To: Board of Regents
DIVEST ALL U of WISCONSIN Universities!
We are calling on the entire University of Wisconsin System (Board of Regents) to demand that our schools financial foundations immediately freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and to create a required plan to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds. We believe that divesting is not only financially responsible, as proved in the past 7 years, but also strives to achieve climate justice through reinvestment into the Renewable Energy Sector, aka our future.
Why is this important?
Climate change is accelerating. On top of the increasingly severe weather patterns and seasons, we see a very disproportionate effect on deindustrialized rural communities, indigenous communities, and communities of low-income housing. These communities experience significant health risks due to the pollution of the fossil fuel industry. Social class, race, and the community you live in should not affect whether you have clean water to drink and air to breathe. The time to divest for the planet and for the people is now.
