Students Demand Fossil Fuel Divestment

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00043&segmentID=2

Air Date: Week of October 26, 2012

Some 25 yrs ago, students demanded their universities pull investments out of South Africa to fight Apartheid. Now, activists want to fight climate change emissions using the same tactic. Host Steve Curwood talks to Harvard students who are asking the college to pull investment from all fossil fuel stocks.

CURWOOD: A new battle-line has formed in the wider push to rein in fossil fuel use – on college campuses. Students at some 18 colleges and universities just held a National Day of Action to pressure their administrations to divest their endowment holdings from fossil fuel stocks, a move already taken by Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts.

Among the institutions involved - Cornell, Amherst, Bryn Mawr, Boston University – and the university with the fattest endowment of all – Harvard. Down in Harvard Yard I met one of the organizers of the protest, sophomore Alli Welton.

Harvard student Alli Welton (Photo: Annie Sneed)

WELTON: I think students feel very scared and worried about climate change because this issue will really determine the sort of planet that we live on and the society in which we have our lives. And I think it’s particularly strong to students because we see our entire lives spread out ahead of us.

Also, we’re trying to raise awareness among the members of our administration that the impacts of climate change are already happening right now, and they’re already taking a serious toll – if you look at the drought in the Midwest this summer, the wildfires in Colorado…– we just feel that it’s a really important issue that needs some action right now.

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