In honor of the People's Climate March happening in cities around the world today, the following is a long form letter I wrote to my school newspaper that was published in February calling for the university to take action in response to the climate crisis. I wrote the piece on behalf of a student environmental organization I'm a part of that has been waging a campaign for the past few years to get the school to divest the money it has invested in fossil fuel companies. We had just recently achieved a milestone by passing a resolution of support through the Undergraduate Student Government and I saw the opportunity to remind the campus community of our campaign, as well as call for other actions the university should be taking especially in light of the recent election of Donald Trump as president. The published version of the letter on the newspaper's website can be found here: HTTP://DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM/X9HUY
When former United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited campus in December he spoke about
the need for governments, ordinary citizens, and institutions like universities
to all help lead the way in tackling one of the greatest problems of our day:
global climate change. He even left us
with a challenge. “Even in the
universities, there are many areas where you can make sure you don’t make
greenhouse gas emissions and you use sustainable energy. Can you promise?” he
asked.
In addition to the
historic achievement of bringing a U.N. Secretary General to speak on campus, it
was announced the same day that SIU would join the United Nations Academic
Impact Program, a program that gives academic institutions the opportunity to
work in association with the U.N. to develop projects that uphold the
organization’s sustainable and humanitarian values. The U.N. has for years been at the forefront
of the international effort to combat climate change. During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure as Secretary
General he made this one of his core objectives, and helped lead the way to the
historic passing of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, which brought 194
nations together to agree upon taking action to combat climate change through
the limitation of greenhouse gas emissions. Now, if SIU truly supports these values, we
must ask ourselves: are we doing as much as we can as a university to
contribute to the fight against climate change?
Certainly, this
question is now more important than ever.
With 2016 now recognized as the hottest year on record and 16 of the top
17 warmest years having occurred since 2000, there’s no room for doubt that our
climate is changing; and at least 97% of climate scientists agree that it’s
extremely likely due to human activity.
Incredibly, Donald Trump, our now supposed president, has consistently
put into doubt this widely agreed upon concept, and plans to push us backwards
in the fight by slashing emissions regulations and pressing for further development
of fossil fuel use. He has even stated
an intention to withdraw the United Sates from the Paris Agreement, which would
hugely undermine international efforts to tackle climate change.
We
find ourselves now at an incredibly dangerous point in history. With a president who represents a legitimate threat
to human rights, international relations, and the environment, and our climate
quickly reaching a point of global catastrophe, SIU must stand up for the
ideals that will protect its students and the world at large. This will require more than simply stating
support for values like diversity and sustainability. It’ll require proactive action that directly
works to defend these and other values, as well as to progress us in the battle
for change. This is why S.E.N.S.E. is
calling on SIU to take up a leading role in the movement to solve the climate
change crisis.
SIU, in fact, already
has a strong history of pro-environment initiatives. The Green Fee, which each year is used to
fund sustainable projects around campus, is one such example and has led to countless
impressive actions since its establishment in 2009 after a student-led campaign. We should also be commended for the many
recognitions we’ve received for environmentally friendly efforts such as our
consistent inclusion in The Princeton Review’s “Green Schools” guide and last
year’s designation of SIUC as a “Bicycle Friendly University” by the League of
American Bicyclists. There is much
credit that should be given to the students, faculty, and staff who have worked
tirelessly to make our university as environmentally friendly as it is.
But, for all the many
ways SIU excels in sustainability, we unfortunately still lag sorely behind in
others. Take the Power Plant on the
Carbondale campus, the towering eye-sore that many of us groan about under our
breaths but is rarely brought into legitimate conversation. It’s time to start that conversation. While the plant is burning nearly 50,000 tons
of coal per year to help provide heating, cooling, and electricity to the
campus it’s also contributing to climate change, polluting our air, and serving
as a symbol to all those who know or visit SIU that we’re stuck in the dirty
past of fossil fuels. Also brought into
conversation should be the research into fossil fuel technology that takes
place at SIU. Many of these technologies,
such as advanced coal (another name for so-called “clean coal”), are only
furthering development of a dying industry that’s wrecking the planet, while
putting off the renewable energy development we really need. In addition to all this, we’ve confirmed that
SIU actively invests in fossil fuel companies through mutual and index funds
that include fossil fuel stocks. It’s
hard to say we support action on fighting climate change when we ourselves are
both funding and profiting from the industry that’s most responsible for
it.
That brings us to our
first challenge for SIU. Roughly three
years ago our organization kicked off a campaign, in solidarity with a growing
number of similar ones at colleges and universities around the world, asking
SIUC to halt all new and remove all current investments in fossil fuel
companies and to reinvest that money in sustainable solutions. In spring 2015 we passed a resolution through
the Graduate and Professional Student Council which acknowledged their support
for our campaign. Now, as of late
November of last year, the Undergraduate Student Government has passed a
similar resolution we created for them saying they support SIU cutting their
investments in fossil fuel companies. We
believe this is a milestone that the administration cannot ignore. With the governing powers representing both
the graduate and undergraduate student bodies now supporting us, we can now say
that the students have spoken and our message is that we are concerned about
the damage being done to our planet by the continual use of fossil fuels and
we’d like to see SIU act in response to this.
Since our campaign was
established, the fossil fuel divestment movement has grown substantially around
the world. A report published by
Arabella Advisors in December of last year found that to date, 688 institutions
and over 50,000 individuals, representing a combined value of over five
trillion dollars in investments, have committed to ending their investments in
fossil fuels in some way. In the year
since the passing of the Paris Climate Agreement alone, this value represented
by divesting institutions and individuals nearly doubled. Many of the institutions making divestment
commitments have been colleges and universities, however the movement has now
expanded to faith-based organizations, philanthropic foundations, governments,
and many other types of groups.
The fact is that
people and institutions are now finding fossil fuel companies to be undesirable
investments. There are three primary
reasons for this, and these represent the primary reasons why we are calling on
SIUC to take similar action.
First, investing in
these companies is morally problematic. The
use of fossil fuels for energy and fuel is the number one cause of climate
change. Their continued use is fueling
such increasing catastrophes as rising temperatures, melting of the polar ice
caps, rising seas, more severe storms, and increasing droughts and flooding;
all of which are incredibly destructive to both humans and other species. In addition, fossil fuel use is the cause of
many other environmental problems from oil spills to air pollution and land
degredation. Of course we need them now
to provide for many of society’s needs, but there are better alternatives
already available that we need to be working towards and most fossil fuel
companies seem to just be determined to soak as much profit as they can out of
their remaining reserves instead of embracing the need for change. Because of
this, holding stock in fossil companies is increasingly being seen as something
that investors would rather not be involved with.
Second, investments in
fossil fuel companies are increasingly being seen as financially risky and
unsustainable. As stated before, the fossil fuel industry is in terminal
decline. Coal, oil, and natural gas
companies have been slowly running out of easily extractable reserves and
turning to harder to obtain and dirtier sources. These companies are fated for a slow decline
at best, while renewable energy is rapidly on the rise and is a much smarter
long term investment. Additionally, with
the rollout of emissions regulations around the world as governments attempt to
slow the progress of climate change, fossil fuel companies will be increasingly
hindered and much of their reserves will be forced to remain in the
ground. This idea is known as the
“carbon bubble”, and predicts that fossil fuel assets will become increasingly
worthless as companies are met with increased pressure to slow production to
meet emissions goals. It’s been
estimated that in order to keep global temperatures from rising more than two
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as is the goal for an upper limit
hailed by scientists and agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, 80% of fossil fuel
reserves will have to remain unburned. If
we even come close to keeping this promise then fossil fuel investments will dramatically
lose their value in the not-too-distant future.
We understand that SIU
is going through a period of deep financial difficulty at the moment and that a
significant change in our investment strategies could be somewhat risky. However, we know that divesting from fossil
fuels will be beneficial in the long term, at the very least. In addition, a public statement like this
would likely bring SIU positive attention, and with it increased interest from
prospective students. And most
importantly, the time to act against climate change is now. If we wait until SIU is
doing well financially it could be years and the opportunity to make a
difference will have been missed.
Lastly, and the
biggest argument for cutting fossil fuel investments, is that divesting from a
particular industry is a powerful statement.
If well publicized, SIU halting and removing their investments in fossil
fuel companies and reinvesting in clean solutions would send a clear signal to
all those in the region and beyond that we believe in a safe future for all
living things and that the solution is clean, renewable energy not fossil fuels. It’s hard to make an impact when one person
or small group of people speaks up, but when an entire institution, and
especially a well regarded public research university like SIU, speaks up it
can amplify that message and have a real chance of shaping public opinion and
policy. Shifting funds away from fossil
fuel companies and to renewable energy companies has an economic impact as
well, encouraging development of the right companies that will help power a
sustainable future.
With these reasons in
mind, we renew our call, now supported by the governing powers of the entire
student body, for SIU to change the way we invest so as to take a real stand
against environmental injustice and for the future of our planet. We ask SIUC to:
1. Immediately commit to an
indefinite halt to all new investments in fossil fuel companies, including both
direct investments and commingled assets that include fossil fuel companies.
2. Divest any current holdings
in fossil fuel companies or in commingled assets that include fossil fuel
companies within an aggressive timeframe, preferably five years or less.
3. Reinvest all divested funds
into renewable energy companies, investments, or research into renewable energy
production.
If none of these are
reasonably possible (which we strongly feel they are), we at least ask SIUC to
commit to reassessing our investment strategies to reflect the urgent need for
shifting support away from fossil fuel development to clean, renewable energy
development. We plan to continue and
grow our campaign until these demands are satisfactorily met.
But, as indicated earlier,
divestment from fossil fuels is only a small piece of the changes and
initiatives that we believe could truly place SIU as a leader in sustainability
and the fight against climate change.
That’s why we’re encouraging SIU to go beyond divestment and actively
work to uphold these ideals in all facets of the university’s operation. This means beginning plans to retire the coal
plant that is a defining feature of our campus.
This means working to power our campus progressively more from renewable
energy sources. This means bringing up
for serious discussion the research we do into fossil fuel technologies like advanced
coal, and encouraging more renewable energy research on campus. And this, along with many other possible
steps, means publicly condemning blatant anti-environment rhetoric and policy
from the national down to the local level, while showing support for government
actions that protect our natural environment, including the climate.
Many of you reading
this, if you’ve gotten this far, will have a different opinion on the role
fossil fuels should have in our society, and may even feel defensive or
insulted by our targeting of them in our aims to incite change. We honestly have no intention to cause this
type of reaction. We recognize the
essential role they’ve played in powering our society for generations, as well
as the important economic and cultural impact they’ve had in Southern Illinois. But we have to be willing to recognize when
change is needed, and new systems and industries developed. Fossil fuels are by definition
“non-renewable” and will have to be abandoned one day anyway. We are simply choosing to make the change while
the worst impacts on our environment are still avoidable. Some people may say that fossil fuels are the
“life-blood” of our region and turning against them is a betrayal or an unwise
economic decision. We see it in exactly
the opposite light, that our history and present state only underscore the need
for us to make a change and allow us the opportunity
to make an even bigger statement when we do.
When others see that the people of a region steeped in a history of coal
and oil production, in a town named after the area’s coal reserves, and on a
campus with a coal-fired power plant as one of its most recognizable monuments,
are rising up, led by the younger generation, to embrace a future free of
fossil-fuel-induced destruction, it will be a truly galvanizing site.
On a final note, we’d
like to invite any students, faculty, staff, community members, or anyone else
to get involved with our campaign.
Around the world, millions are standing up and demanding change to
protect our planet from continued destruction, and together our community can
join this revolution. If you’d like to
get involved or collaborate with us, contact us at siusense@gmail.com or visit
us on Facebook at facebook.com/siucfossilfree.
We also recognize that the environment is far from the only thing being
profoundly threatened today in America and the world. We encourage anyone with concerns about the
future to get involved in the fight for change.
Speak up, join a movement, start your own campaign about something you
disagree with. Don’t let your voice go
unheard.
Sincerely,
SIU S.E.N.S.E. (Students Embracing Nature, Sustainability, and the
Environment)