Harris ‘appointed longtime activist Camila Thorndike to lead its climate-change charge.’
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign wants American to know that it’s taking climate change seriously – and has now hired a champion for the cause.
This week, news broke that Harris has tapped noted climate activist Camila Thorndike to be its new climate engagement director. Thorndike, who once worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ administration as a legislative aide drafting climate-related policies, comes to the campaign from her senior director post at Rewiring America, a nonprofit urging people to switch to cleaner energy alternatives where she’s worked since 2022.
Her appointment came with a vote of confidence from her former employer. “Camila is exceptional,” Leah Stokes, senior policy counsel at Rewiring America, said to Politico. “She is extremely committed to climate action, and well-known and well-liked across the climate movement. She is a very effective campaigner who can get stuff done.”
…
Thorndike, however, has made public statements on the hire. “Honored to lead Climate Voters for Harris-Walz toward victory in 2024,” her LinkedIn profile reads. And in a post on the professional networking site that she shared Wednesday, she added: “It’s an honor to help the movements I love elect our future climate champion-in-chief.” (When The Story Exchange reached out to her for comment, we received an auto-response indicating that she will be on leave from her job until mid-November, but it did not cite a reason for why.)
Thorndike has been a leader in the climate-change movement for over a decade. She’s the co-founder of Our Climate, a nonprofit encouraging youth activism that launched in 2013. She was also a director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and previously worked for the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, among other posts at grassroots climate-focused organizations. Thorndike has won numerous awards and accolades for her work over the years, including a D.C. Environmental Network Award, a Sitka Fellowship, and a spot on the Grist 50.
…
During an interview with Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington – her alma mater, which she graduated from in 2010 – Thorndike asserted that these and other climate-related problems are, collectively, “a product of a rigged and broken system,” and encouraged engagement in electoral politics as one means of fighting back.
“Be engaged,” she urged. “We’re building a bench of climate leaders.”
