Fossil Fuel Divestment

As Tufts students, we feel that we have a responsibility to guide our university towards real and effective solutions to climate change, not only to protect our futures but more importantly, to protect those who are already feeling the effects of the climate catastrophe. Student group Tufts Climate Action (TCA), formerly known as Tufts Divest, has been running a fossil fuel divestment campaign for three years. They have asked the Board of Trustees to withdraw their investments—seventy million dollars—in the top two hundred  publicly traded fossil fuel companies within five years because it is morally egregious to profit from the destruction of the planet. Despite the urgency of climate change and divestment wins globally, our ask has not been taken seriously by members of the board, who told us two semesters ago that they would not consider divestment. While this may seem like a loss, the students in TCA will not take no for an answer. About 30 members of TCA are currently occupying Ballou Hall, refusing to leave until the administration agrees to divest. This action is part of a nationwide escalation by the Divestment Student Network (DSN).

TCA wants the whole campus to know that we are not doing this for the polar bears or for the glaciers. While these mainstream images of environmental movements have their own importance, our group wants to emphasize a narrative of environmental justice as it relates to global climate change. Fossil fuel companies are one of the main contributors of the greenhouse gases which warm our planet, and those feeling the effects of rising temperatures are not the ones who are causing them. The family of a white male CEO of a fossil fuel company like Shell, who lives in a large home in America, will not necessarily feel any negative impact from a rise in temperature. A brown family of indigenous peoples living in the Pacific Islands, may actually see ocean water creeping closer and closer to their home, and know that in only a few years their entire country could be underwater. This is environmental injustice.

In TCA, we see climate change as a symptom of larger issues in our global society. Do we think it is a coincidence that the majority of people who are currently affected by climate change are not white? Do we think that an economic system that depends on the continuous exploitation of people and resources can coexist with an ecologically sustainable society? No, we see systems like white supremacy and capitalism as the root causes of the destruction of our climate and our human family. Divestment from fossil fuels is a powerful act of resistance against the systems that tell us that profit is more valuable than human lives.

Members of our class in front of President Monaco's desk