The perverse irony isn’t lost on Bill McKibben.
On the one hand, America’s colleges and universities prepare the nation’s young people for their future. On the other hand, those same institutions invest in the fossil fuel companies that are profiting—enormously—from the carbon that’s going to wreck the climate over the next 60 or 70 years and beyond (If you didn’t catch it, that’s basically those same young people’s lifetimes).
So, McKibben is calling for divestiture. And as of today, students on at least 210 campuses in North America are calling on their schools to divest, and the list is growing. Churches and at least one city, Seattle, have gotten on board too.
What makes this campaign so effective? McKibben’s organization, 350.org, is playing offense by naming specific villains; they’re drawing a moral line in the sand and inviting powerful people to stand on the right side of that line; and they’re focusing on simple, manageable tools for building solutions, tools that nonetheless may wield enough symbolic power to shift the politics of the issue.
This makes for a powerful climate narrative. It’s one I think climate communicators should emulate and amplify. To learn more, read the full Flashcard blog post.
