avenues to do that, but also teaching people the basics about organizing, about getting involved in the civic process and using their voice for protest.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know what a subsidy was three or four years ago, when I first started working on this issue. I didn't know what liquefied natural gas was. How do you liquefy gas, one might wonder. I had no idea, but there are so many ways to learn about these issues and then get involved, and I think education is how we succeed as a movement.

Speaker 2:

I suppose, looking at the future as you educate people who might not know as much, I guess the other important thing is bringing up people who are going to be the next generation you know the next youth generation and running Zero Hour. Can you tell us about how might you engage with the youth, whether on social media or teaching them, perhaps, as you say, advocacy and local engagement? What role do does youth engagement on, perhaps, social media or in advocacy play in this movement?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So it's really central to our work at Zero Hour and to the whole movement that we have a vibrant segment of young people organizing and we have trainings for young people. We have a training called Getting to the Roots of LNG, which talks all about what's happening with LNG expansion in the? U and in Europe, and we also have entry points to organize for protests and we train people how to protest on the ground. And, of course, social media. We thrived on Instagram when we first started and that is really. I think social media is just one of the biggest conduits of information out there and such a good way for people to find like-minded people and people that they can organize with, find new issues to work on, and so we're using that as a major tool to get out the word about our campaigns, about organizing and about resisting the expansion of oil and gas from the new administration.

Speaker 2:

I wish you best of luck and Godspeed in that work. As we close out our interview, one thing we'd like to ask all our guests is if there's one thing you'd like our listeners to know about the work you do, in this case with Zero Hour and climate change advocacy. What would it be?

Speaker 1:

That's a great question. I think that my one thing is that we can't let's see, we shouldn't accept defeat. We know that this election didn't go the way that we wanted it to, and we know that the new administration is going to fight for oil and gas. The new nominee for Department of Energy secretary is the CEO of the second biggest tracking company in North America. We're seeing corporate capture of our government in real time Billionaires on the dais at the inauguration, billionaires in the cabinet, and that's concerning. And that's even more reason to fight. And it's not like we've got this win in the bag. That's not what we're saying. But there is so much left to fight for and there's so much that people can do in their everyday lives to take action. And so don't give up, um. Get involved in the movement.

Speaker 2:

and, yeah, stop project maple in connecticut well, in that case, thank you, zanaggi, for being here with us today. You know, evidence of climate change is every day rearing its ugly head and unfortunately, we're just going to have to live for the rest of our lives waking up to the television and seeing yet another piece of evidence that what the scientists are saying it's true, climate change is real as well. From you, we might not be able to stop it totally, but there's still so much we can do, and I think that's something that it's easy to fall into the trap of just giving up. You and Zero Hour have your work cut out for you, absolutely. Thanks again for being on our show today.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much and to our viewers, thank you for listening in and we hope you'll tune into the next episode of Health Voices, produced by Friedrich Guglielms-Georgi and I, farid Salman, with support from the entire PhD board. If you have questions about the podcast or want to be featured in an episode, please email us at healthvoicespodcast at gmailcom or DM us at our Instagram, healthvoicespod. And if you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to leave us a review on Spotify, youtube or Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for listening.