White water rushing through boulders in downtown Juneau’s Gold Creek and other scenes from Cope Park flashed across a large screen at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center on Monday.Youth from across the state presented films they made highlighting the impacts of climate change and other environmental issues where they live.
Local 16-year-old Mazelle Joseph narrated the film she made, “Walk With Me.”In Lingít, Joseph’s voice played out over the loud speakers. The subtitles read, “I feel sick when the land cries. Come with me. We are all wrapping the land in garbage,” as she collected litter from a hallowed-out tree and from a bed of spruce needles on the forest floor.
Joseph’s filmis one of eight screened this year byAlaska Youth For Environmental Action, a nonprofit led by young activists that started in 1998 to ensure youth voices would be heard. Thefilmshighlight the impacts of climate change and other environmental issues where the youth live. At the film screening, Joseph said narratives are an important part of advocacy.
“Traditionally, storytelling was the way we passed down things — everything was oral, we didn’t write it down,” Joseph said. “It makes it very personal. It puts the issues of constituents in legislators’ faces.”
She will be honored with an award for her film bySpirit of Youth, a nonprofit that recognizes young Alaskans involved in their communities.
In another film, made by the recycling club from Sitka’s Mt. Edgecumbe High School, images of trash around campus are interspersed between ocean vistas. The organizers said they’re trying to raise $800 for recycling bins at their school.
Brennen Barger looked into the ways a changing climate is impacting his hometown. He’s a 17-year-old from Noatak, a village of around 700 people in the Arctic. His film shows photos of the village’s airport.
“Noatak is a place where you are welcomed with big hugs and smiles,” he said in the narration.
The state is planning torelocatethe airport since the land it sits on is crumbling into the Noatak River.
“I talked about our erosion because it was eating up our land,” Barger said.
That erosion iscaused by climate change. Warming temperatures have brought above-average rain and snowfall to the Northwest Arctic Borough in recent years, causing the river to flood. As the riverbank erodes, permafrost along the bank thaws and falls into the river, causing more erosion.
Barger said moving the airport is important because planes provide Noatak’s only year-round transportation, and his community wants to remain there.
“It’s important for us to live in our villages where we grew up,” he said.
Leila Pyle is the program manager at Alaska Youth for Environmental Action. She said she was a teen in the program when she was growing up in Kodiak. Now, she helps youth learn to take action in their communities, including through storytelling. Pyle said processing an issue creatively is powerful.
“Teaching about climate change, talking about it, figuring out how to take action on it is so difficult, and one way that is, I find, a really positive way to start learning about the issue and how you can take action is creative projects and telling your own story,” she said at the screening.
Pyle said the program also teaches youth to talk to legislators and work together toward collective action because, she said, change starts at the community level. The film screening is part of the program’s Civics and Conservation Summit, which includes touring the Alaska State Capitol building and giving testimony to the House Education Committee.
Lupine Reifler is 16 years old and has spent much of his life in Denali National Park. He filmed stunning, serene landscapes of himself and friends skiing and hiking through the mountains and forests. Halfway through, the scenes turn to dead trees killed by a spruce bark beetle infestation that has devastated white spruce in parts of the park.
“Every year we watch more and more trees die,” he said in the video narration. “This insect is native to Denali. It’s been here as long as the trees have, but the recent population trend it’s been having is unnatural.”
Without long enoughcold snapsto kill back the beetles, their population is exploding. Reifler said the abundance of dead trees can lead to worse wildfires.
“There’s just been so many changes that have made me really think I need to speak up about this place and share what makes it special with other people,” he said.
Maddie Bass, a 15-year-old at Juneau Douglas High School Yadaa.at Kalé, made a film with other students highlighting the impacts of climate change across the state — from glacial outburst flooding in Juneau to the destruction wrought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong in western Alaska.
“The future belongs to the youth,” Bass said. “It’s us that’s going to be affected by this even 80 years from now.”