10 signatures reached
To: Board of Supervisors
SUNY Albany Invests in a cleaner future
Divestment simply means getting rid of stocks, bonds, or investment funds that are unethical or morally ambiguous. Divestment occurs when institutions remove financial support from select companies in order to promote certain behaviors or policies. For the purposes of this campaign, a "fossil fuel company" shall be defined as any of the 100 publicly traded companies with the largest coal reserves and any of the 100 publicly traded companies with the largest oil, and natural gas reserves as reported by Fossil Free Indexes (“The Carbon Underground 200”).
Why is this important?
If we are serious about addressing the climate crisis, we must slash our consumption of fossil fuels, and that means a lot more than using fluorescent light bulbs and lowering our thermostats.Put simply, it is nearly impossible to function in our culture without relying heavily on fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry has maintained a stranglehold on our way of life not because of consumer choice, but because consumers are effectively given no other choice. Climate change should be solved not by expecting individuals to make choices that are hardly within their power to make, but by challenging the structures that are at the heart of the climate crisis.