Defend Our Future, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to empowering young people of all political persuasions who are interested in advancing environmental justice and clean energy and climate solutions that grow our economy and protect the world for future generations. Our work is guided by these principles:

We want climate solutions, not climate denial. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, America needs young people of all political persuasions to work together on climate solutions. What we don’t need is denial of reality. There’s room at the table for diverse viewpoints at Defend, and though we may differ on the solutions to the problem, we all recognize that the problem exists.

We want to create a clean energy economy. The clean energy economy is already taking off – more Americans work in solar right now than in coal mining, for example – but we can do so much more. That’s why we want policies that will help drive a robust clean energy economy that both protects the planet we live on and provides good, well-paying, truly sustainable jobs for Americans and people around the world.

We want our elected leaders to reach across the aisle. For more than five decades, Republicans and Democrats have worked together to build our bedrock environmental protections. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and every landmark environmental bill was passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. We want elected leaders to break through partisan barriers to address environmental injustices and act on climate change and clean energy.

Clean air and clean water are a right. Everyone deserves safe water to drink and safe air to breathe. No exceptions. Defend believes that it is vital that we support policies that protect our most vulnerable citizens including young people, communities of color, low-income communities and tribal communities.

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