David Wallace-Wells, a writer and editor for New York Magazine, starts his book "The Uninhabitable Earth" with the following: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.”
Climate change is an undeniable juggernaut headed our way, yet our campus leaders stay silent about it, and we cannot afford their silence.
Wallace-Wells goes on to write in a column that it is imperative to panic in the face of the present climate catastrophe. More than 1,000 people are feared to be dead after a deadly cyclone hit the Mozambican city of Beira last week. So, panic. Please.
Then make sure to turn that gripping fear into action.
March brings about elections for IU Student Government. This year, two tickets are running: Bridge IU and Vision for IUSG. Elections present an opportunity for inspiration and engagement. Unfortunately, they can also be incredibly dispiriting.
Of the two tickets, Bridge has little in terms of a policy platform beyond bland platitudes about bringing students together. Vision, on the other hand, has a relatively robust agenda. It is perhaps that very fact that is so disheartening.
Vision’s platform lays out an impressive vision of what it wants to enact if elected. Climate change, however, is a word that is entirely absent from the manifesto. Vision does, in fairness, propose a list of token changes to improve sustainability on their website with an indication that the list is to be updated. One can only hope.
All is not yet lost though. For every insipid proposal and uninspiring action, there is a thoughtful plan and an invigorating move.
Last Friday, an estimated 1.5 million students participated in a “school strike for climate change.” This action was partly inspired by the initial actions of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist. In Indianapolis, more than 250 students gathered on the Statehouse steps to demand action on climate change. Please panic: All the kids are doing it.
According to the Guardian, only 100 companies have caused more than 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. The World Health Organization determined that climate change, spurred on by these emissions, was expected to cause 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050. CNN says that some experts consider this an underestimation.
Deaths due to climate change are not only the future’s problem, but they’re also the present’s. The recent polar vortex caused 21 deaths. In late 2018, a typhoon killed 81 people in the Philippines. Just because these events took place far from Bloomington doesn't mean they won't reach us in time.
Facing these atrocities, it is important to realize the leaders of each of these companies and more are all guilty of committing crimes against humanity, though it is a certainty that none will be convicted for their crimes. Is it too late to panic?
Perhaps not. This moment calls us to act and students should be leading the way.
Indeed, some have taken their panic and turned it into revolt. Some students from Bloomington North High School and Bloomington South High School are currently writing a climate resolution for the city to adopt.
This resolution, if passed, would commit Bloomington to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent by 2025, in line with the recommendations of the Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015.
This plan would go on to put Bloomington on a path to cutting emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Additionally, it would also call for Bloomington to increase its consumption of renewable energy while reducing that from fossil fuels.
This resolution is an ambitious one. Radical solutions are needed to combat climate change in the face of this morbid panic. IUSG tickets should follow in the footsteps of these students because neither ticket comes remotely close to wanting to tackle climate change.
A group of 13 universities, dubbed UC3, have banded together to reduce their carbon footprint and advance climate change action. A fellow Big Ten school, Ohio State, is on the list. IU is ranked as having the top-ranked graduate program for environmental policy and management. Any serious ticket for IUSG would pledge to lobby for IU to join this group or one like it.
In 2006, IU’s endowment, along with that of Texas Christian University, invested millions in oil, gas and coal in the hopes of getting decent returns. The partnership was established in the Cayman Islands, notorious for being a tax haven, and the funds were invested in a way that federal taxes on it could be partially lessened.
In response, the IU Foundation issued a statement saying that these methods are common practice. Was it legal? Yes. Was it moral? No. Should IU discontinue this? Undoubtedly.
Any ticket seeking to be more than a footnote should declare that they will push the IU Foundation to stop these practices. Regardless of efficacy, candidates should be lining up and down the block to denounce efforts to mint money by fleecing the future. Each ticket should make a commitment to raising this immorality with IU President Michael McRobbie every meeting.
This is a moment which calls for all hands on deck. Anyone wishing to be an elected official should be willing to combat climate change. Anyone seeking the votes of students doubly so. For student leaders, it is not too late still to formulate a grander vision. This panic may redeem itself yet.
