May, 03 2016, 10:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lindsay Meiman, US Communications Manager 350.org, lindsay@350.org, +1-347-460-9082
Hoda Baraka, Global Communications Manager 350.org, hoda@350.org, +1-347-453-6600
A Global Wave of Actions to Break Free from Fossil Fuels Begins
Largest civil disobedience in the history of the environmental movement
WORLDWIDE
Starting today, a global wave of peaceful direct actions lasting for 12 days will take place across six continents targeting the world's most dangerous fossil fuel projects, under the banner of Break Free.
2015 was the hottest year ever recorded and the impacts of climate change are already hitting communities around the world. From rising sea levels to extreme storms, the need to act on climate change has never been more urgent. Added to that, the fossil fuel industry faces an unprecedented crisis -- from collapsing prices, massive divestments, a new global climate deal, and an ever-growing movement calling for change. The time has never been better for a just transition to a clean energy system.
To harness the moment, activists and concerned citizens committed to addressing climate change - from international groups to local communities to individual citizens - will unite to ensure that strong pressure is maintained to force energy providers, as well as local and national governments, to implement the policies and additional investments needed to completely break free from fossil fuels.
People worldwide are providing the much needed leadership by intensifying actions through peaceful civil disobedience on a global scale as so much remains to be done in order to lessen the effects of the climate crisis. This includes demanding governments move past the commitments made as part of the Paris agreement signed last month.
In order to address the current climate crisis and keep global warming below 1.5C, fossil fuel projects need to be shelved and existing infrastructure needs to be replaced now that renewable energy is more affordable and widespread than ever before. The only way to achieve this is by keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground and accelerating the just transition to 100% renewable energy. During Break Free people worldwide are rising up to make sure this is the case.
Actions taking place between 3-15 May include:
- US: Across the U.S. activists will target six key areas of fossil fuel development between 12-15 May. Including the new tar sands pipelines in the Midwest with an action near Chicago; fracking in the Mountain West with an event outside Denver; 'bomb trains' carrying fracked oil and gas to a port in Albany, NY; Shell's devastating refinery pollution north of Seattle; action around offshore drilling in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts taking place in Washington, DC; and dangerous oil and gas drilling in Los Angeles. These diverse actions will all escalate critical local campaigns that target the unjust practices of the fossil fuel industry. More detail on the individual actions can be found below.
- 12 May & 14 May in Colorado (Denver):
Description: On May 12th, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intends to hold a fossil fuel auction, and hundreds of people will be there to tell them to keep it in the ground. Activists will be mobilizing first at the BLM auction and then a few days later on May 14th in a community working to defend itself from fracking near Denver. - 13-15 May in the Pacific Northwest (Anacortes, WA):
Description: The Shell and Tesoro refineries just north of Seattle are the largest unaddressed source of carbon pollution in the Pacific Northwest and refine nearly half of all the gas and diesel consumed in the region; this system must change--within years, not decades. Thousands of people will converge upon the March Point refineries in Anacortes, WA. Hundreds of people will risk arrest by engaging in peaceful civil disobedience on land and sea on May 13th, 14th and 15th as part of a mass action to Break Free from Big Oil and hasten the just transition to 100% renewable energy. - 14 May in the Northeast (Albany, NY):
Description: Crude oil "bomb" trains roll through Albany, polluting the air in surrounding communities and contributing to the climate crisis. On May 14th, activists will gather for a massive action to stop these dangerous trains in their tracks. Joining others all around the world, they will put their bodies in the way of fossil fuels to show the collective power of this movement. - 14 May in California (Los Angeles):
Description: 2016 is a critical year in the fight to move California away from dangerous fossil fuels and toward the renewable energy future we need. From the neighborhoods in Richmond alongside a toxic, explosive oil refinery to residents living only feet away from neighborhood drilling in South L.A., frontline communities across the state are living with the insidious threats of fossil fuels. That's why thousands of Californians will be marching in Los Angeles on May 14 to demand a ban on urban drilling and all new fossil fuel infrastructure. As the home of the largest urban oil field, and the largest city in California, Los Angeles is the clear target for this action. Change can begin in L.A. to move the whole state off fossil fuels and toward 100% renewable energy. - 15 May in Washington, DC:
Description: On May 15, a coalition of organizations and frontline activists will rally at the White House and then march to one of the bodies of water in DC. Frontline activists from the Gulf, Arctic, and Atlantic will come together in DC backed by national organizations to say, "Stop Drilling everywhere. No sacrifice zones." Expanding offshore drilling or cutting it out entirely is the biggest climate decision that Obama will make before the end of his presidency, and this action will show that there is a mass movement calling on him to #keepitintheground. - 15 May in the Midwest (Whiting, IN, near Chicago):
Description: The Midwest has a long history with the fossil fuel industry, and this May communities in the region are taking action to Break Free from athen industry that's driving the climate crisis. The fossil fuel industry threads the Great Lakes region with pipelines, putting local communities at risk with refining impacts and petcoke piles. Communities are breaking free from business as usual and taking on Enbridge's tar sands proposed expansion plans. On Sunday, May 15 at noon, hundreds of Midwesterners will assemble for a rally in the Whiting Lakefront Park near the BP Whiting Refinery and near the 2014 oil spill into the waters of Lake Michigan.
- Australia: On 8 May some 600+ people will gather at the largest coal port in the world, in Newcastle. They will demonstrate their resolve to make the climate a key issue in the coming election and show their determination to continue resisting coal no matter who is in the Prime Minister's chair.
- Brazil: Actions will be taking place at 3 locations across the country. Between 5-15 May there will be a rural fair in Maringa, which will include a big rally on 6 May, calling for a ban on fracking. On 7 May in Toledo there will be a mass anti-fracking action with thousands of people attending. And on 14 May there will be a march and mass civil disobedience targeting a coal power plant in Pecem, Ceara.
- Canada: On 13 and 14 May hundreds of people will take action on the land and the water in Vancouver to oppose the proposed Kinder Morgan Transmountain tar sands pipeline, surrounding the Westridge Marine terminal.
- Ecuador: An action is being organised on 14 May by Yasunidos bringing people together from around the country with a call to keep the oil in ground and protect the Yasuni National Park.
- Germany: During the weekend of 13-15 May a few thousand activists are expected to come to Lusatia where they will engage in civil disobedience to stop the digging in one of Europe's biggest open-pit lignite mines, which the Swedish company Vattenfall has put up for sale. The action will show any future buyer that all coal development will face resistance, and demonstrate the movement's commitment against fossil fuel corporations.
- Indonesia: There will be a mass action of thousands of people at the Presidential palace in Jakarta on 11 May. The action will include participants from many of the communities leading resistance to coal projects from around the country. The mobilisation will target President Joko Widodo demanding he revise his ambitious 35,000 Megawatt energy plan by moving away from coal and embracing renewable energy. A few days later there will be one or more actions at the site of coal infrastructure projects.
- New Zealand: Between the 4-15 of May hundreds of people around NZ will take action to shut down the operations of one of New Zealand's biggest investors and lenders to the fossil fuel industry, ANZ bank. There will be blockades, disruptive actions, and culture jamming from North to South.
- Nigeria: In the Niger Delta actions will be held in three iconic locations to show what happens when the oil goes dry, and the community is left with the pollution and none of the wealth. An action at Ogoni land will demand an urgent clean-up of decades old oil spills and underscore how it is possible for citizens to resist the power of the oil corporations, and keep their oil in the ground where it belongs. Another action will be on the Atlantic coast, where Exxon's offshore wells frequently leak, impact fisheries and harm coastline communities' livelihoods.
- Philippines: On 4 May anti-coal activists from all over the Philippines will converge in a climate march that aims to mobilize 10,000 people in Batangas City, where JG Summit Holdings aims to put up a 600-Megawatt coal fired power plant that is set to occupy a 20-hectare site in Barangay Pinamucan Ibaba, Batangas City. The people will be demanding the cancellation of the coal plant in Batangas as well as all 27 other proposed plants in the Philippines.
- South Africa: Two actions will take place each with hundreds of people highlighting the local impacts of coal and climate change. The first on 12 May will see people gathering in Emalahleni, one of the most polluted towns in the world, to speak out on the effects of climate change. The second on 14 May is focused on the Gupta residence in Saxonwold, Johannesburg.
- Turkey: Community leaders will head a mass action in Aliaga on 15 May at a coal waste site to call for a stop to 4 fossil fuel plant projects in the surrounding area. This action will unite several fights against individual coal plants into a unified stance against the current Turkish government's plan to dramatically expand the use of coal in the country.
- UK: The Reclaim the Power network will unite hundreds of people on 3 May at the UK's largest opencast coal mine - Ffos-y-fran, near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. The action will take place just a few days before the Welsh Assembly elections on 5 May. The Welsh Assembly voted for a moratorium on opencast coal mining last April, but this has yet to become legally binding.
QUOTE SHEET:
"By backing campaigns and mass actions aimed at stopping the world's most dangerous fossil-fuel projects - from coal plants in Turkey and the Philippines, to mines in Germany and Australia, to fracking in Brazil and oil wells in Nigeria - Break Free hopes to eliminate the power and pollution of the fossil-fuel industry, and propel the world toward a sustainable future," May Boeve, Executive Director 350.org
"There's never been a bigger, more concerted wave of actions against the plans of the fossil fuel industry to overheat our earth--and for the just, fair, and sustainable world we can now envision. In the hottest year on record, we're determined to turn up the political heat on the planet's worst polluters," Bill McKibben, co-founder 350.org
"Communities on the front lines of climate change aren't waiting for governments to act. They are taking bold action, and the world needs to listen. The Paris agreement was only possible because millions of people spent years fighting for climate justice. Now that governments have committed to action, we must make sure they follow the science and deliver on their words. The only way to survive climate change is through a rapid just transition to 100% renewable energy, keeping oil, coal and gas in the ground," Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International
"Communities all over the Philippines are demanding that the government cancel all plans, permits and construction efforts for new coal power plants and coal mines in the Philippines, and to take decisive steps towards the phase out of existing ones. We need to take major steps in order to break free from fossil fuels and all harmful sources energy. A complete transition to renewable energy is not only possible, but urgent," Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) and Co-Coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
"Breaking free from fossil fuels is a vote for life and for the planet. The Paris Agreement signed by world leaders ignored the fact that burning fossil fuels is the major culprit in global warming. In these actions the peoples of the world will insist that we must come clean of the fossil fuels addiction. In Nigeria we will in addition raise our voices to demand a clean up of the extreme pollution caused by oil companies operating in the Niger Delta," Nnimmo Bassey, Nigerian activist from the Health of Mother Earth Foundation
"We are currently at a crossroads in humanity where we must choose either to continue down a destructive path of extracting fossil fuels or transition to sustainable ways of living. What we need is ambitious renewable energy projects, not more tar sands pipelines. These pipelines don't have the support of local communities and the Indigenous nations they will impact. If we continue to build fossil fuel infrastructure, we are breaking our promise to do our part in Canada to stem a global climate crisis that is already being felt by communities all over the planet," Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Lubicon Cree First Nation, Greenpeace Canada Climate & Energy Campaigner and 350.org Board member
"The global climate justice movement is rising fast. But so are the oceans. So are global temperatures. This is a race against time. Our movement is stronger than ever, but to beat the odds, we have to grow stronger," Naomi Klein, award winning journalist/author
"People power in our cities, in our villages and on the frontlines of climate change have brought us to a point where we have a global climate deal - but we do not stop now, we need more action and faster. Civil society is set to rise up again, to fight for our societies to break free from fossil fuels, to propel them even faster towards a just future powered by 100% renewable energy," Wael Hmaidan, Director of Climate Action Network
"Fossil fuel plants cause extreme harm to local communities and ecosystems, they are also a danger to the country and the whole planet since they are a major contributor to climate change. It is immoral to burden future generations with the cost of mistaken energy choices made today. It is time to end the age of fossil fuels," Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lipa in the Philippines.
"No government has a workable plan to protect a stable climate. Nature won't wait, and mass disobedience is the only tool proven to bring about rapid social change. Breaking free from fossil fuels and ensuring a just transition is going to be hard, but not doing so would have unthinkable consequences," Ahmed Gaya, Rising Tide Seattle, Break Free Pacific Northwest Action
"In my community, where my church has been for 65 years, the African American and Hispanic community has been overlooked for a long time as political forces worked to improve other areas of the city. These oil trains, carrying toxic and explosive oil, have been snuck into our community with little oversight and little public disclosure. Now is the time to turn the tables, and for us to stand together to say that this can't go on," Associate Pastor Marc Johnson, Greater St. John's C.O.G.I.C., Break Free Albany, NY Action
"We are marching in Los Angeles because the city is ground zero for neighborhood oil drilling. Fossil fuel extraction is happening in our backyards. Communities live next door to active oil drilling sites, exposing children and families to various health risks like headaches, nosebleeds, and respiratory problems including asthma. We are marching because this is an injustice not only to our climate, but to communities in Los Angeles and throughout the state of California, which disproportionately are low-income and communities of color," Monic Uriarte, STAND-LA, Break Free LA Action
"When the oil tides rolled in, back in 2010, coastal communities across the Gulf witnessed the devastating gambles taken to harvest fossil fuels off our shores and in our waters. We are on the front lines, witnessing the side effects of extreme extraction, ranging from rising sea levels to tainted waters to more violent and unpredictable weather. That's why we are calling on President Obama to refuse any new leases in his offshore drilling plan and protect the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf South waters, wildlife and ways of life. It is time we break free from fossil fuels and build the just transition to renewable and sustainable solutions," Monique Verdin, Citizen of the United Houma Nation; resident of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana; Interdisciplinary Artist; Break Free DC Action
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
Disgust Greets White House Correspondents' Dinner as Israel Kills Journalists in Gaza
"To sit and schmooze with the president while he sends billions of dollars in weapons to Israel to kill their colleagues in Gaza is unethical and immoral."
Apr 27, 2024
On Saturday night, U.S. reporters and government officials—including President Joe Biden—will gather at the Washington Hilton Hotel for the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, a glitzy, humor-filled affair that has faced mounting boycott calls in recent weeks as Palestinian journalists in Gaza are targeted and killed by the Israeli military in appalling numbers.
Earlier this month, dozens of Palestinian journalists urged their American colleagues to spurn the invite-only event "as an act of solidarity with us—your fellow journalists—as well as with the millions of Palestinians currently being starved in Gaza due to the Biden administration's continued political, financial, and military backing of Israel."
One journalist, Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo, has heeded the call.
"I have attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner for the past two years," Hasan, a former MSNBC host, wrote on social media Saturday, hours before the event. "I decided not to attend today's dinner (which, to be clear, is hosted by D.C. journalists not the White House) in solidarity with under-fire Palestinian journalists in Gaza who have called for a boycott."
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 97 media workers—92 of them Palestinian—have been killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon since October 7. The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate puts the number higher at 125.
"Israel has killed over 10% of our colleagues," said Shuruq As'ad, director of the Palestine Journalism Hub and supporter of calls to boycott the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which is hosted by the White House Correspondents' Association.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), an organization representing more than 600,000 media workers across 146 countries, endorsed the boycott push on Saturday, as did the National Writers Union (NWU).
"More than 100 journalists and media workers have been killed in the past six months of Israel's war on Gaza, backed by the United States government," NWU said in a statement. "As a union of journalists and media workers who strive for truth, we refuse to normalize genocide. Stand with journalists in Gaza and amplify the call for a boycott."
Israel's assault on Gaza, which has been fueled by U.S. weapons and diplomatic support, is the deadliest conflict for journalists in decades. Last year, roughly 75% of the journalists killed globally were killed by Israeli forces.
Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, has lost five family members to Israeli airstrikes, including his 27-year-old son Hamza, who was also a journalist.
"To dine with him as he allows Palestinians to die of starvation by cutting off funding to critical humanitarian aid is despicable."
Press freedom groups have accused the Biden White House of failing to do enough to stop the Israeli military from targeting members of the media, who continue to risk their lives to show the world the devastation Israel is inflicting in Gaza.
"The Biden administration has been all talk when it comes to journalists killed by the Israel Defense Forces," Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said earlier this year. "The Biden administration says it cares deeply about journalists' freedom to cover the war but has failed to demand Israel ensure journalists' safety or hold it accountable when it doesn't."
The New York Timesreported that in addition to the jokes, Biden is "expected to issue a more serious warning at a time when journalists around the world are being jailed or detained more frequently for doing their job."
But it remains to be seen whether the president will mention Gaza journalists specifically.
President Biden will address the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight. It’s expected that’ll he’ll mention threats to journalists around the world. Will he mention Israel’s murder of Shireen Abu Aqlah & the scores of Palestinian journalists murdered in Gaza? Probably not. pic.twitter.com/nA6M2t9nK9
— James J. Zogby (@jjz1600) April 27, 2024
Protests are expected outside the dinner's venue, but as NBC Newsreported, "protests inside the event itself are much less common and perhaps unprecedented, given the tight security."
"People involved in organizing the protests said they knew of no plans to try to infiltrate the exclusive invite-only dinner," the outlet added. (Kelly O'Donnell, NBC's senior White House correspondent, is presiding over this year's dinner.)
Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, which helped organize the letter calling for a boycott of Saturday's dinner, said it's grotesque for reporters who claim to be committed to a free press to pal around with members of an administration that is aiding deadly attacks on journalists in Gaza.
"To sit and schmooze with the president while he sends billions of dollars in weapons to Israel to kill their colleagues in Gaza is unethical and immoral," said Sandra Tamari, executive director of Adalah Justice Project, which helped organize the letter calling for a boycott of Saturday's dinner. "To dine with him as he allows Palestinians to die of starvation by cutting off funding to critical humanitarian aid is despicable."
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Columbia Climate School Alumni Slam 'Violent Repression' of Gaza Solidarity Protests
"As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet."
Apr 27, 2024
Alumni of Columbia's Climate School published an open letter on Friday condemning the university's leadership for sanctioning a violent crackdown on campus Gaza protests, arguing that attempts to repress dissent against Israel's assault resemble and fuel "the irredeemable rising repression and surveillance against climate activists worldwide."
"We are beyond alarmed that Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations," reads the letter, which was directed at Columbia president Minouche Shafik and Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury.
"As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet," continues the letter, which can be read in full below.
The letter was released as a campus oversight panel criticized Shafik's administration over its decision to send in New York City Police Department officers last week to arrest more than 100 peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
"After a two-hour meeting on Friday," Reutersreported, "the Columbia University Senate approved a resolution that Shafik's administration had undermined academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest."
Alumni of Columbia's graduate Climate School join in protest over calling the police on demonstrators, arguing that "Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations." https://t.co/5XU0ywJb2O
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) April 27, 2024
The Columbia Climate School alumni joined university faculty members, civil liberties groups, prominent human rights organizations, and the United Nations in condemning police attacks on student demonstrators who are taking action across the U.S. to demand that their schools divest from companies profiting off Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip—including weapons manufacturers and tech companies like Google, which has a major cloud contract with Israel.
"Columbia claims divestment, protest, and student discipline fall outside the Climate School's mandate," the alumni wrote in their letter. "Science proves otherwise, that environmental justice requires divestment from war and apartheid, and that civil disobedience is integral to overcoming the climate emergency. The Climate School's mission thus mandates it defend students' right to dissent and support the cause of apartheid divestment."
Read the letter in full:
To President Shafik, President Rosenbury, Dean Shaman, and the Trustees of Columbia University,
We, alumni of Columbia University's Climate School, SUMA, and The Earth Institute, stand in full solidarity with the brave students of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, as well as with the faculty, staff, and community supporters protesting for Columbia's total divestment and full dissociation from institutions profiting off or engaging in Israel's acts of occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine. Doing so is fundamentally essential to environmental justice and overcoming the climate emergency.
We affirm the protests' core belief that Palestinian liberation and safety for Jewish people are the same goal: to end genocide and ethnic cleansing everywhere and in all forms. We completely condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and violence—verbal and physical—and maintain that all students must be guaranteed safety. We reject the weaponization of Jewish identity and steadfastly support anti-zionism. We observe that the encampment has nurtured student safety through interfaith solidarity and community building. In alignment with Columbia Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw's teachings on feminist intersectionality, we recognize there can be no climate justice without peace and no peace without the liberation of Palestinian people.
We reaffirm the letters by our fellow alumni, especially those of the Muslim, Jewish, Indigenous, Christian, Latinx, South Asian, and Black communities, of Barnard and Columbia Colleges, and of Columbia's Journalism, SIPA, MSPH, Teachers College, Social Work, General Studies, and Law Schools. We applaud the encampments springing up on campuses globally, demonstrating that while the University may repress individuals, this movement will not be silenced. The over 100 students arrested at Columbia's orders remind us of the land defenders who risk their bodies daily for climate justice and intersectional liberation. They remind us: "You can kill 100 roses, but you cannot stop the coming of spring." This dedication to freeing Palestine in our lifetime is embodied by students' chants: "Disclose! Divest! No more suspensions, no more arrests! We will not stop! We will not rest!"
Columbia's Crackdown Endangers Climate Justice Activists
Columbia's crackdown mirrors and contributes to the irredeemable rising repression and surveillance against climate activists worldwide. As charges of racketeering and domestic terrorism are leveled at nonviolent environmental activists, the fundamental human right to protest is being criminalized. This is especially grave for Black, People of Color, and Indigenous people. The 2023 murder of Indigenous gender-queer land defender Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran—whose death marks the first recorded instance in U.S. history of police killing a climate activist—as well as the National Guard's 1970 massacre of anti-war students at Kent State, demonstrate the logical conclusion of Columbia's actions.
We are appalled by reported threats from Columbia and Congress to unleash the National Guard on students and given the history of rampant police brutality against BIPOC people, we wholly reject President Shafik's claim that NYPD in any way serves the safety of the community. As reports of brutal police repression on campuses proliferate, of students of color tear-gassed, tasered, shot at with rubber bullets and a professor assaulted by police at Emory University, of a police sniper possibly deployed to Indiana University, and of blood staining Emerson College's cobblestones, we remind you that Columbia started this crackdown. We are disgusted that Columbia, which preaches free speech, is instead normalizing the violent repression of activists and the criminalization of dissent.
Columbia and President Shafik have undermined democratic governance by acting without University Senate approval to authorize violent police force against students, in violation of Statutes Section 444, and by breaching student’s Title VI civil rights. We are beyond alarmed that Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations. As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet.
The Climate School's Mandate
As home to the world's first Climate School, the University understands the facts of this letter yet has proven too morally abject to stand behind the very science it teaches. The call to action by Climate School students and alumni in November 2023 on demanding a ceasefire over environmental injustices was inhumanely ignored by the School’s administrators. By suppressing activists and investing in war, Columbia contravenes its Climate School’s mission and cannot pretend to be a climate leader.
The University argues against apartheid divestment by citing a need for “broad consensus” and “aversion to using divestment for political purposes.” All investments are inherently political. Moreover, amidst the 99.9% peer-reviewed scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change found with “high confidence” that colonialism, like Israel’s, drives the climate emergency. In addition, the UN Stockholm Declaration on Human Environment observes that protecting ecosystems necessitates decolonization, and the end to all apartheid. International and Israeli human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem, have all declared Israel an apartheid state. Broad scientific and political consensus thus supports the need for apartheid divestment to overcome the climate emergency.
The Climate School community's responsibility inarguably includes these matters of divestment and protest, especially as our School’s 2024 Graduation Student Speaker has been unjustly arrested and suspended, and as the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing's (ACSRI) entire voting faculty membership and its Chair are Climate School affiliates.
Columbia claims divestment, protest, and student discipline fall outside the Climate School’s mandate. Science proves otherwise, that environmental justice requires divestment from war and apartheid, and that civil disobedience is integral to overcoming the climate emergency. The Climate School’s mission thus mandates it defend students' right to dissent and support the cause of apartheid divestment.
Militarism and Climate Justice are Inextricably Linked and Fundamentally Incompatible
The climate crisis and the global military-industrial complex are deeply intertwined. War's devastation does not stop at human injury and death but also wreaks havoc on ecosystems and the climate via massive emissions, pollution of water and air, and environmental devastation felt for generations. Columbia's own Center for Global Energy Policy Director Jason Bordoff recently acknowledged this deep link at a recent panel discussing Israel. Alumni activists with Climate Defiance disrupted the discussion to protest the University’s platforming of BlackRock, a top investor in war profiteers and fossil fuels firms, highlighting Columbia’s unethical research funding from such firms. These financial relationships corrupt its research, undermine academic freedom, and make the University complicit in unconscionable harms, as do repression of activists and ties to war profiteers. Divestment and full dissociation are therefore plainly necessary.
The environmental injustice of Israel’s decades-long siege on Palestine, compounded by climate change, includes water shortages, ecocide, agricultural damage, and infrastructural collapse, caused by embargo, bombing, and humanitarian aid obstruction. Along with disease and death among Palestinians, this drives waste-water system failures, rendering 97% of Palestine’s water undrinkable since at least 2018 and causing sewage to poison coastal ecosystems and harm marine wildlife. We uphold the Palestinian people's inalienable rights to self-determination and governance which include environmentally just access to clean air, clean water, landback, and the right of return—all upheld by international human rights law.
War and a stable climate are irreconcilable. The U.S. military is the single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gasses, outstripping 140 nations, and the first two months of Israel's 2023 siege on Gaza alone outburned the annual emissions of "over 20 of the most climate-vulnerable" countries. The climate emergency clearly demands the abolition of the military-industrial complex. Thus, we find the University's investments morally reprehensible and scientifically objectionable and demand full divestment from such firms, including fossil fuel companies that profit off genocide, apartheid, and war—in recognition that these investments are incompatible with the biodiversity, public health, human life, human rights, and a stable climate.
Columbia's History Demands Divestment
Israel's ecocide and war crimes in Palestine echo the U.S.' in Vietnam—which, alongside Columbia's segregationist gentrification of Harlem, sparked the University's1968 protests. Columbia's use of eminent domain to gentrify Harlem mimics the settler-colonial violence ongoing in both Israel and the U.S., where its campus stands, built off profits from stolen bodies and on the stolen lands of Lenni-Lenape and Wappinger peoples. With its massive endowment and as the largest private landowner in New York City, Columbia can plainly afford divestment. However, this is not ultimately an issue of affordability but rather one of clear moral obligation to reject genocide.
Divesting from genocide and defending the fundamental right of civil disobedience are moral obligations crucial to climate justice. We therefore insist the Climate School and University enact the student and alumni demands, including yet not limited to:
- Divest financially, including the endowment and research funding, and fully dissociate from entities profiting off of or complicit in Israel’s apartheid, occupation, and genocide against Palestine
- EnactColumbia University Apartheid Divest's proposal to the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment students’ demands to the University
- Ensure complete transparency for all Columbia's investments, research funding, and financial ties
- Grant amnesty from legal action and discipline for all students, faculty, and staff facing repression
- Reinstate the suspended students and the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace groups, including with class participation, housing, healthcare, and on-campus food access
- End Columbia’s repression against activists, including NYPD's immediate and sustained withdrawal from campus and surrounding areas, as well as ceasing of surveillance against activists
- Boycott academically, by canceling the opening of the Tel Aviv Global Center and the Tel Aviv University Dual Degree Program, because they are currently exclusionary and function as a military laboratory while affirming that discourse and education are ultimately a bridge to peace
- Uphold academic freedom, free expression, shared governance, and the right to protest
- The Climate School must secure amnesty for the current C+S Student Speaker who was arrested and suspended, and ensure they are allowed to speak at Graduation/Class Day
- The Climate School must publically callfor an end to the genocide and declare support for student anti-war activists
Until these demands are met, we as Climate School Alumni will not accept any new staff or faculty positions, speaking engagements at, or advisory roles with the School, nor will we donate to, organizationally support, culturally contribute to, or promote the University.
We must also agree with the American Association of University Professors' Barnard and Columbia Chapter statement on the loss of confidence in Columbia's administration for violating shared governance and academic freedom. While we reject Congress' attempts to scapegoat President Shafik, we simultaneously condemn the University administration for capitulating to state repression at the expense of academic independence. Similarly, we find Columbia's authorization of militarized police with a history of brutality towards people of color and which carry the explicit threat of deadly force, against nonviolent anti-war activists led by BIPOC women, to be a morally reprehensible, implicitly racist, and dangerously irresponsible dereliction of duty. Therefore, we have lost all confidence in President Shafik and Columbia's administration.
Finally, we affirm that this activism does not ultimately center Columbia. Its focus is realizing a free Palestine and an end to both genocide and ethnic cleansing, everywhere and in all forms. As Columbia hypocritically invokes “student safety” to repress this nonviolent interfaith anti-war movement, we find clarity in the words, "There isn't a single safe campus left in Gaza," and in reporting that, in fact, there are no universities left in Gaza at all.
Without universities, there can be no climate science—and without a free Palestine, there can be no climate justice.
In Solidarity,
Alumni of Columbia University's Climate School
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Portland State University Pauses Ties With Boeing as Campus Protests Spread
Amnesty International has documented several cases in which Israeli forces used Boeing-made weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.
Apr 27, 2024
The president of Portland State University announced Friday that the school would suspend its connections to the military contractor Boeing as campus protests against U.S. colleges' complicity in Israel's war on Gaza intensified.
In an email to students and faculty, PSU president Ann Cudd wrote that while the university has no investments in Boeing, it "accepts philanthropic gifts from the company."
"In consideration of the strong feelings that have been expressed, PSU will pause seeking or accepting any further gifts or grants from the Boeing Company until we have had a chance to engage in this debate and come to conclusions about a reasonable course of action," Cudd wrote.
The announcement came amid an upsurge of campus protests nationwide, with students and faculty walking out of classrooms and setting up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The demonstrations have continued spreading in the face of violent police crackdowns and right-wing attempts to discredit them as antisemitic; one tally shows that protests have taken place on at least 75 U.S. campuses over the past week.
Oregon Public Broadcastingnoted Friday that PSU students and faculty have been pushing the university to cut ties with Boeing for months, citing its connections to Israel. Cudd said at a press conference last month that Boeing donated $150,000 to PSU to name a classroom and that a Boeing executive sits on the advisory board of PSU's business school.
On Thursday night, OPB reported, "a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom were holding anti-Boeing signs, set up tents and barricades on Portland State University's South Park Blocks."
"Demonstrators had planned to hold a protest on the PSU campus Monday, but it was not immediately clear if the university's pause on relations to Boeing would change those plans," the outlet observed. One student told OPB that "the funding from Boeing has already been received by PSU for the year, so putting a pause on it doesn't actually do anything."
"It doesn't change anything about the way things are being conducted," the student added.
Boeing is one of the largest military contractors in the world, and Amnesty International has documented at least three cases in which Israeli forces used weaponry made by the company to commit atrocities in Gaza.
In one instance earlier this year, the Israeli military used a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb manufactured by Boeing to attack a family building in Rafah, killing 18 civilians and wounding eight others. In October, Israel used Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions to conduct a pair of airstrikes in Deir al-Balah, killing more than 43 people from two families—including 19 children.
Students across the country have called on their universities to divest from arms manufacturers like Boeing that are profiting from Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, where the entire population is facing the possibility of famine as Israeli forces impede aid deliveries and prepare for a ground invasion of Rafah.
The Associated Pressreported Friday that Columbia University students who inspired campus demonstrations across the country said they have "reached an impasse with administrators and intend to continue their encampment until their demands are met."
"We will not rest until Columbia divests," said doctoral student Jonathan Ben-Menachem.
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