Harvard prepares to fight fossil fuel divestment case in court

World’s richest university will appear in court on Friday to seek dismissmal of lawsuit brought by students calling for it to pull investments out of coal, oil and gas companies

Harvard University is fighting a lawsuit brought by students calling on it to divest from fossil fuels. Photograph: Lisa Poole/AP

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

Thursday 19 February 2015 06.46 EST Last modified on Thursday 19 February 2015 09.31 EST

Lawyers for Harvard University will appear in court on Friday to fight off attempts to force the world’s richest university to dump coal, oil and gas companies from its $36bn (£23bn) endowment.

A lawsuit filed late last year by seven law students and undergraduates argues the university has a duty to fight climate change by pulling out of fossil fuel companies.

The university and the state of Massachusetts, which is also named in the lawsuit, are asking the judge to dismiss the case.

But a student sit-in at the Harvard president’s offices last week – and the rapid expansion of the campus divestment movement – suggest that the university can expect continued pressure.“This is important to us because climate change is supposed to be a huge problem and so far our existing institutions have been unable to address it in a way that is commensurate with the problem,” said Alice Cherry, a second year law student and one of the seven bringing the suit. “We think it is past time for our legal system to have something to say about it.”

…(read more).

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Whiplash: Polar Express Barrels into Eastern North America, Northwest Eerily Warm

http://climatecrocks.com/2015/02/19/whiplash-polar-express-barrels-into-eastern-north-america-northwest-eerily-warm/

February 19, 2015

Weather in eastern North America can fairly be described as “Polar”. Minus 10°F right now as I’m posting this thing in the upper midwest.
Meanwhile, see above, the jet stream is, like last year, kicking warmer air high into the arctic.
Weather in eastern North America can fairly be described as “Polar”. Minus 10°F right now as I’m posting this thing in the upper midwest.
Meanwhile, see above, the jet stream is, like last year, kicking warmer air high into the arctic.

Andrew Freeman in Mashable:

The U.S. is experiencing one of the most unusual winters in years, with a pronounced and enduring bubble of warm, high pressure over the West, and blast after blast of frigid Arctic air and heavy snow in the eastern two-thirds of the country. The warmth is breaking all-time records, while the cold is rivaling some of the coldest weather in more than two decades.

In fact, the Arctic outbreaks outrank 2014’s polar vortex cold waves in terms of severity and duration.

…(read more).

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The Degrowth Alternative

by Giorgos Kallis, originally published by The Great Transition

Both the name and the theory of degrowth aim explicitly to repoliticize environmentalism. Sustainable development and its more recent reincarnation “green growth” depoliticize genuine political antagonisms between alternative visions for the future. They render environmental problems technical, promising win-win solutions and the impossible goal of perpetuating economic growth without harming the environment. Ecologizing society, degrowthers argue, is not about implementing an alternative, better, or greener development. It is about imagining and enacting alternative visions to modern growth-based development. This essay explores such alternatives and identifies grassroots practices and political changes for facilitating a transition to a prosperous and equitable world without growth.

Ecology vs. Modernity | Envisioning Degrowth | The Degrowth Imperative | Seeds of a Degrowth Transition | Governing Degrowth | Epilogue | Endnotes

Ecology vs. Modernity

The conflict between environment and growth is ever-present. For “developers,” the value of growth is not to be questioned: more mining, drilling, building, and manufacturing is necessary to expand the economy. Against developers stand radical environmentalists and local communities, who are often alone in questioning the inevitability of “a one-way future consisting only of growth.”1 In this opposition to development projects, philosopher Bruno Latour sees a fundamental rejection of modernity’s separation of means and ends.2 Radical environmentalists recognize that ecology, with its focus on connecting humans with one another and with the non-human world, is inherently at odds with growth that separates and conquers.

…(read more).

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Troubled Coastlines From Louisiana To Maine

by Alex Wise, Bob Marshall, originally published by Sea Change Radio  | Feb 18, 2015

Last time on Sea Change Radio, we spoke with Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Bob Marshall about Louisiana’s shrinking coastline. And this week we continue to talk about coastlines. First, in the second part of our discussion with Bob Marshall, we focus on the massive undertaking of reversing a century and a half of policies that have left the Mississippi River Delta region battered.Marshall will tell us about the struggle to raise funds and political will in a part of the country where oil and gas are king. Then, from the deep South we go “Down East” to talk with former Maine State Representative Seth Berry about his state’s coastal problems — ocean acidifcation and rising sea temperatures are putting much of Maine’s fishing economy at risk.

…(read more).

E120, e130,

$800,000 in Grants Awarded to Climate Change Projects

By Samuel E. Stone, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Robert F Worley
University President Drew G. Faust

As part of the Climate Change Solutions Fund’s inaugural round of awarding, seven Harvard affiliates collectively received roughly $800,000 in grants for projects focusing on climate change last week.

The fund, which University President Drew G. Faust created last April, seeks to support research about “long-term global climate change—as well as immediate threats to the natural environment,” according to a University press release.

Recipients included Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent, a research fellow at the School of Public Health; Emily M. Broad Leib, a lecturer at Harvard Law School; Michael B. McElroy, a School of Engineering and Applied Sciences professor; Daniel G. Nocera, a professor in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department; Rohini Pande, a Kennedy School professor; Jisung Park, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences doctoral candidate; and James H. Stock, a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a Kennedy School of Government faculty member.

The focuses and disciplines of the projects varied, with Leib looking at reducing food waste, Pande researching market-based policy design to mitigate air pollution in India, and Stock investigating market impediments to the penetration of biofuels.

…(read more).

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Faculty for Divestment Support Goals of Student Sit-In

By Karl M. Aspelund and Meg P. Bernhard, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Canyon S. Woodward ’15 of Divest Harvard hangs a banner during a protest in Massachusetts Hall last Thursday. A group of students rushed into the building that houses the University president’s office, and some stayed for 24 hours.

Madeline R. Lear

Members of Harvard Faculty for Divestment praised the goals of a student sit-in staged last Thursday in Massachusetts Hall, home to the office of University President Drew G. Faust, arguing that the protest returned attention to demands that the University withdraw its investments in fossil fuel companies.

The group—which is comprised of 232 faculty from across Harvard’s schools who have signed an open letter urging the University to divest—issued a statement on their website last week reaffirming their support for the message of Divest Harvard, the activist group behind the protest. The faculty group is affiliated with that organization, which also spearheaded a rally in Harvard Yard on Friday after their 24-hour sit-in.

“We wanted to make a point of letting people know that we supported the students’ goal,”said Medical School assistant professor James M. Recht, who was one of the four principal authors of the open letter released last April.

Although the group statement did not feature any comment on the students’ choice of protest tactics, some professors who were signatories applauded the tactics as an effective means to raise awareness for the issue.

“It was a peaceful sit-in, got the message across, and got people to talk about divestment again,” said History of Science lecturer Soha Bayoumi.

“I think it was a legitimate use of protest, and I gather it was less disruptive than the last time they blockaded,” Classics professor Richard F. Thomas said. A student was arrested for blocking an entrance to Mass. Hall last May during a previous protest urging the University to divest.

Romance Languages and Literature professor Doris Sommer said that she was “grateful” that the students staged the protest, even if the impacts are not immediate.

“I think that keeping attention to the issue is necessary, and one won’t see the effect from one week to the next,” Sommers said.

Recht, for his part, called the method of the sit-in not only necessary but “the right thing to do.”

The faculty group has been quiet since releasing a letter to Faust and Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation William F. Lee on Dec. 1 requesting “a well-publicized and well-planned open forum this spring to discuss the University’s role in addressing climate change.” Faust has repeatedly argued that Harvard should not divest from fossil fuels.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change
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Another oil train explodes

The Big Picture RT

Published on Feb 18, 2015

Kyle Ash, Greenpeace USA joins Thom Hartmann. With oil train explosions becoming a common occurence – isn’t time for us to ask ourselves if continuing our toxic addiction to fossil fuels is really worth it?

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice