Amid International Women’s Month, we’re highlighting some of the trailblazing women who’ve featured in Mission over the years. The first is climate activist Xiye Bastida.
“You need to accept that the era of fossil fuels is over,” states a straight-faced Xiye Bastida while addressing 40 world leaders during President Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate last April.
While Bastida held a composed disposition throughout her six-minute speech, her anger toward government inaction was evident. Bastida spoke candidly about the oppressive history of the fossil fuel industry; how the systems that uphold the climate crisis rely on “sacrificed zones,” namely the Global South and Black and brown communities in the Global North. She called heads of state “unambitious” and argued that we have all the solutions we need to properly address the climate emergency—it’s only a matter of implementing them. Bastida’s powerful speech garnered the attention of many, including climate activist and journalist Bill McKibben, who tweeted in response, “Might be a good idea to put [her] in charge of a continent or two.”
Bastida is one of many youth climate activists pushing for effective climate change policies because, as she states, “we don’t have the luxury of time.” The climate crisis is already here—and you would know if you’re paying any attention.
For the Mexican-Chilean activist, activism isn’t a hobby; it’s a way of life. Before she mobilized 600 students from her high school to join the March 2019 climate strike and started organizing with Fridays for Future, the youth-led movement started by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, Bastida was receiving her initial activism training at home. She comes from a long line of environmentalists; in fact, her parents met at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio—the first international meeting to address urgent environmental protection issues.
In 2015, when Bastida was 13, she came face-to-face with a climate disaster. Her hometown of San Pedro Tultepec, a small town outside of Mexico City, was devastated by massive floods, displacing many of her neighbors. When her family relocated to New York City shortly after, Bastida took note of the effects of Superstorm Sandy and realized the global scale of the climate crisis. It was then that she decided she was going to be a part of the change and take action. As stated by Bastida, “Climate justice is social justice,” and she wasn’t going to sit around waiting for governments to implement solutions while communities suffered.
For Mission, Xiye Bastida discusses the pressures of youth activism, why we need more diversity in the climate movement, and the importance of community care.
Naydeline Mejia: When were you first made aware of the climate crisis? What inspired you to get involved in this movement?
Xiye Bastida: My parents met at the first Earth Summit in 1992 when my mom was 19. So I grew up around my parents always talking about the climate, and more specifically about our hometown’s environment and wanting to clean it up. For example, there’s a lot of water pollution because scientists were coming in and disrupting the lifestyle of my community to study the axolotls [a type of salamander], which populated our river.
In 2015, my hometown suffered from excessive flooding, which we had never experienced before. Seeing the floods showed me that the second wave of the climate crisis was already here—it wasn’t set for 2100 or 2050, it was now. That same year, my parents got offered jobs at the Center for Earth Ethics in New York, so we moved to New York City. When we moved, I realized the city had its own climate story with Hurricane Sandy, the disproportionate levels of pollution in the Bronx, and rising sea levels in Coney Island. All of these things showed me the global scale of the crisis, and that’s when I decided that I needed to be part of the solution. I couldn’t wait until after I graduated school to start working in this movement; I needed to start now.
I attended my first conference in Malaysia in 2018 when I was 15 because my dad couldn’t go, and so he sent me in his place. It was the first time I spoke at a U.N. conference.
I talked about including Indigenous philosophy when creating cities—having inclusive, resilient cities that aren’t the same everywhere but are adapted to the environment. It was at this conference that I realized that I have a voice. So once I got back to New York, I really started my activism work—I got involved in environmental projects, started organizing strikes, and the rest is history.
NM: Going back to the floods that devastated your hometown, how did that event influence your activism, if at all?
XB: The floods affected my community in a very big way. There was no infrastructure to deal with this type of issue, so health risks increased due to the water from our polluted rivers spilling into the main area of our town. It was heartbreaking to see my community so vulnerable and learn that there were no systems in place to address its vulnerability or the issue in the first place. Why wasn’t the river clean? Why isn’t there a levee system to reduce flooding? Why don’t we have any education around the climate crisis in schools so that we can at least prepare for these events and push our municipalities to stop their support for projects that harm our environment? I was witnessing the failure of these systems catching up to me and seeing how everything that my parents were speaking about was becoming even more real.
NM: Why do you think our generation is so passionate about mobilizing people to address the climate crisis?
XB: Well, there’s different layers to this. One reason why our generation is so passionate about the climate is definitely due to the urgency of the climate crisis. We’re passionate, but we’re also scared—those two things go hand in hand. I’m passionate about changing the world because I’m scared of a world that’s not changed.
I think we’re also the generation that has the most information about the changing climate accessible to us. Additionally, we’re engaging with history through a point of view that’s never been taught to us before. For example, now that I’m in college, I feel like everything that I was taught in high school was a lie or half-truth. I’m just now delving deeper into the history of colonization, how it ties to this activism and to how we view people—as in some groups are seen as more disposable and expendable than others. It’s because of colonization that companies choose certain communities to house their production facilities—they don’t view everybody as having the right to dignity. And that’s what we’re trying to fight at the end of the day. This movement is so much bigger than the environment; it’s about people.
NM: When did you first realize that you could have a real impact in this movement and that your voice matters? You said the U.N. conference in Malaysia was the first time you spoke at a conference and felt like you had a voice. Was it there that you came to the conclusion that you could do great work in this space?
XB: Yeah, the Malaysia conference was definitely a major turning point for me!
Honestly, I think my confidence around how much impact I’m having is constantly shifting. For example, when I gave the closing speech at the World Leaders Summit [at COP26, which is when heads of state and government convene to discuss their plans for achieving COP goals], my whole speech was about demands, and yet they’re asking, “What do these kids want?” even though I told them what we want word for word. We’re putting everything out there and they’re still not receiving it. So those are times when you feel like you’re not having an impact, but then there are other times when you feel like you are. I testified at City Hall in New York City and they declared a climate emergency and banned plastic bags from stores. It’s during those moments when you feel like you’re making a difference.
NM: I’m curious to know what energizes you to continue fighting this fight despite those times when you feel like you’re not being heard by government officials or politicians. You know, critics might even argue, “Oh, it’s too late to address the climate emergency.” What’s your response to those arguments and what pushes you to keep going?
XB: The first thing that I’ll say to that is: It’s never too late to do the right thing. It’s never too late to stand on the right side of history. Everything we can do, we have to do, because any action taken today can lead to a different world tomorrow.
And what keeps me energized is community. I’ve learned the hard way that if I try to do everything by myself then I’ll burn out. I never thought I would burn out—I thought that was something people just said, and I think most people don’t realize, “It could happen to me.” It’s tough to go through burnout, but at the same time, you then realize how important self-care and community care is. We talk a lot about self-care, especially as a result of the pandemic, but we also have to take care of our communities—our friends, family, and organizing groups. Community care is really what keeps the movement sustained, so having discussions and celebrating wins with my community is what keeps me going.
NM: Who do you consider to be a part of your community?
XB: I’d say my college friends. My mom, dad, and my brother too—they’re always there for me. Whenever I go to conferences, my mom or dad will usually come with me, and if they can’t they’ll check in about how it went. And people who I organize with for sure. I have friends all over the world, and it’s an amazing feeling to know that I can go anywhere and I will have people there who share my same morals and values. It feels great to be part of such a global movement.
NM: Lastly, can you offer some advice to people who want to get involved in this movement?
XB: My advice is to just get out there and do it! Fifty percent of the work is showing up, and the rest is easy. Truly, the hardest part is walking out of your house and showing up somewhere. I would say another 40 percent consists of thinking, a lot. Read, listen, and absorb information. After showing up, and thinking and learning as much as you can, the other 10 percent is raising your voice. And there’s different ways that you can do this—you can write letters to your representatives or you can give a speech to your family. I feel like young people don’t know that we have so many options to get politically involved; we can attend hearings, we can testify—these are things that you can sign up for, and we’re never told that we can just do that. You don’t have to be a certain age to be politically active; you can call your representative’s office at any time. And one of the most popular excuses that politicians give for not supporting an initiative is: “I don’t get enough calls onit.” So that’s really important!
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: We don’t need a thousand people doing everything perfectly; we need millions of people doing their best. Don’t get discouraged if you’re not able to do things the way you think they should be done. Just keep going because you’re doing the best you can.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Images courtesy of Juliette Wolf.
