The national fossil fuel divestment movement started at Swarthmore with the student group Swarthmore Mountain Justice. In 2010, a group of students traveled to West Virginia on their spring and fall breaks to learn about mountaintop removal coal mining and its effects on the communities of Appalachia.
Today, @UofT recommended #divestment from fossil fuels. RT if you think our politicians should follow! pic.twitter.com/Dyq7tbUGQk
Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition in what jubilant environmentalists described as “an unmitigated defeat” for big oil. The Anglo-Dutch company had repeatedly stressed the enormous hydrocarbon potential of the far north region in public, but in private began to admit it had been surprised by the popular opposition it faced.
In light of the chance concurrence of Discover Swarthmore and the Board of Managers meeting, we at the Phoenix feel that the college should consider the potentially negative ways in which the Board of Managers’ decision not to divest from fossil fuels has impacted the admissions profile at the college within the past three years.
The following letter was written collaboratively by students forming a Jesuit network for fossil fuel divestment. Most Holy Father, We write to you as young people, as constituents of Jesuit institutions, other Catholic, Christian, and religious institutions, and non-religious institutions as people of goodwill, on behalf of an entire generation.
As the Board of Managers held their first meeting of the academic year, members of Mountain Justice staged a protest in response to the publication of a paper by the Industrial Petroleum Association of America that cited divestment cost estimates put forth by the Board in their decision not to divest last spring.
