Academia and the climate crisis: snapshots from June, 2023

How might colleges and universities respond to climate change?

I’d like to share several recent stories in this post. They range from enrollment and academic politics to insurance company behavior.

One caveat: this is just three stories from an enormously complex and huge topic. While we can deduce something from what follows, please don’t read them as dispositive.

ITEM: students at a series of Virginia universities are pressuring administrations to divest from fossil fuel businesses. Such pressure has taken the form of student government resolutions, student journalism, and petitions, plus demonstrations and political theater:

At the University of Richmond, students in the Green UR group met with university Chief Operating Officer David Hale in February and conducted a march around campus in March…

members of [Virginia Commonwealth University]’s Green Action! this April delivered a divestment petition to President Michael Rao’s office that was placed on a model planet in a casket. The petition also asked the university to provide greater transparency on where investments are going and release data about the school’s carbon emissions.

So far, it seems to still be early days, as “only the University of Virginia has…