Professor Smithey: Carbon charge no alternative to divestment

by Lee Smithey
This op-ed appeared in The Phoenix Thursday 25 February 2016

This past weekend, the Board of Managers at Swarthmore College approved an internal charge on greenhouse gas emissions. We should mark what appears to be an initial step toward developing a carbon pricing model. However, while welcome, the plan is no alternative to divesting the institution’s $1.9 billion endowment of fossil fuels.

I have had the privilege of both co-authoring the white paper that underpinned the faculty resolution calling for divestment and joining the working group that developed the proposal for the new carbon charge plan. As I write this column, it is not yet clear to what extent the Board adopted the working group’s proposal, but let’s assume for now that congratulations are in order all around! The plan was designed to collect a fee from each department to begin registering the social cost of each metric ton of carbon (or its equivalent in various gases) that the college emits (limited for the moment to the physical plant, electricity use, and emissions associated with planned construction) in order to fund sustainability projects. It also calls us to bend our intellectual energies toward better understanding the social costs of carbon through our teaching, learning, and research and then apply our growing knowledge to the pricing scheme. Why is all this important? It urges us down the long road of building sustainable infrastructures that will be necessary, if we survive the climate crisis.

However, the carbon charge leaves invisible the role of investment capital in sustaining an industry that is playing a dangerous profit-fueled game with our futures, a game that we underwrite and legitimize with our investments. It leaves unexamined the strange fiction that the only appropriate metric for assessing financial investments is financial return, a position that wouldn’t bear scrutiny in most, if any, Swarthmore classrooms. Yet, it is enshrined in the Board of Managers’ 1991 guideline that the “Investment Committee manages the endowment to yield the best long term financial results, rather than to pursue other social objectives.” Do we really believe that our current investments have no impact on social conditions?

Alone, the carbon charge assumes that we, consumers of fossil fuels, are solely responsible for the dilemma in which we find ourselves as a species. Don’t get me wrong, we do bear responsibility, and the new initiative is a step in the right direction. However, we also know that corporations go to great lengths, through marketing and lobbying, to shape the political, social, and economic landscapes in which they operate. Rest assured that while we try to diminish our consumption, fossil fuel companies on the Carbon Underground list will be using our investments to make the task as difficult as possible.

The new carbon charge plan also assumes there is a glide path of declining consumption that can keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius (never mind 1.5 degrees). Sustainability initiatives funded by the carbon charge should be undertaken for the long term common good, but to address the climate crisis, they would have been more appropriate thirty years ago, when the public became aware of global warming. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry actively suppressed climate science, we let those decades pass, and we find ourselves in a catastrophically difficult situation.

Now, robust intervention is necessary. The mitigation scenarios that could keep global temperatures within 2 degrees Celsius require carbon sequestration technologies that don’t yet exist and a global price on carbon to have been agreed in 2010 … yes, 2010! Consequently, we need direct regulation of the extraction of fossil fuels accompanied by massive support for research and development of alternative energy, humanitarian aid, and preparation for climate impacts in vulnerable areas.

Through divestment, the college can join other institutions and use its privileged status to signal to world leaders that they can and must take bold steps to regulate the extraction of fossil fuels. Millions of vulnerable people are at severe short term risk (estimated by DARA and the Climate Vulnerable Forum at 6 million per year by 2030). Even the college itself is under threat.

Our students have already done the heavy lifting by launching and building an effective global campaign. We know this because our college representatives at the COP21 summit in Paris reported back that UN President Ban Ki Moon cited the importance of the divestment campaign as part of “a rising global tide of support for a strong, universal agreement,” declaring, “All of us have a […] duty to heed those voices.” Faculty, students, many alumni, and at least six distinguished honorary degree recipients understand President Moon’s perspective, and I expect some managers on the board do as well. After all, the optional Green Fund that the board established for new donations signals that the 1991 guideline is not water tight.

For those in civil society with cultural and economic capital, divestment remains an important tool in our toolbox, and we have a responsibility to use it. As we publicly demonstrate to our political leaders how to say no to fossil fuel companies, we should press them for an ambitious global carbon price, restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, and a plan to freeze the development of new reserves.

Board Members’ Conflicts of Interest in Regards to the Fossil Fuel Industry Leave Us No Choice but to Escalate

On January 27th, Swarthmore Mountain Justice revealed the considerable conflicts of interest held on the part of three Board members, Rhonda Cohen ’76, Samuel Hayes III ’57, and Harold Kalkstein ’78. As of June 30, 2015, firms associated with these three Board members held more than $25 billion worth of investments in energy companies, severely compromising the integrity of any board decisions on divestment. In order to ensure that future discussions on divestment are transparent and in good faith, Mountain Justice asked that these Board members recuse themselves from all future discussions of divestment and notify us of their decision by the end of the Board meeting on February 20th. The failure of these board members to recuse themselves leaves us no choice but to take further escalated action.

The Board’s conflict of interest policy is clear: “Manager[s] having a duality or possible financial conflict of interest on any matter should not use his or her personal influence in the matter and, if a vote were to be taken, should not vote thereon nor be counted even in determining the quorum for the meeting.” Investments Committee member Harold Kalkstein founded an energy practice that recently recommended Arctic drilling and repealing the ban on crude oil exports; Vice Chair Rhonda Cohen manages a trust with nearly $1 billion in fossil fuel assets, and Board Member Emeritus Samuel Hayes II served 20 years on the boards of the Eaton Vance family of mutual funds, whose second-largest holding is its $845 million dollar stake in ExxonMobil. Eaton Vance has $2.6 billion invested in dirty energy, or eight percent of its $32.7 billion total holdings. The amount Eaton Vance has invested in energy is almost equal to the entirety of Swarthmore’s endowment. Yet despite their egregious conflicts of interest, these managers are allowed to vote on fossil fuel divestment, one of the most urgent issues of our generation.

It is necessary and urgent that Swarthmore take a leading role in the fight against climate change. We hold immense clout in the academic, intellectual and moral spheres of the US, and we must add our voice to the chorus calling for a just and sustainable future. Our Board of Managers continues to ignore community mandates from students, faculty, alumni and now honorary degree recipients including Noam Chomsky, John Braxton, Arlie Hochschild, Lorene Cary, Lotte Bailyn and Barbara Hall Partee calling on the college to step out of the moral shadows and embrace the values we purport to uphold. Divestment is a powerful tool in the fight against the rogue fossil fuel industry. It helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa, and now, with the help of peer institutions, governments, pension funds and philanthropic organizations, it can serve to socially stigmatize and delegitimize an industry that causes millions of deaths each year and is literally incompatible with the future of every human on this earth. Despite the moral imperative we have to stop what may prove the worst crisis our generation will face, one that will disproportionately harm the poor, women, racial minorities and the Global South, our college continues to stay on the wrong side of history.

Though the carbon tax initiative pushed forward by faculty and adopted by the Board this past week is an important step in accounting for our own personal consumption of fossil fuels, it does nothing to reshape the international economic and political forces that maintain the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on meaningful policy to combat global climate change. With the ink of the Paris Climate agreement still fresh on the page, setting the ambitious goal of reducing fossil fuel consumption enough to keep warming below 1.5 degrees celsius, the stakes could not be higher for stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry. Even mainstream financial institutions like Morgan Stanley have accepted that fossil fuel investments pose a risk to future financial solvency. Just this past month, the entire city of Copenhagen proposed to divest its 6.9bn fund from all holdings in coal, oil and gas. Divestment commitments have passed the $3.4 trillion mark with over 500 institutions as of COP 21. The world is taking notice of the divestment movement, and this may very well be our last chance to dramatically reshape the course of history.

Divestment offers us the opportunity to affirm to the global economic system that the fossil fuel industry and investments in that industry have no place in a just and sustainable future. The continuing value of fossil fuel investments is literally dependent on our failure to combat climate change. Those who maintain their investments in fossil fuels are betting that we will fail to meet the threshold set by the Paris Climate Talks. Even though we must keep 80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, those like the Board of Managers who choose to remain invested in fossil fuels are gambling that all of the immense reserves held by the industry will be burned for profit. By continuing to invest in this rogue and dangerous industry, our college is betting against the success of the very efforts that a carbon tax entails. History will not speak kindly of the compromised obstructionism practiced by our Board.

Because the stakes could not be higher, because the lack of judgement on behalf of the Board could not be clearer, we have no choice but to take further escalated action to combat the greatest threat humanity faces. We will soon release a pledge asking fellow students and members of the Swarthmore community to take action with us at the beginning of April. We cannot stand by idly as the Board continues to legitimize an industry that increasingly threatens the very existence of frontline communities around the world, and we hope you will join us.

Note: Information on Board members’ connections to the fossil fuel industry was compiled by Little Sis, a research tool run by the Public Accountability Initiative, a “non-profit, public interest research organization investigating power.”

Noam Chomsky, Arlie Hochschild, John Braxton, Lotte Bailyn, Lorene Cary and Barbara Hall Partee Call on Swarthmore’s Board of Managers to Divest

TO: Board of Managers of Swarthmore College

We are writing to you as proud recipients of honorary degrees from Swarthmore College. Whether it was divesting from Apartheid, refusing to bow to McCarthyism, developing leaders in the civil rights and peace movements, or admitting women from its founding, Swarthmore has been a powerful voice for justice at critical moments in history.  Right now, we are at one of those points.

Scientists say that we must substantially reduce global carbon emissions within the next several years in order to avoid runaway climate change with devastating effects. While the Paris accords represent a significant step towards the goal of reducing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the absence of firm commitments by the parties means that we still have a long way to go if we are to prevent the rise in global temperature from reaching 2 degrees Celsius. To keep the increase to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which the Paris accord set as a desired goal, will be even more difficult.

Climate change is without doubt one of the most important moral, economic, and political issues of our time.  We call upon you to exercise intellectual and moral leadership by implementing a plan to divest from fossil fuels over the next few years. Hundreds of other institutions including Oxford University, Stanford University, the city of Seattle, multiple Nordic national pension funds, and even the Rockefeller Fund—which was built off the profits of Standard Oil Company—have divested funds totaling $1 trillion.  If they can take that stand, surely Swarthmore can also.

None of us can wait for someone else to end the addiction to fossil fuels that is causing the climate chaos that is just beginning.  Ending Apartheid required the force of many different streams in the movement.  But Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu have stated that one key stream was the delegitimizing of Apartheid that resulted from the divestment campaign.  Swarthmore played a significant role in that campaign.  It is time for Swarthmore to stand up and do the right thing once again.

Sincerely,

Noam Chomsky, John Braxton and Arlie Hochschild

As of February 19t 2016, honorary degree recipients Lorene Cary, Lotte Bailyn and Barbara Hall Partee have signed onto the letter.

We Call on Board Members Cohen, Hayes and Kalkstein to Recuse Themselves from Future Conversations on Divestment

 

Today, Swarthmore Mountain Justice called on Board members Rhonda Cohen ’76, Samuel Hayes III ’57, and Harold Kalkstein ’78, to recuse themselves from future conversations on fossil fuel divestment. The Board’s decision not to divest last May was compromised by conflicts of interest among these three Board members who have considerable personal and financial ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Five years after students at Swarthmore College launched the first fossil fuel divestment campaign in the country, the debate on divestment is over. The overwhelming support on campus for fossil fuel divestment from students, faculty, and alumni, as well as the rousing call for divestment from the international community, has proven that the only barrier to divestment is the Board’s own refusal to act in line with climate science.

Just as the power of fossil fuel interests have stifled meaningful action on climate change nationally, ties to the fossil fuel industry from members of our own Board are holding back meaningful climate action here at Swarthmore. The financial ties the following Board members have to the fossil fuel industry compromise the discussion of divestment at Swarthmore, and Mountain Justice asks that they recuse themselves from future discussions on divestment.

Rhonda Cohen, vice chair of the Board of Managers, is also on the board of directors at the Glenmede Trust. The Glenmede Trust’s third-largest holding is its $219 million invested in ExxonMobil; in addition, it has $961.6 million (7% of its $13.9 billion in assets) invested in energy. These economic ties clearly comprise Ms. Cohen’s ability to make objective decisions regarding Swarthmore’s divestment from fossil fuel companies.

As a Board Member Emeritus and former chair of Swarthmore’s investments committee, Samuel Hayes III has considerable influence on the Board’s investment decisions, yet his views on divestment are conflicted by connections to the fossil fuel industry. Mr. Hayes has a long-standing relationship with the fossil fuel industry, having served 20 years on the boards of the Eaton Vance family of mutual funds. Eaton Vance’s second-largest holding is its $845 million dollar stake in ExxonMobil. Eaton Vance has $2.6 billion invested in dirty energy, or eight percent of its $32.7 billion total holdings.

Investment Committee Member Harold Kalkstein was formerly a manager of the Boston Consulting Group and founded its global energy practice. The BCG recently published a report advising the legalization of Arctic oil drilling and a repeal of the ban on crude oil exports. The BCG is also a paid advocate for oil companies. In 2012, the BCG was one of the highest-paid advocates for the Western States Petroleum Association, earning $648,875 that year for their advocacy. It is unfathomable that a person with such direct and considerate ties to the fossil fuel industry could make objective decisions regarding fossil fuel divestment at Swarthmore College.

With these clear conflicts of interest in mind, we demand that Harold Kalkstein, Rhonda Cohen and Samuel Hayes III recuse themselves from future discussions of fossil fuel divestment. The gravity and urgency of combating climate change only accelerates with time. Five million people die every year because of the fossil fuel economy and climate change. From refineries in communities of color to rising sea levels impacting small island nations, those least responsible for the climate crisis ­­ the poor, people of color, and communities throughout the global south ­­are facing the worst impacts as a result of our fossil fuel dependency.

We cannot sit by silently and allow conflicts of interest held on the part of specific Board members to cloud Swarthmore’s decision on fossil fuel divestment. We cannot allow the College to continue to support the companies that are destroying entire communities while championing struggles for social justice in its classrooms.

This information was compiled by Little Sis, a research tool run by the Public Accountability Initiative, a “non-profit, public interest research organization investigating power.”

Board Takes a Step Toward Fossil Fuel Divestment

Today, the Board of Managers announced the creation of a fossil-free fund within the endowment. This shows a gradual transition to fossil-free investing is possible and practical for the Swarthmore endowment, as we proposed to the Board last spring in our five-year, cost-free divestment plan.

The Board can’t have it both ways. For years, they have told us fossil-free investing wasn’t feasible. Now, they’ve proven it is and that there is nothing stopping them for divesting our entire endowment and revoking our political support from the rouge industry.

Following this first step, we look forward to working with them to divest the entire endowment from fossil fuels.

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Swarthmore College Continues Investments in Fossil Fuels Despite 32-Day Sit-In and Faculty Resolution

Despite a mandate from the Swarthmore Community, today the Board of Managers chose to stand on the wrong side of history and announced it would continue to invest in fossil fuels.

With over two hundred other colleges, foundations, religious institutions, and pension funds including the University of Dayton and Sweden’s $37 billion AP2 Pension Fund, choosing to divest, the message is clear: the fossil fuel industry’s basic business model is incompatible with a stable climate and has no place in a sustainable future. The Swarthmore community has spoken: over 2,000 Swarthmore faculty, students, and alumni, including UN climate chief Christiana Figueres ‘79, have called for fossil fuel divestment. But today, our Board of Managers chose to reconfirm its commitment to an industry that has no place in a sustainable future.

The divestment campaign is one of the largest in the College’s history. More than 60% of the student body and 1100 alumni have signed a petition for divestment. The faculty passed a resolution formally recommending that the Board divest. Over 200 faculty, students, and alumni participated in a 32-day sit-in for fossil fuel divestment that ended in late April — the longest sit-in in the history of the College and the youth climate movement.

The Board says the “Investment Committee manages the endowment to yield the best long term financial results, rather than to pursue other social objectives.” But the Investments Committee, and Chair Chris Niemczewski, have consistently ignored the significant financial risks posed by stranded fossil fuel assets. An unprecedented chorus of financial leaders, ranging from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to billionaire investor Tom Steyer, are sounding the alarm on the risks of unburnable carbon. Former SEC Commissioner under Ronald Reagan, Bevis Longstreth, argues that the top 200 fossil fuel stocks are “severely overpriced in the market” and thus colleges and universities have “a compelling reason on financial grounds alone to divest these holdings before the inevitable correction occurs” and the carbon bubble pops. UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey warns that fossil fuels could become the “sub-prime assets of the future.” UN Climate Chief, and Swarthmore alumna, Christina Figures has called continued investments in fossil fuels a “breach of fiduciary duty” and directly asked Mr. Kemp and Mr. Niemczewski to divest in a letter this past spring.

Despite the Board’s abdication of its fiduciary duties, this has been a historic spring for the climate movement. Our 32 day sit-in catalyzed a wave of escalation across the nation as students push for their colleges to stand on the right side of history and divest from deadly fossil fuel companies that continually endanger our most vulnerable communities and and threaten the liviability of the planet for our generation. Since our sit-in began, students on 12 other campuses have escalated their campaigns with sit-ins modeled after ours and inspired by the incredible actions we have taken together as a community; Syracuse University the Guardian Media Group, and even Prince Charles have taken action to end their investments in fossil fuels and stand up for a just and stable future.

Swarthmore risks being left behind and remembered in history for its failure to take leadership at this critical moment. This crisis is real, in the here and now. Lives are at stake. Our generation’s future is at stake. When 350.org Pacific Islands Coordinator, Koreti Tiumalu, joined our rally to end the sit-in, she talked about island nations in the Pacific that will be totally underwater within 15 years if global warming continues unchecked. As our government and our Board sit idly by, those islands nations are disappearing, crops are turning to desert, the world’s most marginalized communities are being forced out of existence. By refusing to follow the lead of the Swarthmore College community, the Board of Managers are complicit in the destruction of these communities and of our future.

This has been an incredible year of organizing and we will be back in September stronger than ever. Divestment is too important an issue to abandon and the repercussions of staying invested in fossil fuels are too dire to stop fighting. For our allies on the frontlines and for our generation’s future, we have a responsibility to take louder, bolder escalated action next fall.

We know it is only a matter of time before Swarthmore divests. All that remains to be seen is whether Swarthmore is remembered as a leader, or an institution forced by economic and social necessity to follow along.

ALUMNI:

The Board decided to create a Green Fund, an alternative investment fund within the endowment that does not invest directly in fossil fuel stocks going forward. Alumni can earmark their future contributions for this fund which we expect to have in place later this year. The entire $1.9 billion endowment is still invested in fossil fuels and this fund still has indirect investments in fossil endowment.

Sign the alumni petition AND pledge to withholding your donations to show the Board the continuing alumni mandate for divestment of the entire endowment from fossil fuels.

With commitment by Board to engage with proposal and faculty resolution of support, MJ ends 32-day sit-in

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Erin Arvedlund, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A 32-day student sit-in at Swarthmore College ended Monday after faculty voted to support the protesters’ demands to divest endowment money out of fossil fuels.

“We are ending after a commitment by the Board of Managers to engage us in the weeks leading up to their decision on divestment on May 1 and 2,” said sophomore Stephen O’Hanlon, an organizer with Swarthmore Mountain Justice, the student group that has pushed for divestment for the last five years. An alumni petition with 1,100 signatures bolstered their demands.

“Swatties,” as Swarthmore students are called, are asking the school’s trustees – known in the college’s Quaker tradition as the Board of Managers – to partially divest the $1.9 billion endowment of oil, gas, coal, and other fossil fuel-related companies in a way that would avoid losses in the portfolio.

Over 100 students, such as O’Hanlon and freshman Sophia Zaia, began the sit-in on March 19, sleeping in Parrish Hall and working in shifts.

“So many people worry that there’s nothing one person can do about climate change. I recycle, I dry-line my clothing, but I still felt disempowered,” Zaia said.

“Big institutional change needs to happen, like our divestment from fossil fuels,” she added.

Swarthmore was the birthplace five years ago of the national divestment movement. But the college was slow to consider the possibility at the trustee level.

Between $200 million and $300 million of Swarthmore’s $1.9 billion endowment is invested in separately managed accounts that can be gradually divested, said Giles Kemp, a 1972 alumnus who chairs the board. Those accounts would be the first to divest under the student proposal.

Since Swarthmore birthed the movement, students at other schools such as Yale and Harvard Universities, and Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, plus state schools like the University of Colorado, have begun divestment campaigns as well.

Syracuse University recently divested from fossil fuels completely; Stanford University, from coal companies last year. And the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, heir to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil fortune, last fall said it would no longer invest its $860 million in fossil fuels, the source of the family’s wealth.

Neither Harvard nor Yale has divested and students have been arrested at both schools. By contrast, Swarthmore’s sit-in has been amicable.

A total of 175 students slept and studied in the hallways over a month, with a cooler of donated drinks and cookies nearby. Administrators stepped adroitly around students’ plugged-in cellphones and backpacks full of books and clothes.

“It’s very much a struggle within a family. Swarthmore has a Quaker heritage. It takes social responsibility and ethical intelligence very seriously. Students are living out their education by taking over the building,” said religion professor Mark Wallace.

Swarthmore’s campaign drew a visit from the environmental activist Bill McKibben, who visited the student sit-in on April 8.

McKibben, cofounder of 350.org, wrote an early book on global warming and lends his name to various climate change and divestment protests.

Protests have also begun at Haverford. Students are calling on their board of managers to freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds.

At Swarthmore, supportive alumni include Avery Rome, a former member of the college’s board.

“It reminds me of the student push to get us out of apartheid-linked companies in South Africa” in the 1980s, she said. “That’s not to say the top deans and Board of Managers aren’t aware. But typically, the big emotional response comes from young people. That pushes the adults over to their side.”

“I’m glad the students are pushing the college. This kind of roiling is typical of the place and good for it as an institution,” Rome added.

Should the board vote down partial divestment, the students will restart the campaign in September, once classes start again.

“We teach the students to be agents of social change. If Swarthmore would divest, it would be the first college in Pennsylvania to do so,” Wallace added.

“If the board does nothing, we’d be prepared to escalate in the fall,” O’Hanlon said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20150421_Swarthmore_sit-in_ends_with_fossil-fuel_divestment_support.html#6HupkAxyMRFug85K.99

Alumni Deliver 360 pledges not to donate until the Board divests & 1083 petition signatures

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

17 April 2015

Contact: Stephen O’Hanlon, (610) 955-7398, sohanlon22@gmail.com, Swarthmore Mountain Justice

AS STUDENT SIT-IN ENTERS FIFTH WEEK, 360 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE ALUMNI PLEDGE TO WITHHOLD DONATIONS UNTIL THE BOARD DIVESTS FROM FOSSIL FUELS

SWARTHMORE, PA — Yesterday evening morning, Swarthmore Alumni delivered 360 pledges to withhold donations until the Board commits to fossil fuel divestment, along with 1083 petition signatures and over a hundred letters calling for divestment to the alumni office. Dozens of alumni from across the country also sent letters to Investments Committee Chair Chris Niemczewski and Board Chair Gil Kemp calling for action on divestment at the May Board meeting.

“We urge the Board to reaffirm the college’s highest purposes and ideals, and in the light of the humanitarian disaster of climate change, that surely requires divestment,” said Peter Meyer, a Swarthmore alumnus from the class of 1965 who delivered the letter.

“This will be the first time in 45 years that I have not made my annual donation to the College, so this was not a decision taken lightly,” said Fran Putnam, a Swarthmore alumna from the class of 1969 on her decision not to donate until the Board commits to divestment.

The sit-in is attracting international attention. Swarthmore alumna, and head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres publicly endorsed the sit-in. Dean Baker, a Swarthmore alumnus and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research also endorsed the campaign Thursday. Over 6,000 people supporters from around the country have called on the the Board to reopen the dialogue on divestment.

This delivery came as Swarthmore Mountain Justice’s sit-in for fossil fuel divestment on the campus that birthed the now global divestment campaign entered its fifth week, making it the longest ever sit-in for fossil fuel divestment. Over 200 have now participated in the sit-in. Since the Swarthmore sit-in began, students around the country have begun sit-ins at Harvard, Tulane, Yale, University of Mary Washington, Bowdoin, UC Berkeley, and CU Boulder.

“This marks a turning point for the climate justice movement because it is the first time students across the country are taking coordinated action for divestment,” said Sara Blazevic, a current senior and sit-in organizer who has helped coordinate the national escalation. “It shows that the movement has found its legs and is more committed and powerful than ever.”

As a result of the sit-in, the Board of Managers announced that they will put fossil fuel divestment on the agenda at the May board meeting. “While this is a major victory for our campaign, we are continuing to sit-in to call for the Board to reopen dialogue with us because we need to ensure that divestment will be seriously considered in May, and that the Board is committed to seizing the historic opportunity that we have before us,” said Erika Weiskopf, a sophomore and sit-in organizer.

Swarthmore Mountain Justice is one of the largest campaigns in the College’s history: 1,200 faculty and alumni, along with 970 students (61% of the student body) have called on the College’s Board of Managers to divest from fossil fuels. In consultation with the VP of Finance, Swarthmore Mountain Justice prepared a proposal tailored specifically to our endowment structure for how Swarthmore can fully divest by 2020, the same year that global emissions must peak in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Despite this, the board rejected this historic opportunity to show international leadership on climate.

Recently, Swarthmore’s Board of Managers hired investments expert Gregory Kats to advise on sustainability initiatives. Mr. Kats responded with a public call for fossil fuel divestment. The Board should take the recommendation of their own advisor.

###

Swarthmore Mountain Justice (swatmj.org) is a student group at Swarthmore College and founded the first fossil fuel divestment campaign. There are now over 500 fossil fuel divestment campaigns worldwide.  Swarthmore Mountain Justice is calling on the Swarthmore College Board of Managers to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in just and sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.

Alumni Deliver Petition and Pledge to Alumni Office

350 Swarthmore Alumni Pledge not to donate until the Board commits to fossil fuel divest

Add your name to the pledge and read the Swarthmore Phoenix’s coverage of the announcement below.

No divestment, no donations, some alums say

By Anna Gonzales on April 9, 2015

More than 300 alumni have pledged to withhold donations to the college until the Board of Managers agrees to divest, Mountain Justice announced yesterday.

Stephen O’Hanlon ’17 said that he had been working with a group of alumni since the fall of 2013 to spread awareness about Mountain Justice’s divestment campaign and ensure that alumni voices were heard.

“Alumni’s main link to the college is through official college communication and the alumni bulletin, both of which have not included coverage of pro-divestment perspectives,” O’Hanlon said.

More than 1000 alumni from over 60 different class years have signed Mountain Justice’s petition calling on the Board to divest from fossil fuels.

“The recently begun sit-in shows the students’ commitment to this important cause,” said Fran Putnam ’69, one alumna who has decided not to donate until the college divests.

Putnam was able to attend Swarthmore thanks to a generous scholarship, and, since her graduation, has been a loyal donor to the college each year. Following her 45th reunion in June of 2014, however, Putnam decided to direct her annual donation to the college to Mountain Justice’s Responsible Endowment Fund, where the money will be held until the college divests from a set list of fossil fuel companies. This marked the first time Putnam had ever not made her annual donation, a significant decision.

She emphasized her strong support for students participating in the sit-in who, Putnam believes, are partaking in a lengthy tradition of Swarthmore students leading movements for social justice.

“My concern about global warming is so great that I am taking this step to encourage Swarthmore to divest now, not when all the other colleges have done so,” Putnam said. “Investment in fossil fuels is morally wrong, pure and simple.”

Putnam added that she had also pledged to increase her annual donation if the college chooses to divest, and encouraged other alumni to consider taking similar steps in as public a fashion as possible.

The announcement that more than 300 alumni will withhold donations come as Mountain Justice’s sit-in, which dozens of alumni have joined, stretches into its third week. The second week was marked by a visit from renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben, who joined the sit-in and led a rally for divestment in Upper Tarble, which was attended by more than 150 students.

Numerous other colleges and universities have seen increasing pressure to divest from fossil fuels (more than 300 campuses have divestment groups, and sit-ins have spread to campuses such as Bowdoin College and University of Mary Washington). Hundreds of alumni at Oxford University have similarly pledged to withhold donations until the university divests, and more than 130 professors at New York University called on the school to divest last week. Mountain Justice’s sit-in was just the first in what O’Hanlon said is a wave of historic, coordinated, sustained action by divestment campaigns across the nation. The actions will culminate with Harvard Heat Week this month, in which students will stage a week of action calling on Harvard to divest.

Swarthmore’s sit-in, meanwhile, has received national attention in publications such as the Guardian and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and endorsements not only from McKibben but also from United Nations Climate Chief Christiana Figueres ’79. Figueres recently penned an open letter to Chair of the Board Gil Kemp ’72 and Board Investment Committee Chair Chris Niemczewski ’74, calling on the two to lead the Board in divesting. Kemp and Niemczewski have said that the Board will discuss divestment at its May meeting, as well as a full range of sustainable initiatives surrounding renewable energy, investment strategies, and green building standards.

5,400 signatures in solidarity with Mountain Justice sit-in

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8 days ago, 44 students, faculty, and alumni began a sit-in at the College’s Finance and Investments office to call on Investments Committee Chair Chris Niemczewski and Board Chair Gil Kemp to reopen dialogue and collaborate with Mountain Justice to move forward on divestment. Since then over 100 students, faculty, and alumni have joined the sit-in.

As one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, and one with a strong tradition of civic responsibility and leadership for the common good, we the world looks to us for leadership on the pressing social issues of our time. As the college where the divestment movement began (and escalation), Swarthmore’s fossil fuel investments are in the international spotlight. By investing in the fossil fuel industry, Swarthmore is saying that the fossil fuel industry’s business plan to burn over five times as much carbon as is reasonably safe to burn is compatible with our institutional values of social responsibility, truth, and leadership for the common good. As the world prepares to draft the most critical climate agreement ever, this is the wrong message being sent at the worst time.

Yet the Swarthmore community recognizes that it doesn’t have to be this way. A majority of the student body, nearly half the faculty and over 1100 alumni, including UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres, have called on Swarthmore align our investments with our values. Since our sit-in began 5,438 people from around the country have signed onto a letter of solidarity with our campaign and asking Swarthmore to take vital leadership on climate.

We are pleased to know that divestment is on the agenda at the May Board meeting, however that is no guarantee that this will result in the action the Swarthmore community deserves. The decision will be made behind closed doors by thirty-nine board members. The several thousand Swarthmore community members who have voiced support for divestment will not be at the table during the May Board meeting. We are continuing our sit-in to call on the Board to reopen dialogue with us because we need to ensure that divestment will be seriously considered in May, and that the Board is committed to seizing the historic opportunity that we have before us.

We are here to ask that President Hungerford urge Mr. Niemczewski and Mr. Kemp to work with the Mountain Justice to discuss commitments for divestment ahead of the May Board meeting in order to ensure that the May meeting is productive and produces results in line with the urgency of this crisis.