Share your Perspective: Alumni Op-ed
Write a 300-700 word piece explaining why you think fossil fuel divestment is important given your unique perspective.
Why it's helpful: Students and faculty are working hard to explain the importance of divestment, but we mostly approach the topic from the perspective of faculty and students who live on Stanford campus and spend most of our time thinking about events and experiences on Stanford campus.
We need the great wide world of alumni with all of their different life experiences to broaden campus perspectives on climate change and divestment. That's why we're asking you to write.
Why it's helpful: Students and faculty are working hard to explain the importance of divestment, but we mostly approach the topic from the perspective of faculty and students who live on Stanford campus and spend most of our time thinking about events and experiences on Stanford campus.
We need the great wide world of alumni with all of their different life experiences to broaden campus perspectives on climate change and divestment. That's why we're asking you to write.
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Getting Started
Writing the Op-Ed Questions to brainstorm
Example: Stanford's Own Water Depends on Climate Divestment by Brian Schmidt, '99, Vice Chair of Santa Clara Valley Water District Remember to post to Facebook!
"I just wrote an Op-ed explaining why divestment from fossil fuels is important. Visit fossilfreestanford.org to see how you can support the Fossil Free Stanford campaign." |
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Overview on Divestment
Our report has more details, but here are the basics of the divestment campaign at Stanford:
What is Fossil Free Stanford’s Request?
I call upon Stanford University to fully divest its endowment from the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel extraction companies boasting the greatest amount of carbon in their proven reserves.
Why these companies?
These 200 companies contain more fossil fuels than can be burned if we are to remain safely under the internationally agreed upon warming limit of 2 degrees Celsius. As an institution, Stanford University has the power to send the fossil fuel industry a message: we do not support a business model that promotes an unsafe climate.
Why divestment?
The fight against climate change is decades old and demands a systemic, action-oriented approach in order to achieve widespread change. While we as individuals work on pressuring our elected officials and reducing individual ecological footprints, institutions can lead the way in making a political, moral, and social statement against perpetrators of climate change.
The fossil fuel industry’s formidable lobbying efforts and close political ties make it very difficult to create a level playing field for renewable energy or to enact effective climate policy. Divestment will help weaken those ties by signaling to both policy makers and the fossil fuel industry that we are ready to move beyond fossil fuels, and that we in no way support the continued search for fossil fuel reserves.
Why is this issue of critical importance?
Climate change is threatening the biological systems and resources upon which our lives and livelihoods depend, and time is limited before the situation becomes dire.
If business as usual persists in the fossil fuel industry, the impending global temperature increase of 4-6 degree Celsius would lead to widespread droughts and famine, mass extinctions of species, increases in tropical disease, severe storms and fires, and the displacement of tens or hundreds of millions of people due to sea level rise.
What are the climate justice implications of climate change?
In the last 25 years, 95% of deaths resulting from natural disasters occurred in developing nations. Countries that rely on subsistence agriculture tend to be the hardest hit. Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and heat waves, threatening food security and human health and livelihoods.
Why Stanford?
Stanford University has an ethical, moral, and financial imperative to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Stanford was founded to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization,” and divestment is a clear application of our institution’s founding creed.
Our report has more details, but here are the basics of the divestment campaign at Stanford:
What is Fossil Free Stanford’s Request?
I call upon Stanford University to fully divest its endowment from the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel extraction companies boasting the greatest amount of carbon in their proven reserves.
Why these companies?
These 200 companies contain more fossil fuels than can be burned if we are to remain safely under the internationally agreed upon warming limit of 2 degrees Celsius. As an institution, Stanford University has the power to send the fossil fuel industry a message: we do not support a business model that promotes an unsafe climate.
Why divestment?
The fight against climate change is decades old and demands a systemic, action-oriented approach in order to achieve widespread change. While we as individuals work on pressuring our elected officials and reducing individual ecological footprints, institutions can lead the way in making a political, moral, and social statement against perpetrators of climate change.
The fossil fuel industry’s formidable lobbying efforts and close political ties make it very difficult to create a level playing field for renewable energy or to enact effective climate policy. Divestment will help weaken those ties by signaling to both policy makers and the fossil fuel industry that we are ready to move beyond fossil fuels, and that we in no way support the continued search for fossil fuel reserves.
Why is this issue of critical importance?
Climate change is threatening the biological systems and resources upon which our lives and livelihoods depend, and time is limited before the situation becomes dire.
If business as usual persists in the fossil fuel industry, the impending global temperature increase of 4-6 degree Celsius would lead to widespread droughts and famine, mass extinctions of species, increases in tropical disease, severe storms and fires, and the displacement of tens or hundreds of millions of people due to sea level rise.
What are the climate justice implications of climate change?
In the last 25 years, 95% of deaths resulting from natural disasters occurred in developing nations. Countries that rely on subsistence agriculture tend to be the hardest hit. Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and heat waves, threatening food security and human health and livelihoods.
Why Stanford?
Stanford University has an ethical, moral, and financial imperative to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Stanford was founded to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization,” and divestment is a clear application of our institution’s founding creed.
