Read the full story at Inside Climate News.
When Tasha Elizarde was a young girl, she would climb up a mountain a few miles outside her home in Juneau, Alaska, to a scenic overlook, where she could gaze at the Mendenhall Glacier.
But over the course of her childhood, the glacier began to vanish. From the time she was 8 until she turned 16, it receded about 1,800 feet. Now, standing at the same overlook, “we can’t even see it anymore,” she said.
Now 19 years old, Elizarde has joined 15 other young Alaskans who are suing the state of Alaska for causing climate change and failing to protect the climate for future generations. They are asking for a science-based energy policy—one that will shift to renewable energy sources and bring greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.