student spotlight
By Brendan Martin
Hitting Deadline New Albany High School rising senior combats climate change before the clock strikes zero
C
helsey Gilchrist is a climate change activist, and proud of it. Instead of sitting around and waiting for policymakers to combat climate change, she takes matters into her own hands. In 2019, Gilchrist joined Zero Hour, a youth-led nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting climate change. The organization was founded by a few high school students in 2017 in Seattle, Washington, and has expanded across the globe at breakneck speeds. When Gilchrist heard about Zero Hour, she just knew she needed to join. “I think a lot of people in my generation grew up with a lot of awareness about of what is happening, and I think I’ve been taught a lot about the powers of activism,” she says. “Throughout my
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Chelsey Gilchrist
childhood, I always heard these stories about how the world is in danger and how we need sustainable energy. … I knew (Zero Hour) was the best opportunity for me to demonstrate my passions and to actually do something.” As a member of New Albany’s Zero Hour chapter, Gilchrist helps set up town hall meetings and climate strikes. Last September, she helped organize a strike in Columbus and scheduled activists to speak at the Ohio Statehouse. The purpose of a climate strike is to remind the public that now is the time for us to take action. The Zero Hours’ homepage gives visitors this reminder with an ominous clock counting down to nine years in the future. “That’s the deadline,” Gilchrist says. “There’s zero hours left to take care of
climate change. Zero Hour’s head organization has a list of demands that they made to the federal government and the states and politicians. We have a list of rules that we want to achieve before that deadline.” Like many young people, Gilchrist is inspired by the activism of 17-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden. “Her activism is so simple and so poignant,” she says. “I feel like a lot of society gets kind of scared whenever they are discussing climate change because they don’t want our consumerism to end. They don’t want our oil spending and our way of life to stop because it’s so dependent on what ruins a sustained environment. … She is courageous to stand up to such older institutions and www.healthynewalbanymagazine.com
