SUNRISE, SUNSET
THE DOCTOR COULDN’T UNDERSTAND why Kidus Girma wouldn’t just eat the sandwich. It was October 2021, and Girma, 26, was starving. He hadn’t eaten anything solid in four days. His vision was blurred, his heart rate was elevated, and his blood-glucose levels were becoming potentially deadly. He could barely sit up, much less stand. As he struggled to explain to the befuddled medical professionals surrounding him that he was on a hunger strike to protest the Biden Administration’s lack of action on climate change, he began to realize his cause was failing.
“I had felt like, maybe if I really push my limits, that’s how we win,” Girma reflected in a recent interview. “I believe that less now.”
Ten days later, the hunger strike was over, but the climate crisis was no closer to being solved. The White House hadn’t responded; billions in proposed climate spending remained stuck in limbo in the Senate. And Girma and his fellow activists, having done everything in their power to force change, were left wondering what went wrong.
Girma is a member of the Sunrise Movement, a six-year-old youth climate organization that has shot to prominence in its short existence. Conceived by environmentalists hoping to inject their cause with people power, and launched into the seething desperation of the early Trump era, Sunrise has been celebrated in the liberal press and feted by top Democrats. It boasts millions in funding from donors and foundations, hundreds of “hubs” across the country, and thousands of volunteers. The group pressured Democratic presidential candidates to embrace their sweeping climate agenda, helping popularize the idea of a Green New Deal for climate and jobs. “They’ve brought new energy and new ambition to the climate community and made a big impact in a short period of time,” says Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
What they haven’t managed to do is win. Since Democrats took control of the White House and Congress last year, Sunrise has focused its efforts on getting major climate legislation enacted at the federal level. The Administration included $550 billion in climate spending in the Build Back Better package that was to be the linchpin of President Biden’s agenda, and Sunrise pushed hard to get the bill passed.
