We are highlighting the work of young climate activists in the Pittsburgh region. Avery Henderson Thomas is a senior at Woodland Hills High School and an organizer of the upcoming Pittsburgh Youth for Climate Action Summit through the organization Communitopia. Henderson Thomas is into reading and writing, and science. They’ve also trained as a volunteer firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician.
“I thrive in situations where people say I won’t thrive,” Henderson Thomas said. “Being a Black female in the fire service, in EMS is not easy, but I thrive under pressure. When push comes to shove, I’m gonna shove.”
The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple spoke with Avery Henderson Thomas about their climate activism and hopes for the future.
LISTEN to the interview
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/media.alleghenyfront.org/AF030626_KH_YouthClimate.mp3
Kara Holsopple: How did you get involved in climate action?
Avery Henderson Thomas: It started when I was in ninth grade. My school had a climate action team. So I joined it because I’d always felt passionate about advocating for others. And funny enough, my school was actually the first school to come up with a district-approved climate action plan. So I thought that was really awesome. Then I met Raina at Communitopia and she told me about the summit that they do, Pittsburgh Youth for Climate Action. The year after I joined – my sophomore year – and I’ve been a part of it as a leader ever since.
Kara Holsopple: What have you learned from organizing these climate summits?
Avery Henderson Thomas: I’ve learned that there are so many people in Pittsburgh and probably all around, that are passionate about these things. It’s just they have nowhere to put it. So by organizing these summits, it’s giving them a space for them to come together in cohorts with other people who are their age, who care about the same things they do. And it’s really cool to get to walk around with different groups and see activities and how they’re thinking and what they’re working on.
Kara Holsopple: What’s it like getting to work with other young people from different school districts, different neighborhoods on the climate?
Avery Henderson Thomas: It’s really cool. We all get to see our different perspectives because we grew up in different places. For me, I grew up in Braddock. We have a steel mill right near us. So that impacts breathing and health conditions like asthma.
But it’s cool because we all come from such different places, we get to see the different ways of how we think, and it really puts in perspective how if we get in touch with different neighborhoods and different people, they’ll be able to connect with each other and really hear, “Hey, I didn’t think about it that way. That’s pretty cool. Maybe I should start thinking about things in a different sort of way.” Kind of opens up your mind.
Advice from a youth climate organizer
Kara Holsopple: Give us a taste of what this year’s climate summit will look like.
Avery Henderson Thomas: We’ll be talking about data centers and AI and how that’s affecting our community and climate. We’ll talk about how lawmakers and policymakers make the policies on our climate and how we can go about getting our expectations to those people, and we’ll even be creating climate action plans in my group. They’ll be able to take it to lawmakers and policymakers, which would be pretty cool.
We’ll also be talking about sustainable fashion and how you don’t have to stop being fashionable just because you want to be sustainable. We can have both together. We will be having a clothing swap, so you can bring a clothing item to swap a clothing item and it’s just all together a better way to find different sorts of styles without having to go out and buy more, consumerism, stuff like that. You can just swap.
Kara Holsopple: What emotions does the climate crisis or the situation that we’re in now bring up for you as a young person?
Avery Henderson Thomas: It makes me kind of scared because our generation is going to be leading the future. Also, with that fear, it brings a sense of responsibility to me to help get my fellow classmates and peers into this sense of urgency and bringing climate action forward and bringing it to the people our age because we’re going to be responsible in the future.
It’s important that we understand what we’re talking about and how to get that information out to those who do make the policies. Like, it’s like a snowball. Once we make a change, it starts snowballing. And then when we’re in that position in the future, and others are coming to us, we’ll have to remember back to when we were doing that same thing. And it just creates a new sense of knowledge, I guess I’d put it, and empathy, so that we can understand where they’re coming from.
Kara Holsopple: What frustrates you most about the climate crisis?
Avery Henderson Thomas: I’d have to say it’s the fact that I feel like we are heard by some people, but also there’s some people who are just stuck in their ways and don’t believe that it’s real or say that the environment is going to be fine or it doesn’t matter, what matters is us. But our environment, it’s what’s keeping us alive. It gives us the air to breathe every day. It’s what gives us water. It supplies our food. So it supplies all of our necessities. And for people to say that it doesn’t matter or it’s not real is in my eyes ignorant because eventually it’s going to catch up.
Kara Holsopple: What makes you feel like this is a problem that can be solved?
Avery Henderson Thomas: If you get one person to believe then that one person’s gonna tell other people. I have heard it described as like, if you pour juice into a glass at the top of a tower and you overfill that, then it fills down to the other layers, and then those cups fill, and then they overflow. Then it goes to layers under and so forth. But if you get all those glasses filled, that emptiness subsides. If we get so many people to be passionate, come together, and start making things happen with this climate action part of the crisis, then there’s really no stopping us.
Kara Holsopple: You were talking about people coming together. There’s a lot of division in our country right now about a lot of different topics, but about the environment, certainly. How does that impact you?
Avery Henderson Thomas: It brings back that responsibility sense, and it makes the work that we’re doing even more important. We don’t have to agree to work together. So it’s just bringing that mindset to the people, rather than we have to agree because I’m right, can we agree to disagree to work together to create something bigger than just us?
Local High School Students Lead Youth Climate Summit
Kara Holsopple: What are your plans after graduation?
Avery Henderson Thomas: I actually am committing to the College of Virginia Military Institute, and I’m going for pre-med – biology with a pre- med focus. Then after that, I plan to join the Navy and be an officer in the Navy, and go to medical school, because my end goal is to be an emergency room physician. Hopefully, I’ll get to keep up my firefighting and EMS career while in college. I just want to have a future that’s oriented toward helping people.
Kara Holsopple: Is there anything else that you would want to say to people who are listening about the climate crisis and what they can do?
Avery Henderson Thomas: Reach out to your local policymakers. Reach out to local groups you know. There are so many in Pittsburgh. There are many places that you can find groups and people who need help. Don’t feel afraid. Just because you’re one person doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything. It takes a lot of people to make change. And have confidence in yourself because we are the future. So it’s time that we started acting like it.