Op Ed originally published at Newscoop
July 2019 by Katie Collier, a student at University of Pennsylvania

Universities have long been seen as the face of progress, innovation, and a general sense of moving the world into the future. However, many of these academic institutions do not reflect those same values when it comes to the industries in which they choose to invest. The fossil fuel industry is one of the most significant contributors to the climate crisis. Many of our universities support that industry’s explicit destruction of the earth by investing our university endowments in it.

To put it simply, our universities are funding climate change — the very crisis that affects not only the livelihood and future of their students, but also those of billions of innocent people.

Excerpt:

Campus fossil fuel divestment still has progress to make. However, through organizations like Divest Ed in the United States, greater coordination is occurring across campus groups to mount bigger actions and garner greater public attention.