{"id":3084,"date":"2013-09-19T17:45:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T17:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/?p=3084"},"modified":"2013-09-19T17:45:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T17:45:59","slug":"yes-harvard-the-climate-crisis-is-an-extraordinarily-rare-circumstance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/divestment\/yes-harvard-the-climate-crisis-is-an-extraordinarily-rare-circumstance\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Harvard, the Climate Crisis Is an \u2018Extraordinarily Rare Circumstance\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Divest Harvard<\/a> held an alumni rally. Below is journalist and activist Wen Stephenson’s moving speech, which is cross-posted from The Nation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me ask you something: Why are we here? Why are we standing here, in this place, right now? Why are you here?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you why I\u2019m here. I\u2019m here because I\u2019m afraid. I\u2019m the father of two young children, and I\u2019m scared. And I\u2019m here because I\u2019m angry. That\u2019s right. I\u2019m angry. But most of all, I\u2019m here because I\u2019m determined. I\u2019m determined to fight alongside these students for a just and stable future on this planet.<\/p>\n

In the fall and spring of 1986 and \u201987, as a freshman at this college, I lived on the top floor of Massachusetts Hall. My dorm room\u2014right up there, in the top northeast corner, two floors above the President\u2019s offices\u2014faced out over the Yard, and I have vivid memories of large protests demanding that this university divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. Suffice it to say, it got loud out here. Very, very loud.<\/p>\n

And if any of you, here today, were out here then\u2014thank you. I confess, I was too self-absorbed as a freshman to join you. I knew you were right, but I lacked the courage of my convictions. The kind of courage that these students here today have shown in this campaign to divest from fossil fuels. The courage to stand and speak truth to power.<\/p>\n

Now, in the past year, since this campaign was launched, we\u2019ve heard from a few critics\u2014and, frankly, from a few cynics. And that\u2019s just fine. We\u2019re getting their attention.<\/p>\n

And one of the things we\u2019re told is that fossil-fuel divestment will be ineffective as a strategy to address climate change\u2014that the economics of it won\u2019t alter the behavior of these companies, the wealthiest on Earth. But this misreads\u2014or fails to read\u2014our clearly stated reasons for divestment. The leverage we aim to bring is not simply economic. It\u2019s moral.<\/p>\n

And on that score, we\u2019re also told that we have the wrong target\u2014that the fossil fuel industry isn\u2019t the enemy, that we ourselves, as consumers\u2014who, yes, in spite of our best efforts, still depend on fossil fuels\u2014we are the enemy. As though the fossil fuel companies are somehow blameless\u2014despite everything we know to the contrary. And as though the working, poor, and struggling families of this country and every other country are somehow responsible for solving the climate crisis, which they did nothing to create, by themselves\u2014even as they\u2019re forced to rely on fossil fuels, through no fault of their own, simply to put food on the table. This is a basic issue of justice. The wealthiest corporations on Earth have the power to help solve the crisis they have done so much to create, and from which they have profited\u2014and continue to profit\u2014so richly. And they must use it. Not stand in the way of solutions. Not, for God\u2019s sake, deceive the public, deny science, and obstruct solutions.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re told these things, but at the end of the day, what we\u2019re mainly told is that divestment is\u2026well, you see, children, it\u2019s complicated. It\u2019s difficult\u2014for various technical reasons.<\/p>\n

No, in fact, it\u2019s really not. It\u2019s not. I mean, come on, this is Harvard\u2014I think we can figure it out!<\/p>\n

In fact, what this really means is that Harvard just can\u2019t be bothered. \u201cClimate change, yes, it\u2019s very serious,\u201d we\u2019re told. \u201cIndeed, Harvard\u2019s faculty is contributing much to our understanding of climate change and its solutions. But you see, children, it doesn\u2019t rise to such a level that we would take any such radical or extreme course of action as divestment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only in the rarest of circumstances, we\u2019re told\u2014indeed, only in \u201cextraordinarily rare circumstances,\u201d in the words of the administration\u2014will the university go so far as to divest.<\/p>\n

This is what all of us have heard. As though to say, Harvard is a busy place. It has a lot of important things on its plate. All you climate change people will simply have to understand.<\/p>\n

Well, climate change people, do we understand? I think we understand all too well.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s consider this language, this boilerplate, emanating from Massachusetts Hall. Only in \u201cextraordinarily rare circumstances\u201d will the university divest.<\/p>\n

Presumably such circumstances would include\u2014oh, I don\u2019t know\u2014humans melting the Arctic.<\/p>\n

Presumably such circumstances would include humans rapidly acidifying the oceans\u2014and raising them.<\/p>\n

Presumably such circumstances would include burning the planet\u2019s great forests. Drying up its great rivers. Flooding its great cities.<\/p>\n

Presumably such \u201cextraordinarily rare circumstances\u201d would also include the fact, famously reported by Bill McKibben, class of 1982, that the fossil fuel industry controls in its reserves more than five times the amount of carbon that climate science tells us can be burned, over the next four decades, if we\u2019re to have a chance of preserving a livable climate this century\u2014and the fact that the industry shows every intention of extracting and burning every ounce of it, unless and until somebody stops them, or makes it unprofitable for them to do so.<\/p>\n

In other words, it is perhaps among the rarest and most extraordinary of circumstances that the power of a single industry holds the fate of the planet and of humanity in its grip.<\/p>\n

Presumably these circumstances are rare and extraordinary.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what else they are: Given what we\u2019ve known about climate change for decades, to willfully obstruct any serious solution is to knowingly, willfully allow entire countries and cultures to disappear. It is to rob people of their land, their homes, their livelihoods, even their lives and their children\u2019s lives\u2014and their children\u2019s children\u2019s lives. For profit.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a word for this. These are called crimes. They are crimes against the Earth, and they are crimes against humanity. They are crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

So, yes, divestment may be bothersome. It may be\u2014inconvenient. Well, I hate to tell you, but nobody ever said that taking on this crisis would be convenient. Or that business as usual\u2014or academics as usual\u2014would be enough. Nobody ever said it would be easy.<\/p>\n

Ask the folks on the front lines of global warming how easy it is:<\/p>\n

Ask them on the bone-dry farms out west.<\/p>\n

Ask them on the beach fronts of Jersey and of Queens.<\/p>\n

Or on the floodplains of Asia.<\/p>\n

Or on the drought-stricken plains of Africa.<\/p>\n

Or on the heat-stricken streets of Chicago\u2014or of Roxbury and Dorchester. Or Cambridge.<\/p>\n

Or ask the people of the disappearing nations of the Pacific and Indian oceans, entire societies going under the waves.<\/p>\n

There is nothing easy about the climate fight. Nothing.<\/p>\n

And all we ask\u2014all we demand\u2014is that this university stop investing in all this destruction, all this death.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re here today, graduates of this proud university, to demand that Harvard divest from fossil fuels, not because it\u2019s easy\u2014though it is. And not because it\u2019s profitable\u2014though it will be. But because it\u2019s right. And because it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cAction from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry David Thoreau wrote that, in an essay called \u201cCivil Disobedience.\u201d He was a graduate of this College, class of 1837. And in that great abolitionist essay he also wrote this:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself\u2026. This people must cease to hold slaves\u2026though it cost them their existence as a people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This university must cease to invest in crimes against humanity\u2014even if the cost were to be its existence as a university.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, as we all know\u2014as they all know in that building behind me\u2014the cost will be nothing of the sort. Not even close. In fact, quite the opposite. Divestment may be inconvenient, but it will do no damage to this great institution. It will only make Harvard stronger.<\/p>\n

It will reassure the world of Harvard\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

It will ensure the faith of its alumni in its integrity.<\/p>\n

And it will demonstrate to its students and to future generations that it understands the meaning of \u201caction from principle,\u201d of moral courage\u2014of conscience.<\/p>\n

And in doing so, it will change things and relations. In taking this principled action, Harvard will live up to its history and its calling. It will be, and rightly so\u2014rightly so\u2014revolutionary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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