More academic climate action occurring

Greetings from COVID containment. My wife and I remain sequestered. We spent Halloween night watching costumed visitors from our bedroom window and watching horror movies.

But COVID can’t stop my work! Today I’d like to share several stories about global warming and academia. I think they might be evidence of rising climate action within higher education.

First, students from six campuses — Pennsylvania State University, Tufts University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Pomona College, and Washington University in St Louis — filed legal complaints with their respective states atttorneys general. The charge: “by investing in coal, oil and gas, the schools are violating their obligations as non-profit organizations to prioritize the public interest.”

I found several interesting details in this story. For one, it wasn’t just students: “Each filing elicited signatures of support from dozens of faculty and staff members, alumni and local, national and international climate-focused groups.”

For another, they charged campus fiscal support of fossil fuel firms to be contrary to institutions’ intellectual missions:

“Fossil fuel companies have long engaged in a well-documented campaign to undermine climate science and distort public debate about how to deal with the climate crisis — including through efforts targeting Penn scientists and researchers,” University of Pennsylvania students wrote in their filing. “The industry’s…