The Climate Movement is Overwhelmingly White. So I Quit.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan battered Southeast Asia, killing 6,300 people in the Philippines alone. The three-storey surge rolled over parts of the city of Tacloban, hitting my family’s neighbourhood the hardest. Schools that were designated storm shelters entombed those taking refuge from the rising waters. My aunt, like many women in the Philippines—a country made up of 7,000 islands—can’t swim. She, my uncle, and cousin were missing or presumed dead.

We only found out they survived after three grief-ridden days, from a family member who had made his way through the ravaged province with the military. Their home and the fish farm they depended on for their livelihood were devastated, and they still haven’t fully recovered.

As a climate activist in Berlin, I felt required to tell my Filipino family’s experience during speeches and rallies because this form of “storytelling” was the only thing that would move a mostly white European audience to an emotional response of climate urgency—even though it was exhausting telling the story, especially since any mention of hurricanes in the news gives me anxiety.

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