Sophie’s Legacy Award

There are many young people today who work tirelessly against global warming, environmental damages and unsustainable, profitable short-term solutions. The Sophie Prize board has decided to honour two such organizations.

We have named the prize ”Sophie’s Legacy Award”. Each award amounts to 250 000 NOK – more than $40 000.

The two award winners are: Norway’s largest environmental organization for youth, Nature and Youth, represented by its elected leader, Silje Lundberg and Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Climate Change. We have asked the Sophie Prize Winner, Bill McKibben, to present the awards.

Alec Loorz: 12 years old you watched Al Gore’s movie ”An inconvenient truth”. The film changed your life. You realized, at a very young age, how global warming – if not reversed – will be affecting yours and future generation’s living conditions. You decided to try to make a difference.

You therefore started to talk to other young people, doing presentations about global warming at schools, your peers – and soon Kids vs. Global Warming was born. 19 years old you have become a “mini-McKibben – mobilizing young people to fight global warming. When we asked Bill McKibben who he would select as a worthy award winner, he selected you.

Alec, you say that the only thing most people value more than money, is their own children. You therefore believe that children, by asking parents and decision makers “Do I matter to you?”, can motivate the revolutionary change that is needed to reverse global warming.

Alec Loorz: The Sophie Prize jury is very impressed by your work and think you are a very worthy winner of the “Sophie’s Legacy Award”.

Nature and Youth, represented by Silje Lundberg: The organization you represent is far older than you. Founded in 1967, it has been educating and mobilizing generations of Norwegian youth to fight for their future. From nature conservation to sustainable food production to green transportation, Nature and Youth has made a decisive impact on environmental politics in Norway.

Today, Nature and Youth enables more than 6,500 people under the age of 25 to involve themselves in the defining struggle of their generation: The fight against climate change. In Norway, this struggle is closely tied to our challenge as a nation: To rid ourselves of our addiction to fossil fuel production.

Nature and Youth has become a driving force in challenging Norway's oil addiction, mobilizing all over the country to save vulnerable sea areas from oil and gas production. The most important fight of recent years, that you have won again and again, is in Silje Lundberg's own region of Northern Norway: The areas outside Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja.

In this way, Nature and Youth is a part of the same movement for a shift from fossil fuels that Bill McKibben has inspired in the US and around the world. When the board of the Sophie Prize looked for someone to take the legacy of the prize forward here in Norway, we could think of no better organization than Nature and Youth. We feel confident that you will continue to mobilize new generations of Norwegians to fight for a sustainable future for many years to come.

As you say in Nature and Youth:

«Hvis ikke du – hvem? Hvis ikke nå – når?» Who – if not you? When – if not now?