“The Seas Are Rising and So Are We”
An editorial from The Marjorie
By Anna Hamilton
Published September 30, 2019
On a recent Wednesday in August, in the middle of a school day, in a packed community center in Gainesville, Florida, Isaac Augspurg took the stage.
The 14-year-old gazed out at a crowd of well over 150 and leaned into a message that has reached a global crescendo: the youth are rising.
“I would rather be having a carefree childhood,” Augspurg said. “But the climate crisis is here, and it won’t wait for us to grow up.”
Augspurg is one of eight youth plaintiffs who, on April 18, 2018, filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida, then-governor Rick Scott, and other state agencies for violating the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Augspurg is a featured speaker at this intergenerational forum on climate change, organized by Alachua County’s NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Committee branch. He is a freshman at Trilogy School in Gainesville and has been active in environmental causes since the age of 10. Augspurg’s words sit…
