Video: PBS News Hour

When I spoke with fifth-graders about the block-long pipeline art protest (see gallery), we talked about the climate crisis and what people are doing to address it. When I mentioned that local high schooler Kelsey Juliana was suing the government for violating her generation’s right to a livable planet, the students wanted to help her. Kelsey’s mom, Catia, suggested that the fifth-graders do outside the courthouse what Kelsey was going to do inside—tell the judge everything she’d lose if the judge didn’t let the kids take the government to trail for supporting dirty fossil fuel projects.

When PBS News Hour heard that 75 students were creating a Children’s Tribunal outside the courthouse, they sent a second camera. Eugene’s mayor Kitty Piercy joined the children, and we deputized the crowd as “judges” who listened to the children share posters and comments about things they care about in Oregon. After each student, the crowd pledged to help that child protect the thing they loved by saying together “We will help you!” The children then rallied with their posters near the busy boulevard, and that footage opens the national news coverage of the case seen here.

For a video of the actual Children’s Tribunal, please click here.