INDIANAPOLIS—Rahul Durai, 15, said advocating for policy change as a teenager isn’t easy.

“It can be a bit scary, to be honest, and make you very nervous because you’re fighting in a place where it’s mainly adults in the room,” Durai said. “I just have to keep reminding myself that youth are the future of Indiana.”

Durai isn’t alone. As director of operations for Confront the Climate Crisis, a youth-run Indiana grassroots organization that promotes climate change action, he is part of a network of teenagers who have been pressuring legislators to author bills to combat climate change.

SB 255

Durai and his team have been garnering support for Senate Bill 255 for several months. Authored by Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, the bill calls for the creation of a climate and environmental justice task force that would create a climate action plan for the state by November.

CtCC expected the bill to be discussed in the Senate Environmental Affairscommittee along with the similarly oriented Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, but committee chair Sen. Mark Messmer, R-Jasper, decided not to hear them.

The activists spoke with Messmer briefly in a Statehouse hallway last week. He told them that money was his primary concern, according to Durai, and that he doesn’t think the state should spend money on a task force that he deems to be unnecessary. Durai estimates the cost of implementing the bill’s action would be around $20,000 to $30,000.

“He had several of what I would call excuses,” Durai said. “He thinks that a task force is expensive for this issue, which I think is quite a fallacy because not acting on climate is the most expensive option for the General Assembly.”

Messmer declined a request to comment on his decision not to hear the bill.

CTC released a public statement in response to Messmer’s decision.

“We realize that the climate crisis puts Indiana’s future wellbeing in jeopardy, and we rely on those in power to hear our concerns and enact change. Therefore, we must hold our state officials accountable. Sen. Messmer’s inaction against this statewide threat sends a message to all Hoosiers, particularly the youth: Your voices are not being heard by our state government,” the statement read.

Durai said he is disappointed with an individual standpoint since he’s put so much work into the bills.

“We just want the state of Indiana to study climate change,” Durai said. “We’ve heard a number of excuses from legislators … and it is very frustrating to hear those.”

Durai’s activism

CtCC co-executive directors Annabel Prokopy and Ethan Bledsoe hold signs expressing environmental concern. CtCC leaders worked with Sen. Ron Alting to craft Senate Bill 255, which died in the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee.
Photo provided by Confront the Climate Crisis.

Pushing this bill hasn’t been easy for Durai, given his age. It’s difficult, he explained, to balance climate activism with his school work. He goes to school at West Lafayette Jr./Sr. High School during the day, then talks to legislators and youth climate groups around the state in the evening, provided he can still complete his homework. Although Durai is also legislative director for the Indiana High School Democrats, he said that CtCC is a partisan group that has been endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Durai said his parents support his activism, even though they want him to perform well in school.

“Sometimes they get concerned because a high school student is supposed to be focusing on stuff that a child normally should be, like school, and those concerns are totally valid,” Durai said. “Unfortunately, we’re in the situation where lawmakers need this pressure from us youth.”

Durai’s activism has been a few years in the making. He participated in a climate strike in West Lafayette when he was in eighth grade. He soon realized few people were taking action so his participation was crucial.

“I love the state of Indiana, and I want to live here and grow up here and work here when I grow up. I am concerned, very concerned about the effects that [climate change] will have in our state,” Durai said.

He was glad to see his face published on The Indianapolis Star’s website alongside his fellow CtCC activists, he added.

“It was particularly great to see the press give us youth activists the attention we deserve,” Durai said.

CtCC’s backstory

Annabel Prokopy and Ethan Bledsoe, CtCC’s co-executive directors, are seniors at Durai’s high school. They co-founded the CtCC, springing from momentum from West Lafayette Climate, a group that held climate strikes in West Lafayette and eventually encouraged the city council to adopt a resolution for carbon neutralityby 2038. West Lafayette Climate also started a petition to pressure the legislature into action, which has gained nearly 20,000 signatures and has carried over to CtCC’s stewardship.

CtCC, a statewide coalition, is the amalgamation of numerous youth climate activist groups in the state.

Last week, CtCC hosted a rally at the Statehouse titled “Time’s Up,” where several young Hoosiers spoke in front of 100 kids who turned out for the occasion. They were joined by speakers Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, and Rep. Carey Hamilton, D-Indianapolis. Jeff Duke, director of Purdue University Climate Research Center, also shared his thoughts. Much of CtCC’s work draws on Purdue University research, which shows that climate change is impacting Indiana by causing higher temperatures, more precipitation and earlier final spring frosts.

Prokopy and Bledsoe said the rally went well. They said it showed the power of unified action.

“We saw there were a bunch of organizations around the state, but they were all not really working together,” Bledsoe said. “What we wanted to do was create this broad organization that would unify all of them, so we can have one voice speaking to Indiana’s legislature.”

They are thankful for Alting, even though SB 255 won’t be heard in a committee.

“He’s been super supportive. He’s authoring both our bill and our resolution, and we’ve been able to work closely with him,” Prokopy said.

Durai’s reflection

Durai said that legislators’ inaction is a setback to combating climate change. Too often, he continued, they strive to protect fossil fuels, even though Hoosiers have to breathe the resulting pollution. He referenced 2020’s HEA 1414 and 2021’s HEA 1191, laws that he said protect the coal and natural gas industries.

“The action is absent. It’s inaction, and that’s why we’re so frustrated,” Durai said. “For so long, this has been a topic that certain lawmakers have tried to avoid.”

Lawmakers discount teenagers’ thoughts, Durai said, because they think that they will abandon their cause when they graduate from high school. Durai said they’re wrong.

“We’re the ones who are going to inherit the state, so that makes it more important than ever for us to be involved,” Durai said.

Durai said he has no plans to go anywhere.

“I think I’ve fallen in love with legislative advocacy,” Durai said. “I’m really passionate about advocating for justice, particularly climate and environmental justice because I think that is the most important thing that our government should be acting on.”

FOOTNOTE: Isaac Gleitz is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.