President Donald Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20 as the 47th president of the United States. For many Americans, this was a day of shared loss and national frustration. On Inauguration Day, climate change mitigation group Sunrise Movement Athens hosted a meeting to offer a healing space, organized by co-Presidents Maeve Fellerhoff and Celia Hawk.
Fellerhoff, a junior studying sculpture and expanded practice, said when people try to avoid a pressing challenge or problem, they can build up a sense of apathy.
“That sense of apathy and inaction is part of the reason we started Sunrise in the first place, to give people an outlet where they felt like they were doing any small amount of change so that they felt less helpless,” she said.
Part of combating this apathy is providing opportunities for students to participate in activism, such as protesting in Columbus.
“I think our goal on campus is to give people actionable things to participate in,” Hawk, a junior studying environmental studies, said.
In a challenging time for climate politics under the Trump Administration, Fellerhoff recognizes the power of building safe spaces. Fellerhoff also mentioned that the mid-2030s is a general deadline for curbing the global climate change threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, a rapidly approaching time limit.
“Everyone I talk to (at Ohio University) has really strong aspirations for wanting to make the world a better place,” Hawk said. “I know that Sunrise National is hoping that after the next election, there will be someone who is way more likely to commit to climate action than even the Democrats in the past election were.”
Fellerhoff shares a similar conviction.
“We hope this will be the wake-up call for the Democratic Party that they need to find someone who appeals to the younger generation more … maybe that is someone who is a little more divisive or a little more radical,” she said.
American politics often lack compromise, and the space for individuals to share their ideas in a common headspace can be rare. Hawk believes compromise is essential to plan the transition to complete renewable energy in the American workforce. Hawk also expressed that job security is necessary for those working in non-renewable energy sectors.
Scott Miller, associate dean for industry partnerships in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, discussed the connections that inherently politicize conversations about climate change, such as the relationship between climate impact and American economics.
“The installation of a large solar farm may require a couple hundred employees, but the maintenance and operational life cycle of the facility may only require a handful of employees,” he said.
Miller affirmed the need for spaces where educated conversation can thrive.
“I think we need to have safe spaces where we can have bilateral conversations about all of these things, and unfortunately those safe spaces are increasingly rare in today’s society,” he said.
During the Sunrise Athens meeting Jan. 20, members shared their concerns about climate policy under the new Trump Administration.
“If people felt like they had slightly different opinions or slightly different thoughts, we shared a common hope for the future,” Hawk said.
For many young people who have dedicated their work to fighting climate change, the future can appear grim. Yet, hope is a tool that some climate advocates such as Hawk and Fellerhoff utilize in their work.
“I think hope and apathy really go together,” Fellerhoff said. “Informed, radical hope is the most powerful thing we can have right now.”
