gigirl: my name is alexaxandria villaseñor. boy: my nameme is adiglia bra. boboy: i'm cararl smith. boy: my name is david ackley. [g[girl speaking native e langu] girl: : my name is ayakha melithafa. boy: m my name is raj tanagigi. girl: mymy name is yur kapadaea. boy: my nameme is litokne kabua. girl: : my name is greta.. we are actlllly sayi that t you are violating ilildren'sightss whilyoyou ha----you have rectctifiethe un convevention of the righghtsf ththe chil a and

therefore, we are suing g you. i think that i is veryry powerfl thing. alexandra:a: my generation wille the most vulnerable by the climate crisis. carl: my v village is built on permafrorost, and d it's startio thawaw away. ayakhaha: a lot of people experience climatete change, but they don't k know that it's clclimate change. litokne:e: we want a sustainable planet to live in in the future. [camera shutteter clicking] announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by a grant from anne ray foundation, a margaret a. cargill philanthropy; the orange couounty community fodadation; anand the farvueue fofoundation.. [helicopter blades whirring] [flames cracackling]

[water rushing] [wind howling] man: every child born today will experience a fundamentally altered world, whihich will ineaease their probabability of dedeath and serious disease or illness bebecause of the changen the climimate. therere are a great many efforts brought by young people around the world--cases brought dodomesticallyly against g goves for failing to do what those governments pledged to do in the paris agagreement. b but what fm would allow you to talk to all of h humanity atat one time?e? s the united nations. wewe conducd interviews to basically put togegether the best diversity ad array of young people from different parts of the world being affected in different

ways by the crisis. a number of organizations, including greta thunberg, conveyed to us the dedesire to foformulate, i if possible, , single legegal stratetegy in order r to respono a a challenge that a affects all nations. greta: i am m very much shown nn the media, a and therefore it ts extremely impoanant that we e ao highlight the other plplaintifi. we need to get better of listening to everyone, and therefore there is also one other reason to why this petition is so powerful and so important.

[litokne speaking marshallese]

[waves crashing] the waves came, and then they removed ththe piece ofof land tt used to be over here. so over here is what used to be ourr outside bathroom, and then it was knocked aw. this was used to be e a basketbl court area for small kids, but itesestroyed. . all this a areas impapacted, and d it was floloo. 60% of the c community h here on ebeye has s been damaged or affected by the rirising seas ad clate changege. [chihildren lklking indistinctl] wowoman: the world talked about climatate change b before us. is an e existential threaeat. for e marshallese youth, we have 3 that are signature to the petition. we are very proud that

the 3 have taken a role in that very important challenge because the lives of people in countries like the m marshall islands is n the line. . it's hard to jusust close our eyes and hope that this is not gonna get worse, because we see it getttting wore and worse every yeyear. [flames crackling] alexandria: in november of 2018, one ofof theiggest wildfirires n california's history broke out. [alarm beeping] i am originalllly from davavis, california. and during my trip baback home calalifornia,a, i s really c caught in t the smoke f the e paradise f fire. [firefighter talking indistinctly] alexandria: and so i started to really resesearch abouout wildf, because i wawanted to knknow wht was going on 'caususe californi-

it's on fifire a year round non. there isis no wildfifire season. it's just california. from that research, i started to see the link between climate change and californinia's wildfifires, and that made m met to d do somethining, but i didnt knknow how untntil seeing g grea thunberg speak at cop24 in poland.. greta: this is the biggest crcrisis humanity has evever fa. we neeeed to get angry and hold the older generations accountablble for the e mess tht they have created. [shouting in native languages] [rhythmic drumming] alexandriaia: could we have thee first thing on ourur agenda bebe e-mailil that was just sent to l of you guys? girl: can yoyou text me thagagea because ththe what'sapp hasn't

been working. alexandria: i was one of the fifirst climatate strikers heren the e united states. woman: she said, "i want to rike." andnd we bothth laughed. we didn'thinink anybodody would pay y attentntion. in a peririo9 months, you know, we went from this place of just s sitting ona bench with a sign to, you know, ororganizingng globally. [cheering] crowd: ♪ if you will fight for us, we're gonna fight for you will you fight f for us? ♪ alexandriaia: these dedemands ae directed at those in power who are inside the united nations climate summit. anand we will continueuo climate options till they hear us. [cheering] kristin:n: right nowow, our vevs are...just...overwhelming. it's difficult to keep up with our schedules. woman: i'd like for us to all

welcome alexandria. alexandria: people a always ask how we o organize fofor a global climatate strike. so really,y, w it's all done is it's done through social media. we u use a lot of what'sapppp, discord, slack. insnstagram's wrere a lot of, like, the youth are, and then twiwitter's where youou'lle the climate scientists, and then facebook--it's like, "what's on facebook?" [laughter] kristin: in the beginning, alexandria managed her social media. it's s just she's's 14, d she insists on allowing, y you know, directct messages to reaeh her. and with the huge following that she's developed, there's just s so many of f those messas that are not appppropriate. i mean, she's receceived everyrytg from deaeath threats to rriaiage proposals--ha!a!--online and evevything in n between. my first j job is to be heher parerent, which isis to keep her sasafe and to keep her healthy.

and i worry y there's real danger invnvolved in being an acactivist. and so you just t he to take precautions.s. you haveo be carefeful. [engine chugging] carl: see, these are rabbits right there. rabbbbit snares. we set 'em as g as a man's hand, like this. usually it will get colder than this. right now, it's like 20 degrees, 15 degrees, but it should be, like, 0 to below 10. the mainin effects o of climatee changege around hehere are leses snow, and it's just icy out on

the river. and during the summer, it somometimes gets so t ththat fish start flfloating ine river dead 'cause there's no oxygen in the river. [engine chugging] [man speaking] carl: the pepermafrost iss defrososting, and it's n not had enough f for the waves to hit. d usualllly when the waveses hit,t jujust bounceses off and i it dt erode. nowowadays, it't's just o soft and i it's just b breakingn

ththe dirt on n our land. [clifton speaking] [corn kernrnels rattling] [clucking tongue] [chickens clucking] ayakhaha: in the e eastern capee majority of people here are farmrmers. this s how we earn nr livingng. this is s how we susud ourselves. but t the weatherer s been so o unpredictable that w e haven't really had a chance to plant anything now. you can even see the clouds across. it's not that green or anything like thatat because of the drouought. it's hard. it really is hard to live like this.

woman: the c climate issue is a seririous issue e because it's affecting everyone, especially womemen, especiaially those e se women that are trying to make enends meet and they tryry to go maybe for r farming, and they can't do b because now that there's stones and everything. so she's standing g for the voiceless, if i can put it that way. her father died when she was 6. you've got thosose fear thatat how i'm g gonna managagen when you see them bebecoming wht ththey are becoming, you feel lo proud. ayakha: when you see something getting destroyed that you love and d value, you can't jusust st around and do nothing. so i went to t the school l internet a and googled in what is c causing the drought, and thehen there's lika lot thatat came up--the climatae change, global warming. so it's just like shock. likike, wow, ts is a lot of informatioion about this, that it is a bigger movement g going on beyond t the small fraction of drought that we are facing here i in cape to. [childreren talking g indistinc] ayakha: as a school student, i

decide, "ok, my school is my cocommunity. let me starart from within." andnd we starteted sch, and i i tried to o organize asassemblies f for me to, like, educate people, but even that was tough, 'cause scho kids arare mean. when i was trying to, "guys, come look here, come look here," "ah, ricich white pepeople stuf. this is fofor people that have money anand rich." and i'm like, "guys,s, we the onones that are gettining affected first here bebecause, like, we the e vulnee ones." i can't really say, "oh, well, we'r're doomed, knowing gt there's somemething we c can stl do." alexandria: 30 years ago, the world signed a contract between generations that the present world would leave a world worth inheritingng to ththe future. you u are defaulting on ththat contract, , and we're here to collect.t.

myselflf, along with 15 otother children from all around the world, filed a c complaint t toe committee on the rigights of t e child, statiting thahat our rigs are being g violated b by argen, brazazil, germanany, turkey, and france. article vi on the convention of the rights of the child say it's that we have an inherent right to life. but the climate crisis with more floods, wildfires, hurricanes--it's directly threatening that. greta: they promised to protect our righghts, and theyey have nt done that. carl: we u used toe e able to go hunt geese o....any kind of hunt, berry picking. and now they're just disappepearing. ayakakha: you can start byby the small, daily activities to just raise awareness in your communit'cause eveventually, it will s spread like a wildfirire. woman: one o of them is s a 17-year-old who joinined greta thunberg a and 14 4 other global activists in signingng a legal

compmplaint for the uneded natis coconvention o on the rights ofe child. ayakha: itit's almost like t the children of the world taking the worlrld to courtrt, for nott upholding the uniteded nations rights of the chchild. i was very glad to be part of it 'cause it will mean that i was able to shed light on what's happening to my community, to my country. they look at co2 emimissions.... nokukulunga: she was gonnana doe plastic surgeon and stuff, so i said, "my hand is up. i hope i'm the first one." it's been long since i wanted to be young again. she said, "oh, i'll make you young." but now we're not talking about that anymore. now she's talking about the climate issue. she want to be a lawyer. she e wants to fight for t the climate, for the world, actually. greta: i it's veryry importantnt we use e every possible e channl that we hahave, and ththe law is especially powerfuful.

michael: the petition is seeking to demonstrate that it's not just clilimate in ththe abstracr the eaearth in a b bell jar. i s every y child born today that wl face the e effects, you knknow,f increased d global heating throughout their entire lives, generation after generation. greta: we're using our rights as citizens of the world and as children, and yoyou need to actually s step up whehen thingo totoo far, a and that's what wee doing. boy: ha ha! [boy speaking marshallese] [litokne speaking marshallese]

[ukelele playing] [boy singing in marshallese] litokne: my family is one of the mostst important families in the community. we are the ones who take the responsibilities ofof r traditional ways of living.

[people e singing]g] man: here in the marshshall islands, we still observe the social caste system. or within the caste system, you have 3 categories--ththe royals, the chiefsfs; you have the landowne, and the commoners. the royal family is the kings. these are our advocate. they teach us manners, they teach us the culture, and they provide our needs. litokne comes from ththe royal fafamily. knowing gs background means he knows where he's coming fromom, and litoknes future herere will be very important. litoknkne: my closest familyly membmber to me is my mother.r. y mother is the female traditional leader. [speaking marshallese] lilitokne: i go around t the scs

here and encourage them to be youth activists, too. [lititokne speakaking marshalle] alexandriaia: you really want to prototect those around you and make sure that your family is safe and your friendnds are saf,

but the climate crisis is directly threatening your friends and your family. it's threatening everyone on this plplanet. [door squeaks] man: we lolost 85 and probably some morore that we don't realay know a about 'cause there wawasa homeless popopation up here.e. we'v've got 40,0,000 people e we it off this ridge driving through tunnels of fire. and some of the most powerful moments for meme is when we head about some o of our youth group said they called their parents and said good-bybye. [voice b breaking] s sorry. that getets me every timime i tk about itit. so many people thought, really believeded that theyey were goio die asas they drovove through he fires. thehe mental ananguish ad the e stress is still gonna be going on for a long time.

we just had a load of food come in on friday, but you can see it's already pretty much gone. when you think about the fire, you u think so often, "ok, it burns, you clear it, and you g o back."." but this s devastations soso complete that peoeople have gonene from this area to almost all 50 states and into other countries. everyone's lost their friends, their community, the things they know. everything is gone. [electronic tone] carl: what's up, rasiene?? rasiene: h hey. we n no longer h have 4 seasasoe

ononly hav2 2 seasons, w which e summer a and winter. so, splply, eitherer we're facacing anxtxtre heat, , or we are having, lilik, heavy y rains which goes floodings. carl: thatat's kind of scary. rasiene: yeah. we also have heavy snsnowfall, bubut i don'tt think thatat it is as much as yu guys have-e-- carl: : yeah. . we don't---- rarasiene: because you live in-- carl: you guys are prorobably having m more snow than us. i'll talk to yoyou maybe totoday or tomorrow. ok, later, bro. rasiene: takake care. baby: boo. carl: i don't like mornings. always sleepy. so i drop one of my sistersrs off to my aunties,, and then i drop one off at t the preseschool, thehen i go straigo school. boy: d did you have fun in n new yoyork? carlrl: yeah. boy: did y you get to meet gret? carl: yeah, becacause she was pt of my group. before wewe went dn

the prpress conference, she e hd me, likeke, get reready and whatever, like, 'c'cause i was nervrvous. and then--'cacause ss used to it. i met lolots of people from all around the world. my friend, he lives att the marsrshall islands. he lost his homeme from risi s sea leve. we jusust have to keep talking. michaeael: the comommittee wilie a a recommendadation as toto whr or not there was a a fundamentnl righght agreed t to by thesese natitions, whichch they haveve t lived up to or h honored. ththe enigma t then comes in what thoe naonons will do o in the facacef that finding and that recommmmendation. greta: what i wowould hope thiso result in isis that itit actualy chchanges the way wewe see the climatate crisis and the w way e

sesee th, , because itit's s symbololic and that it will sort ofhange thmindsetsts of people. [litokne speaking marshallese] ayakha: in south a africa, the 1976 soweto uprisising made kids from all ages are rirising up to fifight the apartheid sysystem f lelearning afrikaansns. so thers a powerful movovement, and it keeps on e encouragingng and shg me that youth h can make a differenence. we can make a mamr difffference if f we just puputr hearts and our minds to it. alexandria: i hope thahat from e children verersus climatate cris complalaints that argentina, brazil, germany, turkey, and frfrance that they respond to wt we have filed agnsnst them. ii

also want t to see thahat this compmplaint it r raises awareneo what's's happening to childrdrel around the w world. today, we are at city hall in san francisco. girl: what do we want? girls: climate justice! girl: whenen do we want it? girls: now! announcecer: "earth focus" is se possiblele in part by a grant tm ananne ray fououndation, a margt a. cargill philanthropy;y; the orange county cocommunity foundation; and ththe farvueqaew

10/12/20 10/12/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracacy now! president trump returns to the campaign trough for the first time after his covid-19 hospitalization, despite doctors has had ao confirm he negative test. we will look at how his defined actions over the past week after i the health of the white house residencnce s staff, a majorityf whom are olderer people of col