Maraú Península: The Global Climate Strike and Environmentalism in The New Yorker

A special newsletter from The New Yorker: As young activists lead a historic protest, a look at the history of environmental activism in our pages.
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The Global Climate Strike

Last month, the sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in New York after crossing the Atlantic in an emission-free sailboat to attend the Climate Action Summit, at the United Nations. Her journey was undeniably historic—and it brought attention to a youth movement that has generated a new era of environmental activism. Today, tens of thousands of young people and adults, including Thunberg, will participate in a climate strike, walking out of schools, homes, and places of work to bring awareness to the urgency of global climate change. For nearly sixty years, The New Yorker has published groundbreaking coverage of environmental issues and the growing threat of global warming. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” a landmark investigation into the harmful effects of DDT and other pesticides, which was published in this magazine in 1962, helped launch the modern environmental movement as we know it. Years later, Bill McKibben and Jonathan Schell wrote notable pieces about the greenhouse effect and the consequences of the nuclear-arms race, respectively, thereby sparking a new discussion. In the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert and other journalists have written memorable articles on a variety of environmental topics, including melting polar glaciers, the impact of carbon footprints, and the U.N.’s extinction report. More recently, our correspondents have covered the rise of youth-driven environmental campaigns, including Zero Hour and the Sunrise Movement. Below you’ll find a selection of some of the magazine’s significant pieces on climate change and the new age of student climate activism. At 12:30 P.M. New York time on Friday, please visit newyorker.com for our live stream of the protest and to read our additional coverage.

—Erin Overbey, archive editor

From The New Yorker’s Archive

Our Columnists

The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding a New Kind of Politics

Greta Thunberg’s protest outside of Sweden’s parliament building has made climate change a topic of that country’s daily conversation.

By Masha Gessen

Protesters seen holding placards during the Sunrise Movement protest inside the office of US Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to advocate that Democrats support the Green New Deal, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

Dispatch

The Optimistic Activists for a Green New Deal: Inside the Youth-Led Singing Sunrise Movement

Sunrise, founded a year and a half ago by a dozen or so twentysomethings, has established itself as the dominant influence on the environmental policy of the Democratic Party’s young, progressive wing.

By Emily Witt

News Desk

The Teen-Agers Fighting for Climate Justice

“Climate change is the greatest threat of the twenty-first century,” an organizer of the youth climate march said. “The way we live our lives is affecting people everywhere.”

By Carolyn Kormann

Letter from the U.K.

Does Extinction Rebellion Have the Solution to the Climate Crisis?

A group of British activists, whose mass campaign of civil disobedience has commanded attention for the climate crisis, hopes to spread its success across the globe.

By Sam Knight

PAID POST

Why do our interactions with strangers so often go wrong?

A classic Gladwellian intellectual adventure through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news, Talking to Strangers argues that something is very wrong with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of the people we don’t know.

The Woolsey fire is seen behind a pool from the West Hills.

Reflections

How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet

With wildfires, heat waves, and rising sea levels, large tracts of the earth are at risk of becoming uninhabitable. But the fossil-fuel industry continues its assault on the facts.

By Bill McKibben