Harvard Stop Making Excuses for Investing in Dirty Fuels
- by: Susan V
- recipient: Harvard President Drew Faust
Last year Vermont’s Sterling College sold off all their investments in fossil fuels, and the college is doing better than ever. But Harvard is still digging in its heels against divestment in these dirty, nonsustainable fuels.
Harvard has bought into the most popular argument against divestment - that it’s not economically feasible or responsible - or not “warranted or wise” as Harvard President Drew Faust put it. But a number of colleges who’ve gone with divestment are debunking that argument as well as ones that claim divesting must be done slowly - over a 10-15 year period. While not all of those that have divested have done as well as Sterling, which had little invested in fossil fuels in the first place, none have experienced financial ruin, says Truthout’s investigation. And it took Sterling only three days to make the change.
Harvard complains that for it to divest would mean taking $30 billion out of environmentally devastating corporations. But then that would be the beauty of it, wouldn’t it?
Tell Harvard to stop making excuses for investing in dirty fuels!
We, the undersigned, say there’s no excuse for Harvard to continue supporting dirty fuels.
A college with Harvard’s reputation for academic excellence should be setting an example of how to respond responsibly to what that academic excellence is teaching us.
And the investigation shows that it’s not just small schools that are benefiting from divesting. For example, Boulder Colorado’s Naropa University, a medium-sized university, says there’s been no significant change in its financial status since it dropped its fossil fuel investments, and a much larger community college system, serving around 600,000 near San Francisco, increased its endowment by 2 million after it divested, partly due to fundraising campaigns, which couldn’t have been harmed by the positive PR generated by the school’s environmentally responsible stand.
If these schools can take the risk to help clean up our environment there’s no excuse for a heavy-weight like Harvard not to get with the program, unless of course its non commitment to the environment comes from pressure from its trustees and big donors, like “hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, who gave $150 million earlier this year» and has “assets tied up in the fossil fuel industry,” notes Truthout‘s report.
The report goes on to explain that::
If a university like Harvard dumped its massive volume of stocks, prices might be affected. And that would be a problem for large shareholders like Griffin, an outspoken supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline.
But again, that would be the beauty of it, wouldn’t it?
Harvard, stop with your excuses against divesting in fossil fuels - make the change, and do it now!
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