The California Academy of Sciences abruptly dissolved a youth group for climate change and fired its staff coordinator earlier this year after several teenage members distributed flyers in solidarity with the museum workers’ union.
The museum created Youth Action for the Planet in October 2023 as “an environmental action hub” for young people who care about the natural world to sharpen leadership and advocacy skills.
Of course, they were supposed to do performative activism to give the museum free publicity, not real activism that challenges the capitalist status quo responsible for the climate crisis that the museum leadership benefits from.