Winter is coming. Or is it really? This December and January we have already experienced a wide range of temperatures that don’t make it easy to determine what to wear and what to do.
But, however much it snows on the East Coast these days — and arguably, the latest heavy snow can itself be attributed to global climate change — a yet more striking fact is that our planet’s overall temperature has steadily risen, with 2015 being the hottest year on record since such record keeping began in the late 1800s.
Any given natural event, however damaging, can be dismissed as somehow anomalous, but a continuing pattern of increasing temperatures is precisely that — a pattern.
This one, according to climate scientists, is best explained by us humans being over reliant on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are those resources like coal, natural gas and petroleum that we use daily in various ways.
Most of us know this and still the university is not acting despite what would be the reasonable thing to do.
IU is heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry. Indiana University’s endowment is one of the largest in the country, but folks at the university foundation have said that even reanalyzing their funds would be merely “symbolic.”
In fact, IU’s investments could be safely transferred to environmentally sound sources, a move which is as much justified economically as it is morally. IU’s current slogan is “keeping the promise” — whatever exactly that means.
Manifestly, however, there will be no keeping of promises if human life on this planet becomes physically impossible, which will happen if worldwide temperatures continue to increase beyond a very small percentage. Some people may dismiss this claim as alarmist, but in this case the alarm has been sounded by the climate scientists themselves.
Among the groups on campus which are concerned with such pressing issues is Reinvest IU, an official student organization which also includes some faculty members, like me. As its name indicates, the group is working towards the goal of getting IU to shift its investments from industries and technologies, which worsen overall climate change, to the technologies of the future.
Similar groups are taking similar actions on many other college campuses around the country and the world. More than 100 colleges and universities — Stanford, for example — have already pledged to “divest.” What is Indiana University waiting for?
Anyone who wants information about the group should go to www.facebook.com/reinvestIU. Anyone who wants to join the group is invited to this semester’s first callout meeting at 7 p.m. Feb. 4 in Woodburn 121.
There will also be a training and team workshop beginning at noon Feb. 13 in Student Building 015. Of course, the Reinvest IU team will work together in various ways with other campus groups during the upcoming Sustain IU Week beginning Feb. 29.
Paul Eisenberg
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and
Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies, IUB
