A Pennsylvania high school just made history. George School in Newtown announced April 27 that it would divest its $150 million endowment of holdings in coal mining companies, likely becoming the first secondary school in the nation to join the global movement to rid investment portfolios of fossil fuel stocks.
Posted: 05/17/2015 12:01:00 AM MDT The University of Colorado, Ivy League Harvard University and small, elite Swarthmore College have at least one thing in common: a decision to hang on to their investments in fossil fuel companies. Meanwhile about 100 universities and foundations, including Stanford University and Syracuse University, have committed to divest all or part of their fossil fuel investments.
Five years ago Swarthmore Mountain Justice was formed by Swarthmore College students as a way to halt destructive climate change by advocating for the college’s board of managers to divest Swarthmore’s $1.9 billion endowment of fossil fuel funds.
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty The fossil-fuel divestment movement has divided academia. On 24 April, SOAS University of London announced that it would sell off all of its investments in fossil-fuel companies within three years. Days later, the New York University (NYU) senate voted to recommend that the university keep its current fossil-fuel investments, but to develop a greener strategy for the future.
The Church of England’s governing body has thrown its weight behind efforts to slow climate change by backing the move earlier this year to divest its resources from from companies involved in extracting two of the most polluting fossil fuels.
Gil Kemp ’72 with Swarthmore President Valerie Smith. Photo by Laurence Kesterson Gil Kemp ’72 graduated with honors from Swarthmore with a B.A. in sociology and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Divestment At Swarthmore And ‘Hard Choice’ Foolishness The college and university student campaign to divest from fossil fuels as a protest against climate change began at Swarthmore College. It was therefore surprising when the board that overseas that institution’s investments recently voted against divestment. Or maybe it wasn’t very surprising after all.
Prof. Tim Burke writes in his popular blog :
“Since Swarthmore seems likely to be stuck debating or struggling over divestment for at least another year or more, I remain interested in trying to push at the central weakness of the pro-divestment argument. The major argument of many divestment advocates is that divestment by higher education and other large civic organizations will cumulatively stigmatize fossil fuel producers within public culture.” … read more …
Despite a large student protest and strong activist sentiment among its students and alumni, Swarthmore College opted to not divest its $1.9 billion endowment from fossil fuels after a vote by its board of managers on Saturday.
The word “divestment” is nowhere to be found in the nearly 200 pages of the papal encyclical released Thursday, but by addressing the threat of climate change in such a forceful way, Pope Francis is likely to add momentum to the movement by big institutions to sell holdings tied to fossil-fuel stocks.