Avery O'Brien, student at Durham School of Arts, speaks to crowd about climate action during Sunrise DSA walkout. (Photo credit: Jessica F. Simmons)
Durham students walk out of school, demanding urgent climate action amid a second Trump term.
As the buzz of the lunch bell echoed through Durham School of the Arts on Friday afternoon, more than 50 students took a stand for climate action. Raising protest signs and chanting, they participated in “Four Years Gone: DSA Walkout for Climate Action”—a direct response to the recent election and the Trump administration’s imminent return to office.
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Dressed in black and yellow were juniors Sarah Rodrigues and Avery O’Brien, two hub coordinators who led the walkout for the school’s Sunrise Movement chapter.
“We know that the federal government will not be encouraging and enforcing policy that will help protect the climate,” O’Brien said. “So it’s up to the state legislature and school districts to take over and make sure that local action is being taken, in order to ensure safer buildings and a safer climate.”
The walkout was part of a coordinated nationwide protest organized by Sunrise Movement, a 2017 youth-led organization pushing policies that prioritize climate action and green infrastructure. Alongside peers from California, Oregon, New Jersey, Georgia, and other states, students across the country called for urgent climate policies to address the immediate impact of climate change on their lives and communities.
Known for mobilizing young activists in over 120 hubs across the country, Sunrise Movement organizes protests, rallies, and direct action events to demand climate justice, and hold local and federal leaders accountable.
Junior Owen Ambrose, a member of Sunrise DSA, said joining this national movement felt important, given President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments to his 2025 administration.
“Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency appointee, Republican Lee Zeldin, opposed almost every piece of climate-related legislation while serving in congress,” Ambrose said to the crowd of students. “And during his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas, and reduce current climate spending. We have to step up.”
Inspired by policies such as the Green New Deal, proposed by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward J. Markey in 2019, the DSA chapter is calling attention to specific issues for Durham Public Schools.
The chapter’s Green New Deal petition has more than 400 signatures from locals demanding clean and safe buildings, nutritious and free lunches, climate disaster plans, climate curriculum, and access to climate jobs for high school graduates.
The Green New Deal
For supporters and activists, the Green New Deal resolution is both a climate action plan to significantly decrease the use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, and a call for social justice to improve lives across the country. The Green New Deal is backed by a growing number of politicians and the public.
Adah Crandall, a national organizer with Sunrise Movement, said the number of signatures at the local level goes to show how popular these demands are.
“Most people in the American public agree that we should do something about the climate crisis,” Crandall said. “Especially young people, and especially students. It’s very telling of the power that we’re going to continue to build over the next four years, and over the next decades.”
The Green New Deal outlines a vision for achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, and calls for a massive economic mobilization reminiscent of the New Deal that established the American middle class during the Great Depression. Through the Green New Deal, supporters aim to create millions of union jobs, overhaul infrastructure, and prioritize equity for marginalized working-class communities.
At Sunrise Movement, there are three different sectors created for the Green New Deal: sectors for schools, communities, and Black and Latiné constituencies.
“We have been talking to the school board, emailing them, planning meetings, and reading over the current climate legislation, seeing what our school district has achieved, and what work still needs to be done,” Rodrigues said to her peers. “This means that we need you to continue to show that the student body cares.”
Jackie Tobias, DSA principal, said she is extremely proud of the students using their voices and knowledge to make a difference.
“This is precisely what we desire,” she said. “As educators, we involve our students in the lessons that we teach. How they demonstrate their understanding is important to us.”
“Four Years Gone”
The name of the walkout, “Four Years Gone,” reflects the urgency outlined by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2018, the IPCC warned that the world had only 12 years to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
RELATED: We’re running out of time to adequately address climate change
Now six years later, with global emissions still rising and the Trump administration returning to office, students at DSA feel the timeline for action has drastically shortened.
“We have six years left to solve the climate crisis before it becomes irreversible, and now four of those years are gone,” Rodrigues said. “It is our job to pick up the slack these next four years, and implement local actions and change so we are ready to make quick and radical changes necessary in 2028.”
With plans for a Green New Deal “visioning session” from 6-8 p.m. on Dec. 11, at 504 W. Chapel Hill St., DSA’s young activists are determined to build on the momentum of today’s walkout, rallying their community to continue the fight for climate action.
“Once people see this through the media—our media, your media—they will be encouraged to make a change as well,” O’Brien said. “They will be empowered to join our teamwork for something bigger than themselves, and I think that’s just really encouraging for the nation as a whole, to know that the youth of America will be united on this front which is so significant to our futures.”
Rodrigues called to the crowd to ask what they plan to do when their homes, air, water, school, and futures are under attack.
“Stand up and fight back!” the students shouted back.
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