Author: Lee Smithey

Bill McKibben, who seeded the idea of fossil fuel divestment that was taken up at Swarthmore College by Mountain Justice and the Sunrise Movement, pointed out in The New York Times today that the Board of Managers at Swarthmore continues to invest in the fossil fuel industry, despite having had the first opportunity to divest a decade ago.

My own employer, Middlebury College, agreed to divest in 2019, following a six-year campaign by students and faculty. But many schools have yet to act. The very first college to face divestment demands — Swarthmore, in Pennsylvania — has yet to make the commitment, and the same is true of plenty of others who should know better (Yale and Princeton, say).

– Bill McKibben

McKibben pointed out that the value of divested portfolios has risen to nearly $40 trillion or more than the combined GDPs of the United States and China.

Daniel Fernandez ’23 has written a long form editorial in The Phoenix detailing the historical development of the Swarthmore College Board of Managers’ ban on divestment under any circumstances. Fernandez argues that the policy is tied to a long tradition of administrations protecting the Board and the institution from ethical critique, constituting a departure from the College’s otherwise stated commitments to social justice. … Read more …

In his attempts to access materials from the College archive, Fernandez identified the earliest known publication of the ban in a copy of the Board’s investment policy from 1997. He has also provided a list of relevant open and restricted materials in the College archive.

Student activists from the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University wrote a compelling piece in Teen Vogue today (Fossil Fuel Divestment Day) that bears our attention. The piece is subtitled, “This op-ed explains why fossil fuel divestment is a crucial tactic in the fight for climate justice.”

… Fossil fuel divestment is a crucial tactic in our fight for climate justice. Climate justice is centering justice in climate solutions. In short, it means that we must fundamentally shift the way we interact with each other and all living beings on the planet to avoid climate catastrophe. This perspective names capitalism as the root cause of the climate crisis. Our movement believes that a better world is possible, but only if we make a just transition from an extractive economy to a regenerative one. The climate crisis is already here and already causing grave harm to low-income communities and indigenous communities, and especially to those living in the Global South. While we are fighting to hold our institutions of higher learning accountable to students, we are also fighting in solidarity with the larger movement for collective liberation. Collective liberation refers to the concept that all movements for justice must win in order for liberation to be truly achieved. As Aboriginal activists have said, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”…

ANAÏS PETERSON, GRETA KVITTEM, AND ELIZABETH LOVE

Read the full article on Teen Vogue‘s website …

Today, February 13, 2020 has been declared Fossil Fuel Divestment Day (F2D2). As our planet warms to ever more critical levels, and those least responsible for emissions suffer from the climate change that is already upon us, more than fifty campuses at institutions of higher education are holding actions. They are calling on their leadership to renounce financial partnerships with the fossil fuel industry and reinvest in alternative energy solutions. Here at Swarthmore, SwatDivest is launching a website to help grow our campaign and serve as a repository for information about the campaign to date.

SwatDivest, formed in January 2017, is a collection of faculty and staff members supporting the campaign to divest Swarthmore College’s $2 billion endowment of holdings in fossil fuel companies.

Swarthmore College students initiated the global fossil fuel divestment movement in 2012, resulting in the divestment and reinvestment of over $14 trillion in portfolio value from the fossil fuel industry. More than 1,100 institutions have engaged in a divestment announcement or action. Swarthmore College can be next! Read more about the history of the fossil fuel divestment campaign at Swarthmore on this site.

If you are a faculty or staff member at Swarthmore College, and you would like to join the SwatDivest email list, or if you are an alum or student seeking to get involved, contact Professor Lee Smithey at lsmithe1.

Christiana Figueres ’79, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has written a letter calling on the Board of Managers to divest the College’s endowment of fossil fuel holdings.

In the letter addressed to the Chair of the Board of Managers, Gil Kemp, and Chair of the Board Investment Committee, Christopher Niemczewski, Figueres shared that the student sit-in “renews my optimism.” She points out “the moral imperative to align financial decisions with our highest sense of accountability, both across segments of society as well as across generations” and the “economic imperative” of adding financial value through incorporating sustainability into management of the endowment. She calls on the Board to be financially prudent and at the same time to “play its part in history.”