The summer before their junior year of high school, Lily Mandel took a trip to New Mexico to volunteer on an indigenous permaculture farm. That trip proved to be life-changing.

Before their plane touched down back home in Philadelphia, Mandel had founded Bucks Students for Climate Action and Protection of the Environment (BSCAPE), complete with a website they created and designed from 35,000 feet in the air. 

Mandel, now a senior at Central Bucks High School South, said their experience on the farm, which utilizes holistic approaches to create an eco-friendly sustainable agricultural environment, kick-started their idea for BSCAPE and acted as a catalyst for their climate activism that followed. BSCAPE is a nonprofit organization that provides students and other youth, as well as Bucks County community members, with a platform to fight against climate change.

In New Mexico, Mandel had listened to a Hopi farmer speak about the urgency of climate change as well as the interconnectedness of humans and the planet they call home. 

“It just helped me come to the conclusion that the environment is really the mother of all issues because it’s the one thing that really combines everything together,” Mandel said. “Racial justice, social justice, gender equality, LGBTQ+ inclusivity, everything has a place in the environmental movement. The environment is really the issue that ties every other issue together.”

Mandel said the conversations with the Hopi farmer were a sign that amidst the chaos of their AP-filled high school schedule and the other social justice movements they invested their time in, they had to “drop everything” and start BSCAPE. Mandel knew of other environmental organizations in the area but none that addressed and encompassed all of the systemic problems they are hoping to deconstruct. 

“I thought of tackling political and social justice issues, which I believe are the root cause of that environmental destruction,” Mandel said. “So that was a slightly different narrative from other environmental organizations out there. That’s why I wanted to start my own [organization], so that we have young people really focusing on putting enough pressure on people in power to inspire change and get more people involved.”

Members of BSCAPE, mainly students at Central Bucks High School South, have led marches about climate justice with other organizations in the area, hosted speakers on different topics including plant-based diets, held an educational summit in which they screened Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and hosted a panel to celebrate American Indigenous people by speaking with chiefs of tribes in the area.

In a 2019 Amnesty International survey of over 10,000 Gen Z members across six continents, respondents ranked climate change as the most important issue facing the world. Gen Z generally refers to the demographic born between the mid- to late-1990s and the early 2010s.

Saving the planet is no small task, and Mandel works to squeeze it into an already busy schedule. Like so many members of Gen Z, Mandel is juggling work, school and a global pandemic, all while on their own quest to fight for the issues they care about. 

“We have AP finals and we have college applications and we’re doing all this while trying to make sure that our children have air to breathe,” Mandel said.

Clint Springer, Ph.D., director of environmental science and sustainability studies at St. Joe’s, said young people’s attention to environmental problems is due to their experiencing firsthand the effects of global warming and to seeing these problems permeating throughout so many other parts of society. 

“It’s the largest scale social justice issue that the world has ever faced,” Springer said. “If you look at climate justice as a problem, all of those other areas of social justice are impacted in a either a direct or an indirect way.”

Mandel said in many ways, change has to start with young people because they not only have the most to lose from a deteriorating planet, but they also will have to suffer the climate consequences brought on by past generations. 

“We’re already seeing apocalyptic events happening all over the world, which is only going to get worse if we don’t change fundamentally right now,” Mandel said. “There is a sense of urgency. Older generations have already experienced a majority of their lives and had kids and all that. We are not certain that we’re going to have the same experiences if we don’t fundamentally get this figured out.”

Mandel recognizes the existential dread regarding climate change that can take a toll on the mental health of their generation, but has found that surrounding themself with like-minded individuals, friends and other members of BSCAPE has helped them cope with these feelings of distress.

“Pessimism around the climate issue can be very emotionally taxing, but I think that having that community and having that way of advocating can definitely help out with that,” Mandel said. “When I’m surrounded by people who care, I feel hopeful because I see a better future in them, and not necessarily in the people that we’re demanding it from.”

Mandel said they see a certain level of futility in asking those in positions of power in outdated systems to be the ones to create change, so the members of BSCAPE know they have to take it upon themselves.

“You’re not going to achieve new and radical change, positive change, with old systems and old people,” Mandel said. “We stopped relying on these people to make change. We started creating it for ourselves. We’re not seeing hope for the future, necessarily, but we’re seeing hope for each other. We’re seeing that people care, which in and of itself means that it is possible.”

Marlene Pray, director and founder of the Rainbow Room, Bucks County’s LGBTQ+ Youth Center, and Mandel’s mentor, said that today’s young activists are some of the most “engaged, resilient, energized, courageous, creative, dynamic and caring” changemakers Pray’s ever worked with. Pray said Mandel exemplifies these characteristics.

 “Lily came in with a fire and passion about equity and justice and that has grown, deepened, evolved and become more effective, patient, fierce and strategic since I’ve known [them],” Pray said. “Lily has also broadened Lily’s understanding of racial justice in relation to social change in meaningful and transformative ways.”

Mandel said what fuels the activism they exemplify is not just personal but also the hope of ensuring that future generations are able to call Earth home. 

“I would say it’s as much of a personal thing, and a generational relief to do activism as much as [it is] self preservation for the future and making sure that we have a planet to live on and so do our kids,” Mandel said.