This Wednesday, May 17, The University of Denver will be hosting the 2023 Youth Voices in Climate Change event on their campus. Youth Voices in Climate Change is an all-day event dedicated to bringing young people together to talk about the future of climate change. The event will start at 10:00 a.m. in the Community Commons Grand Forum with the 2022-23 Marsico Lecturers. 

This year the featured lecturers are young climate activists from the organization Earth Guardians. Earth Guardians is an environmental activist organization with the mission to “train and empower youth at the intersection of climate change and social justice.”

These Marciso Speakers include Anthony Ramón Pérez Soto, the regional programs coordinator at Earth Guardians, Leala Pourier, a University of Denver Creative Writing senior working as a social media manager and youth council member of Earth Guardians and Esperanza Soledad Garcia, a student of architecture at University Of Colorado, Boulder. Jeniffer Solis will also be the recipient of the Anvil of Freedom Award as well as a lecturer.

Later, after the lecturers, the Youth Voices in Climate Change event will end with Sophia Kianni. Kianni is a national strategist for Fridays for Future and has worked alongside Greta Thumberg for numerous years. She’s the youngest member of the United Nations Advisory Council on Climate. 

The Youth Voices in Climate Change event will also provide a student showcase featuring productions related to climate change.

This event couldn’t be done without the help of students and on-campus participation. Professor Lynn Schofield Clark, who will be opening the event, made sure to have students on campus collaborate on picking the speakers for this year’s event. She also said these students helped pick the Youth Voices in Climate Change topic.

Students from various departments on campus will also help make sure the event moves smoothly. For example, students from Professor Clark’s Media, Race, Tech and Ethics class have signed up for assistant and errand positions for the speakers on Wednesday.