Did you know, for example, that since 1998, Exxon Mobil has spent $176,362,742 lobbying Congress, spending almost $7 million in 2012 alone? And did you know that for every dollar the fossil fuel industry invests in Congress, they get at least $320 back in subsidies? Did you know that Exxon Mobil has spent over $22,000,000 since 1998 to fund corporations and think tanks that work to deny global warming?

Live map of campuses working on divestment projects. Click the map to visit the Responsible Endowments Coalition website.

Institutions of higher education often have mission statements, generally encompassing themes like offering a high-quality education, ensuring a safe learning environment, advancing society and improving the human condition. More recent additions to many university mission statements are mentions of sustainability–a broad term that, for most, brings to mind resource conservation, clean energy projects and a green and sparkling future.

Well that sounds nice. It also sounds like there’s a disconnect between the way things are today and the socially and environmentally just world that universities are striving to create. Colleges and universities aren’t quite putting their money where their mouths are. But that is about to change.

There is a strong and growing collection of students issuing a challenge to institutions nationwide to stop investing in corporations that aren’t looking out for our health, or the health of our planet.

Divestment is a complicated issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all method to magically end campus funding of corporate polluters. Luckily, there are plenty of resources out there to help you and your team choose the most effective strategy for your campus.

The Responsible Endowments Coalition has tons of great resources for students who want to get involved with influencing their campuses’ endowment policies, including a Student Handbook, a collection of articles and blogs about divestment, and several firsthand accounts for best practices. They also offer educational and networking opportunities, like the upcoming conference on responsible investing and sustainability and other ways for students and administrators to connect and build the movement. The Energy Action Coalition has a coal divestment campaign to work with students who want to get their campuses to divest from the biggest and worst coal companies. The Sustainable Endowments Institute just launched the Billion Dollar Challenge to encourage campuses to use their endowments to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy projects for their campus.

So gather some friends and some faculty and see what kind of change you can make!

And now a word from Bill McKibben:

Image Credit reinvestearlham.wordpress.com

Campus Divestment projects in the news:

• Brown Divest Coal
• Tufts Responsible Endowments Collective
• University of Illinois Beyond Coal campaign

The latest polling on American beliefs about global warming reveals that an equally frightful scenario is playing itself out.  According to a Pew Research Center survey released on October 27, roughly one-third (32%) of Americans believe there is no solid evidence of global warming.   A solid majority of Republicans (53%) feel this way.  Most disturbingly, the number of people who are skeptical about global warming has doubled from just two years ago.

With these kinds of statistics, it is no wonder that we have not fully mobilized as a country against global warming.

How to explain this?  First, a concerted campaign of disinformation on global warming is well underway and gaining steam.  For decades fossil fuel industries have worked assiduously  to raise doubts about global warming science and to undermine policies devised to address it.  That campaign really ramped up with the debate over federal climate change legislation in the past couple of years and it is gaining more traction now that global warming skepticism has become a litmus test of the Tea Party movement.

Second, we in the conservation community probably could have done a better job communicating about global warming in the past few years.   Perhaps because of all the virulent opposition, many folks in our community became uncomfortable debating global warming and began focusing instead on the opportunities surrounding “clean energy jobs.”  I agree that our nation’s dire jobs situation would be greatly helped with massive investments in the clean energy sector, but why should we invest in these types of jobs versus other sectors?  The key reason is global warming and the amount of misery it will inflict upon our children and their children if we fail to take action against it.

So how to persuade people that global warming is real?  In addition to providing the hard facts, we need to distribute compelling images.   Plenty are available.  A few weeks ago, for example, NASA reported that this year’s Arctic ice melt season was the third most severe in satellite history, producing an ice mass 830,000 square miles smaller than the late 20th century average.  NASA produced a powerful satellite image to drive this point home.

2005 Image of Athbasca Glacier, Jasper National Park (Credit: worldviewofglobalwarming.org)

Meanwhile the before-and-after images of glaciers melting around the globe continue to accumulate.

Is it really possible to continue denying global warming after viewing these images?

I suppose there were some who denied the reality of the Pearl Harbor attacks even after seeing the images in late December 1941, but they would have been seen as fringe elements and would not have been allowed to slow down the national mobilization.  If only we could take that same approach with global warming deniers.