While most students took President’s Day off, Transportation Engineering doctoral student Aqshems Egun Tola Ade Le Kon Nichols spent Feb. 19, 2024 taking action with Berkeley High School students, merging his academic and personal passions to highlight climate action.
“Given the strong link between transportation systems and environmental sustainability, this movement is connected to my past work with SafeTREC and TSRC and is important to me because emerging transportation professionals play an important role in optimizing the sustainability of how we move people and goods,” says Transportation Engineering doctoral student Aqshems Egun Tola Ade Le Kon Nichols.
Nichols and Berkeley High students spent the day at the San Francisco Federal Building rallying for climate action. The protest called for President Biden to declare a climate emergency, a move that would put climate action at the forefront of any new legislation that is passed. According to Nichols, it is crucial for leaders such as the head of state to declare a climate emergency in order to spur urgent climate action, especially given “the considerable amount of misinformation concerning the dangers of climate change”.
This call to action is part of the broader Sunrise Movement, an organization that advocates to ensure the transition to an environmentally sustainable future is equitable and inclusive of all communities. Inspired by the enthusiasm of the youth driving the Sunrise Movement, Nichols became involved with Sunrise and helped coordinate the Feb. 19 Call to Action.
The Feb. 19 Call to Action featured moving signs, poems, and speeches from students, youth climate activists, poetry, and former Berkeley councilperson Cheryl Davila. “To speak of delaying action to the future would be a death sentence for us,” said youth climate activist Finn Does in a speech. “This generation, our generation, all of us here today, are rising up in the face of perpetual devastation and the turned heads of our leaders when we need them most. Our movement is against the odds but we do not stop marching, resisting, speaking up for what’s right.”
Nichols affirms the importance of youth and student activism, saying “I think it's important that students have the opportunity toattend prestigious programs such as those at UC Berkeley use their experiences to make a positive impact in their community.” He encourages others to explore opportunities to get involved in climate action through the Sunrise Movement: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/.