Every day the threat of climate change worsens. Our futures hang in the balance. We didn’t create this problem, but we are the ones who have to solve it. 

According to The Climate Change Tracker, which uses the methodologies of the IPCC, we have only five years left until 1.5 degrees celsius is ensured. According to the IPCC, without reducing existing fossil fuel infrastructure, we will significantly exceed this dangerous threshold. Warming of 1.5 degrees would have potentially apocalyptic effects on our societies and can lead to runaway warming through the breaching of climate tipping points, such as permafrost melting or widespread wildfires. This level of warming will lead to the destruction of homes, large-scale crop failures, and the irreversible destruction of the beautiful world which we call home. Climate change is an environmental and social crisis of world-ending proportions. 

Climate change is disproportionately caused by the rich, and its impacts disproportionately fall upon the world’s poorest, both within and between countries. The imperial core, consisting of the United States and Europe, emits the majority of greenhouse gasses all while land-grabbing for carbon credits across the Global South, which is already suffering from deadly heat waves and food shortages. We cannot allow this to continue. There is a way out: sharply reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

What do we do in this situation? How can we leverage our position as students to meaningfully impact such a sprawling, global issue? We push our university to divest from fossil fuels. Divestment is when an institution systematically stops investing in morally questionable stocks and funds. Continually supporting fossil fuels in 2024 is morally unacceptable. We see that it is counterproductive to have Furman’s endowment – something that should exist to better our future – undermine our right to a safe environment in the future. This is why we demand that Furman divest from all stocks and funds whose strategies include the extraction and sale of fossil fuels. We also ask that they begin to fund our future by investing in true climate solutions such as renewable energy and reforestation. 

More important than the plan of divestment itself is the equitable implementation of divestment and accountability of the administration through the divestment process. Implementation needs to be just and include the voices of all people whose livelihoods are at stake in the process. For just implementation, we demand that Furman create a democratic committee of students, faculty, and staff to oversee the divestment process in order to ensure that divestment does not come to the detriment of any Furman community members’ lives.

 In addition to just implementation, investment transparency is at the center of this issue. Without the disclosure of Furman’s investment portfolio, we can never know the nature of Furman’s inner machinations or have any meaningful influence on them. The truth is, we do not know if Furman has divested from fossil fuels, and we can never know unless they show us. To this end, we demand that Furman publicly disclose their investment portfolio. What does Furman have to hide? We believe each student, staff worker, and faculty member has the right to know what financial decisions they support as part of the Furman community.

Let’s also take a second to look at the broad picture – we live in a cruel and dying world, and things are not getting any better. This is, in our view, because of one cause: capitalism. In order to win not only divestment, but all issues which need to be fought for in order to make a just and thriving world, the left must be organized in groups which are open and adamant about their principles and the necessity of their implementation. 

On our campus, this means having openly socialist, anti-capitalist, environmentally-minded, justice-oriented, and student-led organizations leading the charge against harmful school policies. Our goal is not to garner behind-the-scenes bureaucratic wins which immediately become defanged and lose momentum, but to build an organized movement of students on campus who are willing and ready to fight for their future. With strong organizations, even if we lose, we can maintain momentum and channel our frustration down other avenues where change can come. Without a movement, we have nothing. The administration did not let us achieve change through their bureaucracy, revealing that the institutions themselves are not legitimate avenues through which we can make meaningful change in service of a safe and just world for all. Therefore, we need to take matters into our own hands. As students, we hold a unique and powerful position which we can use to push the administration to create more inclusive, transparent, and democratic forms of governance which we can use to fight for our future. We didn’t create this problem, but we are going to solve it.