“Carbon Nation” screening and Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign

Roughly 40 people showed up this past Thursday night for the screening of the film “Carbon Nation” (perhaps due to the advertisement of free food prepared with dedication by Green Campus Initiative members). The movie’s message, along the lines of “even if you don’t believe in human induced climate change, be sustainable because it will cost you less” presented solutions to climate change, managing to do so with an overall upbeat tone! Some of the information and statistics thrown at the camera could have seemed questionable, however the ideas presented were eye-opening to general public. It might not have been completely adequate for a science school’s students’ demand for the full story.

After the film, 3 students involved in the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign used this opportunity to explain what the campaign was about and to help spread information concerning the weekly meetings around campus.

Following Bill McKibben’s talk at Syracuse University back in October, a few ESF students with the Green Campus Initiative joined the Syracuse Eco-Reps and the SU USGBC to launch, a campaign inclusive of both Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Our campaign of highly motivated and energetic group of students are currently focusing on aspects such as; contacting the administrations to make them aware of our goals, putting up flyers to plant the seeds of an idea in students’ heads and working on gathering information about both schools. The campaign is very exciting because if ESF managed to divest its entire endowment from fossil fuel corporations, it would be the first SUNY school to do so. Being part of the SUNY system will inevitably make this process challenging in terms of the conflict of interests for those managing investments.  Right now, focus is on recruiting people to grow the movement.  Thursday night’s recruitment was successful, collecting petition signatures with a number of new people attending the Friday meeting following Thursday night’s events.