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To: President Maxwell & Board of Trustees

Divest Drake University From Fossil Fuels!

As public pressure to confront climate change builds, we call on Drake University to immediately freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds. Drake University's mission statement expresses the ideal of "responsible global citizenship.” Climate change is a truly global issue that is affecting us already. It makes sense for Drake to act out its values as a responsible global citizen by divesting. We believe such action on behalf of our University will not only be a sound decision for our institution’s financial portfolio, but also for the wellbeing of its current and future graduating classes, who deserve the opportunity to graduate with a future not defined by climate chaos.

Why is this important?

Climate change is accelerating. We are witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet more and more consistently; in this last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, droughts, and hurricanes, which impacted hundreds of thousands of people and cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars. Hurricane Sandy alone caused $50 billion in damages. Experts agree that global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. The scientific consensus is clear and overwhelming; we cannot safely burn even half of global fossil-fuel reserves without dangerously warming the planet for several thousand years.

Des Moines, IA, United States

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Updates

2019-06-21 10:05:05 -0400

25 signatures reached

2015-06-05 18:00:29 -0400

10 signatures reached