Congratulations to Rausser College of Natural Resrouces alums Elsie Joshi and Sage Lenier, and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) grad student Ryan Reed on being named to the 2024 Grist 50 list.
Every year, Grist honors 50 creative individuals who are tackling the most pressing problems of today using creativity, advocacy, and technology. Nominees are chosen from across the US and include teachers, scientists, doctors, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, and activists who are all putting climate front and center.
Elise Joshi
BS ’23, Environmental Economics and Policy
Photo by Anish Mohanty
Elise Joshi enrolled at UC Berkeley with the intent to study neurobiology—a plan that would change due to the pandemic. “Everyone slowed down, and I started reading more than I had ever read in my life, largely on climate and social justice and how the two are correlated with each other,” she told Grist.
Her newfound passion for climate and social justice led her to switch majors to environmental economics and politics, and she took to TikTok to talk about climate change and its many intersections. Joshi became executive director of Gen-Z for Change, a collective to empower young, social media-focused activists on progressive issues, including climate. She was at the forefront of the #StopWillow campaign on TikTok, in which thousands of people created content to educate others about the Alaska oil drilling project and urge President Joe Biden to halt it. The campaign grew to be one of the largest environmental actions in history, with 1.1 million letters sent to the White House.
Sage Lenier
BS ’20, Conservation and Resource Studies
Photo by Irene Yi
By the time Sage Lenier was a Berkeley freshman, she was already fed up with the way climate change was taught. She launched the Solutions for a Sustainable and Just Future DeCal, which focused on realistic, systemic changes that can be made to solve the climate crisis. The class broke the enrollment record for a student-led course when over 300 students signed up in a single semester. It is still being offered on campus today by student teachers she trained.
In 2023, Lenier launched Sustainable and Just Future, a youth-led nonprofit focused on making the environmental lessons she developed as part of the DeCal course accessible to businesses, communities, universities, and high schools. The organization is also launching a fellowship this fall to support students in advocating a new climate curriculum at their schools.
Ryan Reed
Graduate Student, ESPM
Photo by Christie Clark
Ryan Reed, a master of forestry student studying with ESPM professor Peter Nelson, is at the forefront of shaping fire policy. In 2022, Reed, who is also a wildland firefighter with the US Forest Service and Indigenous fire practitioner, co-founded the FireGeneration (FireGen) Collaborative in hopes of transforming the country’s approach to fire management. The organization prioritizes diversifying the firefighting workforce and the groups that determine fire policy, with an emphasis on bringing Indigenous and youth perspectives to the table.
“A lot of Indigenous people across the world understand that the use of fire is a significant tool in our toolbox that we need to help us manage the landscape in a sustainable way,” Reed—who is from the Karuk, Hupa, and Yurok tribes—told Grist.
FireGen successfully lobbied for him to get a seat on the federal advisory committee amending the Northwest Forest Plan, making him the youngest and the only wildland firefighter on the team. At 24, he’s by far the youngest person on the committee and the only wildland firefighter.