Youth Plaintiffs

Held youth plaintiffs’ voices and power resonated around the globe as they took the stand and held their government accountable to protect their rights to a safe climate, and a livable future.

YOUTH PLAINTIFF

Georgi F.

Age: 17

Hometown: Bozeman, Montana

Georgi is proud to follow in her great-grandmother’s footsteps and protect Montana’s natural environment. Her great-grandmother worked to get the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Area protected, testifying before Congress about how valuable the land was in its natural state and about how it was being destroyed. Now Georgi sees how the climate crisis is affecting everything her great-grandmother worked for and she is adamant to save it.

But it’s not only her great-grandmother’s environmental protection efforts at stake. For over a decade, Georgi has been a competitive Nordic skier, training eleven months of the year and practicing 15-22 hours each week, six days a week. However, with less snowfall in the winter, and the snow melting at rapid rates, her training season is often curtailed and has overall shortened in length. The lack of snow has prevented her from completing all of her necessary and appropriate training and hinders her ability to continue to train for competitions at a high level, which adversely impacts her health and mental well-being. In the summer, practice is also often canceled due to smoke from wildfires.

Besides skiing, Georgi also enjoys paddleboarding, backpacking, hiking, and other activities in the outdoors in Montana. Georgi is studying environmental science in college to learn and identify additional ways to fight climate change.

In order to have a better future, I know that the State of Montana needs to stop relying so heavily on fossil fuels and the court telling them that doing so violates the constitution would provide the only help on the horizon.

—Georgi F.