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Florida Climate Activist Nicholas Vasquez Rallies in Gainesville During 800-Mile State-Wide Walk

Maia Botek

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Thursday, July 29, 2021

Embarking on an 800-mile walk across the state of Florida, Nicholas Vazquez is a 23-year-old climate activist using unconventional tactics to raise awareness for climate change.

Nicholas Vazquez leads and speaks to members of a symbolic ‘die-in’ at the Gainesville City Hall on July 27, 2021.

Embarking on an 800-mile walk across the state of Florida, Nicholas Vazquez is a 23-year-old climate activist using unconventional tactics to raise awareness for climate change. Vazquez arrived in Gainesville on July 27, one of nine stops on his journey to Tallahassee. He has just reached the two-month mark for the walk, which began on April 22 out of Miami, Florida. Upon his arrival to Gainesville, Vazquez organized and spoke to activists on the steps of the Hippodrome Theater before hosting a more demonstrative protest at the Gainesville City Hall.

Just after 6 p.m. on July 27, Vazquez stood at the steps of the theater in a woven pair of brown slippers reading off a black iPhone to a small, but enthusiastic, crowd of supporters. Vazquez spoke candidly about his experience with Extinction Rebellion, a UK-based climate organization that he represents, and his expectations for the walk across the state, including the need for Governor Ron DeSantis to declare a climate emergency. Among the issues Vazquez wanted to call attention to were crop failures, water shortages, sea level rise, increased carbon emissions, deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest and global temperature elevations, at one point exclaiming, “Siberia is on f—ing fire!”

Many of Vazquez’s words about the urgent need for climate action were met with affirmation and small chants from the group of around 15 supporters who had gathered around the steps of the theater. Following the conclusion of Vazquez’s statements, the group organized themselves with various signs and posters demanding action and marched for four blocks north on Southeast First Street until reaching the Gainesville City Hall. Many of these signs and materials were supplied by Anne Hemingway Feuer, a member of Extinction Rebellion who had driven to Gainesville from Miami in order to hear Vazquez speak. Feuer credits her environmental activism as one of the ways she overcame her depression about the environment and pointed toward the value of motivating others in the fight for climate awareness.

Later in the evening at the Gainesville City Hall, Vazquez and a handful of supporters partook in a symbolic ‘die-in’, collapsing on the steps and front lawn of the building after reading an imagined climate-change-related cause of death. Though only certain members of the group participated in the act of lying down and ‘dying’, others placed flowers to memorialize the symbolic deaths and outlined the bodies lying on cement in various sticks of chalk that were distributed. Although no city officials or the mayor of Gainesville appeared at the event, Vazquez remains hopeful that his tactics will create the necessary impressions across both local and state governments. In 2019, Vazquez and other Extinction Rebellion activists successfully convinced Miami Mayor Francis Suarez to declare a climate emergency, and Vazquez is expecting a large amount of publicity and coverage upon his arrival and hunger strike in Tallahassee.

To continue following Nicholas’ journey across the state please visit https://xramerica.org/walk-with-nick/, and make sure to follow Cinema Verde’s social media outlets! Nicholas will be in Gainesville until July 30 and is looking to connect with the people of Gainesville during his last few days. On August 10th, 2021, Nicholas will be in Jacksonville, Florida, beginning his March Against Treason to the state’s capital and hopes many people will join him on the trek along I-10.

Read the full story here.

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Maia Botek

Maia Botek is a third-year journalism major and Spanish minor student at the University of Florida who has grown up in South Florida throughout her entire life. As the daughter of a Jamaican father and part-Norwegian mother, an understanding of cultures, diversity and the world around her has always been an important facet in Maia's life which has resulted in a love of the environment, travel and education. She loves spending time outdoors and with friends, especially at the beach, which she loves. Maia is interested in utilizing journalism to educate others on the importance of the Earth's natural resources and ensuring a sustainable and equitable future for all.

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He told Mother Jones that a variety of factors can contribute to the risk of developing autism, including advanced maternal or paternal age, intrauterine infections when the mother is pregnant, genetics, and maternal health. “What those four things all have in common is that you’re born with autism,” he says. All the evidence, he says, “is that these are events that are occurring while the child is in the womb,” rather than what anti-vaccine advocates have suggested many times, that autism is caused by vaccines received after the child is born. Craig Newschaffer, a professor of biobehavioral health and an autism researcher at Pennsylvania State University’s College of Health and Human Development, said that while he believes environmental exposures could play a role in autism, the interaction between those and other factors is incredibly complex. “There’s probably a constellation of environmental factors that could be involved here that they probably account on their own for small increases in risk,” he said, “and they probably work in concert with genetic mechanisms.” Rejecting the idea that increased autism rates are due in part to better diagnosis and surveillance The press conference was called to respond to a new CDC report which showed a small increase in the number of 8-year-olds diagnosed with autism. Kennedy repeatedly rejected the idea that the increase was due to better autism diagnosis tools and surveillance, declaring that making that argument amounted to “epidemic denial,” and saying that genes “don’t cause epidemics.” Kennedy also said that the root causes of autism could be found much faster “because of A.I. and because of the digitalization of health records that are now available to us.” Craig Newschaffer, who has spent the better part of his career studying potential causes of autism, called Kennedy’s idea of using artificial intelligence to quickly solve the mystery of autism “extremely infeasible.” He noted large-scale efforts are already underway to use machine learning to analyze existing autism datasets—but the results of those studies, he said, are at least five years away. 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Zahorodny said during the press conference that he believed that the uptick in autism rates could not be explained by expanded diagnostic criteria. “I would urge everyone to consider the likelihood that autism, whether we call it an epidemic tsunami or a surge of autism, is a real thing that we don’t understand, and it must be triggered or caused by environmental or risk factors,” he said, echoing Kennedy who has also claimed it is triggered by “toxic exposure.” Zahorodny has collaborated with researchers and groups who deal in pseudoscience or are controversial in the autism community. He appeared in a 2018 video produced by SafeMinds, a group that has suggested that mercury in vaccines causes autism and regularly works with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. In 2020, Zahorodny co-authored a study of autism rates in Black and Hispanic children with Cynthia Nevison, a University of Colorado climate scientist who is also a contributor to Children’s Health Defense. There, she writes not about climate but rather about her frustration with the lack of research into the “root causes” of autism. In addition, Zahorodny appeared on a 2020 episode of a podcast produced by the National Council on Severe Autism, which has come under fire for its support of the use of restraints for autistic people. Melissa Alfieri Collins, an anti-vaccine activist in New Jersey, said in an email to Mother Jones that she had worked with Zahorodny in 2019 on her effort to defeat a bill that would have eliminated religious exemptions for childhood vaccination requirements. Zahorodny, Collins recalled, briefed legislators and “stated that vaccines could not currently be ruled out as one of multiple possible causes of sharply increasing autism prevalence.” The bill ultimately failed. Zahorodny did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Overall, Kennedy’s message worried autism researchers and mainstream scientists. But it was received ecstatically by the anti-vaccine community he’s long been a part of. Anti-vaccine activist Larry Cook, a California naturopath and one-man anti-vaccine clearinghouse, approvingly shared a tweet from Kennedy, underlining the places where the secretary referred to the “autism epidemic” and characterized autism as being “preventable.” “We had the answers over 40 years ago,” Cook tweeted. “They were buried, dismissed, ridiculed, assassinated.” Del Bigtree, a prominent anti-vaccine activist and the former spokesperson for Kennedy’s presidential campaign, who’s now the CEO of a group he co-founded with Kennedy called MAHA Action, also expressed his enthusiasm. “For decades we have been gaslit by every HHS Secretary that stood at this podium and denied that autism was an epidemic as it climbed from 1 in 10k to 1 in 31 (1 in 12.5 boys in CA),” he tweeted. “If you are watching a news organization that is not celebrating RFKJ in this historic moment it’s time to cancel your subscription forever. It’s now clear who they work for. #MAHA”

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See 26 Captivating Images From the World Press Photo Contest

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He dreams of getting prosthetics. “One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was how when Mahmoud first came to the realization that his arms were amputated, the first sentence he said to her was, ‘How will I be able to hug you?’” Samar Abu Elouf, the photojournalist who took the photo for the New York Times in June 2024, recalled in a statement. Like Ajjour, Abu Elouf is also from Gaza. She was evacuated in December 2023 and now lives in the same apartment complex as Ajjour in Doha, Qatar. Children have suffered greatly during the Israel-Hamas war. U.N. agencies say that more than 13,000 have been killed, while an estimated 25,000 have been injured, as the Associated Press’ Edith M. Lederer reported in January. “This young boy’s life deserves to be understood, and this picture does what great photojournalism can do: provide a layered entry point into a complex story, and the incentive to prolong one’s encounter with that story,” says Lucy Conticello, chair of the global jury, in a statement. “In my opinion, this image by Samar Abu Elouf was a clear winner from the start.” World Press Photo of the Year Finalist: Night Crossing Chinese migrants warm themselves during a cold rain after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. John Moore, Getty Images In Night Crossing, photojournalist John Moore captures a group of Chinese migrants warming themselves around a fire in Campo, California, after crossing the United States-Mexico border. In recent years, American officials have seen an increase in undocumented Chinese migration. Driven by financial hardship, political suppression and religious persecution, roughly 38,200 unauthorized Chinese migrants were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the southern border in 2024—up from roughly 2,200 in 2022, according to World Press Photo. But even if successful, crossing the border is only the beginning of the struggle. “In the United States now, certainly among the immigrant community and specifically the undocumented immigrant community, there is a real sense of fear because people don’t know what’s going to happen one day to the next,” Moore says in a statement. World Press Photo of the Year Finalist: Droughts in the Amazon A young man brings food to his mother, who lives in the village of Manacapuru. The village was once accessible by boat, but because of the drought, he must walk more than a mile along the dry riverbed of the Solimões River to reach her. Musuk Nolte, Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation To bring food to his mother, the young man in Musuk Nolte’s photograph used to take a boat across the Solimões River in Brazil. But severe droughts have caused water levels in the Amazon to drop to historically low levels. Now he must trek over a mile across the dry riverbed. Setting a human figure against a stark backdrop, Nolte spotlights the way climate change threatens both nature and civilization. “Photographing this crisis made the global interconnectedness of ecosystems more evident,” Nolte explains. “Sometimes we think that these events do not affect us, but in the medium and long term they have an impact.” Regional Winner: Africa, Singles A groom poses for a portrait at his wedding. In Sudan, marking a wedding with celebratory gunfire is a tradition. Mosab Abushama Since 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by civil war. It has claimed roughly 150,000 lives, and 12 million people have fled their homes. Mosab Abushama’s photograph, titled Life Won’t Stop, features a young groom posing for a mobile phone portrait, a gun in his hand and another leaning against the wall behind him. “Despite the clashes and random shelling in the city, the wedding was a simple but joyous occasion with family and friends,” Mosab recalls. As is traditional in Sudan, celebratory gunfire was part of the wedding. In the context of the brutal war, the groom’s arsenal contains a double meaning. “The war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, brought horrors and displacement, forcing me to leave my childhood home and move to another part of the city. It was a time none of us ever expected to live through,” Mosab explains. “Yet, this wedding was a reminder of the joy of everyday life still possible amidst the tragedy and despair.” Regional Winner: Asia-Pacific and Oceania, Long-Term Project Tāme Iti, a prominent Tūhoe activist bearing a traditional facial tattoo, stands at the 2014 Tūhoe-Crown Settlement Day ceremony, where the government formally apologized for historical injustices. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Horses roam freely in Te Urewera, serving as crucial transportation in the rugged terrain. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Carol Teepa sits in her kitchen with her youngest grandchild, Mia, and her son, Wanea, one of more than 20 children she adopted. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Ruiha Te Tana, 12, relaxes at her grandfather's home. Built by an ancestor in 1916, the homestead serves as a living archive of Tūhoe history. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Mihiata Teepa, 16, and her Tūhoe Māori Rugby League U16 teammates perform a haka during practice before a game. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Children from the Teepa family drive the younger siblings home after a swim in the river. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Apprentices from a local school learn essential farming skills at Tataiwhetu Trust, an organic dairy farm. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] Teepa children share a watermelon. John Rangikapua Teepa and his wife, Carol, have raised more than 20 children adopted according to the Māori whāngai custom. Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic [/] The Ngāi Tūhoe people of New Zealand’s Te Urewera region are known for their fiercely independent spirit. Their homeland in the hills of the North Island isolated them from British settlers. As a result, the Tūhoe have maintained their language and cultural identity. The photos by Tatsiana Chypsanava, a Belarusian-born photojournalist currently based in New Zealand, show a landscape and a people side by side. Men with traditional face tattoos, girls performing a haka before a rugby game and horses grazing in a pasture are all part of a complex, isolated world. Chypsanava’s long-term photography project shows how intertwined the natural world is with the Tūhoe community. As the guiding philosophy of one Tūhoe family farm expresses, “Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata” (“When the land is in good health, so too are the people”). Regional Winner: Europe, Singles A man from the Luhansk region lies injured in a field hospital set up in an underground winery near Bakhmut. His left leg and arm were later amputated. Nanna Heitmann, Magnum Photos, for the New York Times Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk called on men to serve in Russian-backed militias. The young man in Underground Field Hospital, Nanna Heitmann’s photograph for the New York Times, was recruited to fight for the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic’s militia just two days before the invasion. Pictured in January 2024, the soldier is splayed out in a makeshift field hospital in a winery near the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. His left leg and arm were later amputated, and Bakhmut has been devastated by the war. Regional Winner: North and Central America, Stories Rick Tsai, an East Palestine resident, walks in Sulphur Run near the train derailment site wearing protective gear. Rebecca Kiger, Center for Contemporary Documentation, TIME [/] LaBrea Letson, 8, sells lemonade made with bottled water outside her grandmother’s home near the derailment site. A van passing by tests the air for hazardous chemicals. Rebecca Kiger, Center for Contemporary Documentation, TIME [/] Connie Fortner addresses National Transportation and Safety Board members after several hours of listening to the board’s investigative findings. Rebecca Kiger, Center for Contemporary Documentation, TIME [/] Phil Gurley (left) of the EPA gives a presentation on the remediation process to a biology class at East Palestine High School. Rebecca Kiger, Center for Contemporary Documentation, TIME [/] For two days after the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023, train cars full of hazardous materials and carcinogenic gases kept burning. But the full extent of the environmental and human disaster lasted much longer, as chemicals leached into rivers and residents continued to advocate for protection. In the aftermath, photojournalist Rebecca Kiger embedded with residents as they navigated new medical and political challenges. Her stark black-and-white photographs for the Center for Contemporary Documentation provide a window into their struggle. Kiger’s photos capture both uncertainty and resilience. One photograph depicts a young girl selling lemonade. With tap water no longer safe, she made the lemonade with bottled water. Regional Winner: South America, Singles A stranded Boeing 727-200 surrounded by floodwaters at Salgado Filho International Airport in Brazil Anselmo Cunha, Agence France-Presse Anselmo Cunha’s Aircraft on Flooded Tarmac was taken in May 2024, as heavy rainfalls in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul caused devastating flooding. The image shows a grounded airplane surrounded by floodwaters. In doing so, it hints at both the cause (air travel burning fossil fuels) and effect (floodwaters) of climate change in the very same frame. Regional Winner: West, Central and South Asia, Long-Term Projects A kolbar follows an arduous mountain path. Kolbars’ packs can weigh more than 100 pounds, and crossings can take up to 12 hours. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Kolbars make the perilous climb on a border crossing route known as the “Passage of Death” because of the number of lives it claims. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Thousands have lost their lives crossing these mountains. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] At least 2,463 kolbars were killed or injured in Iranian Kurdistan between 2011 and 2024. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Khaled, 32, had to have both eyes removed after being shot in the head by a border guard. He has two children, who are 2 and 7. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Some goods kolbars carry across the border are freely available in Iran, but they fuel a thriving black market in the region that avoids import duties. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Mohammad, 22, shares a farewell with his mother before embarking on a journey to Europe to seek better opportunities. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] Many of the goods brought in by kolbars end up in luxury stores across the nation. Ebrahim Alipoor [/] In Bullets Have No Borders, Ebrahim Alipoor, a photographer from the Kurdistan province in Iran, captures a stark reality of life for many in his region. To avoid Iranian government bans of imports like household appliances, cell phones and clothing, kolbars (border couriers) carry products strapped on their back from Iraq and Turkey and into Iran. In Iranian Kurdistan, unemployment is widespread, leading many disenfranchised men to pursue this dangerous career. Deliveries can weigh more than 100 pounds, and journeys can take up to half a day. But even sure-footed and sturdy kolbars are always in grave danger. Khaled, a 32-year-old kolbar, had to have both eyes removed after a border guard shot him in the head. Alipoor’s black-and-white images reveal a perilous world. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Activism

Chemicals

Climate

Suggested Viewing

Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST: A feature length documentary film. A unique look at eco-history from one who was there for 40 years: Peter Jay Brown, and a humorous examination of the word “eco-terrorist” in today’s reality.

Activism

Culture

Documentary

TripleF***

The spirit of a movement that sometimes reminds us of our young revolutionary self, who still believed that he:she could change the world. This green filmed documentary mirrors the global situation and the diversity of climate change related activism.6 continents, 3 dozen filmmakers, countless activists and seasoned scientists. It is not about just one person but about many who stand up. TripleF*** is a documentary on the global climate movement, containing material from six continents (North - and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Antarctica), filmed green by cooperating film teams on site. The topic of climate activism itself as a protagonist takes us on a global journey to activists' lives and forms a dialogue within. Why did so many young people became activists? What is life as an activist like, how do they deal with political stagnation, harsh criticism and even threats and why do they still continue? Very personal but not private - to protect the activists' privacy, sensitive topics are woven in as a fictional part. This is the first of 5 Episodes. In this episode, which also stands for itself as a midlength film, the history of climate change related activism is highlighted. In its core spirit of a holistic approach, the project is been realized similarly to its topic of the climate activists' movement: independent, global, green.

Climate

Activism

Documentary

A Community, Fighting

This short film marks the 20 year campaign sparked by the news that a waste company had arrived armed with plans to build a large hazardous waste incinerator at the end of a then undeveloped cul-de-sac in Ringaskiddy, the industrial heartland of Cork. As news percolated around Cork Harbour, concern and opposition, evident from the outset, consolidated, galvanised and continued to go from strength to strength over the course of the years that saw a community stuck in a battle that they didn’t invite. The campaign, at the time of completion of this film, is still ongoing. This film is a visual representation of the time that has passed - from protests, to fundraisers, to court battles, at the heart of it a community subject to much struggle. However, they have not let that stop them and have truly shown the strength in numbers and staying power.

Activism

Pollution

Culture

The Whale Guitar: Instrument of Change

Inspired by Herman Melville's epic tale, "Moby-Dick or The Whale", a late-blooming singer/songwriter and former toy designer, Jen Long, acts on a startling vision and commissions the design and build of a remarkable custom electric guitar. It's body is "The Whale" itself as it snags the mad Captain Ahab in the tangled ropes of his own obsession, and prepares to launch a boat of his whalers to their doom. The entire guitar reinterprets Melville's tale as an Anthropocene climate change warning, with the whale representing the seas and storms of climate change arising on this "third day" of late stage capitalism. Hundreds of guitarists, including J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females, have played and signed this "Instrument of Change" to amplify the alarm to turn our ship of over-production and over-consumption around while there is still time. As the embroidered strap featuring Starbuck's last words implores: "oh! Ahab, not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist."

Music

Activism

Climate

Jetty Cats

Jetty Cats explores contemporary animal rights issues through a focus on a feral cat colony that has survived on a rocky, seaside jetty in Southern California for decades. There is an ongoing debate over feral cat colonies involving advocates who support the trap, neuter, and return -- or "TNR" -- model of management, and those who argue that trapping and euthanizing the cats is more humane. This documentary’s point-of-view supports the TNR model and the related “no-kill” animal shelter policy, and features an exclusive interview with Richard Avanzino, the "Father" of the no-kill movement.

Animals

Government

Activism

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The Whale Guitar: Instrument of Change

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Florida Climate Activist Nicholas Vasquez Rallies in Gainesville During 800-Mile State-Wide Walk

Related News

Evangelical churches in Indiana turn to solar and sustainability as an expression of faith

Will the next pope be liberal or conservative? Neither.

Grassroots activists who took on corruption and corporate power share 2025 Goldman prize

RFK Jr. Knows Amazingly Little About Autism

See 26 Captivating Images From the World Press Photo Contest

Suggested Viewing

Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist

TripleF***

A Community, Fighting

The Whale Guitar: Instrument of Change

Jetty Cats

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future