{"id":16176,"date":"2020-02-06T14:00:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T19:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/2020\/02\/06\/climate-emergency-divest-uconn-foundation-now\/"},"modified":"2020-02-06T14:00:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T19:00:45","slug":"climate-emergency-divest-uconn-foundation-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2020\/02\/06\/climate-emergency-divest-uconn-foundation-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate emergency: Divest UConn Foundation now!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Feb.
Members of the environmental activism group Fridays For Future stage a sit-in in UConn’s Gulley Hall for the third week in a row on Friday, Oct. 18. The group will continue the sit-ins until university administration responds adequately to their demands for climate justice. (Maggie Chafouleas \/ The Daily Campus)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By STELLA KOZLOSKI<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are reprinting below an opinion article from the Jan. 23 issue of The Daily Campus, a journal published by students at the University of Connecticut. Stella Kozloski <\/em>is the vice president of UConn Fridays for Future and a member of the campus chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance. <\/em><\/p>\n

What does UConn Fridays For Future mean when we demand that the UConn Foundation divest from all fossil fuel holdings?<\/p>\n

We recognize that there is a constant exchange of money, endowments, donations, etc.\u00a0occurring behind closed doors, the ultimate purpose of which is assumed to be for the benefit of the student body and the general public. Yet, we are not privy to most of what occurs,\u00a0and we do not contribute to what decisions are made by this foundation. It is not us who determines whether our welfare has been increased.<\/p>\n

It might seem cold to focus strictly upon a financial issue. The climate crisis is a vast, humanistic issue, and there is much to be said on the anxieties it has brought onto the younger generations\u00a0and\u00a0its catastrophic impact on the way\u00a0of life of many indigenous peoples or coastal communities. This is missing the point. The passionate struggle of many has been exacted by the cold calculations of a few. The climate crisis, from the very beginning, has been caused by the depreciation of life in favor of profit.<\/p>\n

What better example can be found than that of ExxonMobil, one of the UConn Foundation\u2019s 2019 donors<\/a>?<\/p>\n

ExxonMobil is well known to be one of the world\u2019s largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies. Less well known is an article\u00a0posted by the Los Angeles Times in 2015\u00a0that revealed ExxonMobil was a pioneer in climate change research during the \u201880s, financing both academic\u00a0and company research. In 1989, ExxonMobil concluded that global temperatures in the 21st century could rise anywhere between 2.7 and 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit and result in various catastrophic effects on our environment. Yet instead of searching for a more ethical alternative for their business, ExxonMobil launched a\u00a0$30\u00a0million\u00a0propaganda campaign to fabricate an \u201cuncertainty\u201d in the greenhouse effect.<\/a><\/p>\n

This corporation, which used its significant resources to knowingly support the obfuscation of years of research, is also a financial contributor to our university, which\u00a0prides itself on research and academic integrity.<\/p>\n

FFF has seen some\u00a0progress in our demands being publicly recognized by the university. President Thomas\u00a0Katsouleas, while not outright declaring a climate emergency, has created a sustainability advisory council that includes student representatives\u00a0and has stated in his letter to the student body that he has plans to \u201caccelerate\u201d the pace of UConn\u2019s reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions. These promises are empty without actual systemic change. Entering 2020, the university is woefully short of the sustainability office\u2019s goal of\u00a0producing\u00a0two\u00a0megawatts of renewable energy.<\/a> Instead, by FFF\u2019s estimates\u00a0we only produce a measly 20 kilowatts from the solar panels on Werth Tower, an array which was added by the university back in 2014. It is clear FFF has much to do in securing a better future for the student youth.<\/p>\n

One of our main demands we will be moving towards this semester is for the UConn Foundation to finally divest from its ties with the fossil fuel industry. This includes refusing the donations of ExxonMobil Foundation and Chevron Texaco Corporation. This also requires that the UConn Foundation reform its\u00a0portfolio so that it is\u00a0divested from all conventional energy stocks. The only way FFF can ascertain total divestment is if the\u00a0UConn Foundation reveals its\u00a0assets, so within our demand for the\u00a0UConn Foundation to divest we also ask\u00a0for increased transparency from the UConn Foundation.<\/p>\n

The effects of the UConn Foundation\u2019s divestment would be beneficial both materially and ideologically. By divesting, we stop supporting corporations who profit off of the continual degradation of our environmental integrity by not investing in their dying technologies. This would also clear space for green energy opportunities. With this, we affirm that UConn cannot ethically associate with a fossil fuel company responsible for countering decades of extensive scientific research.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in participating in the UConn Fridays For Future movement, please contact us at\u00a0uconnfridaysforfuture@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By STELLA KOZLOSKI We are reprinting below an opinion article from the Jan. 23 issue of The Daily Campus, a journal published by students at the University of Connecticut. Stella Kozloski is the vice president of UConn Fridays for Future and a member of the campus chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance. What does UConn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882114,"featured_media":14993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30825,30857],"tags":[30228,31224],"class_list":["post-16176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-environment","category-students-teachers-education","tag-connecticut","tag-uconn"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/workersvoiceus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/feb.-2020-uconn-sit-it-1018.jpg?fit=750%2C499&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-4cU","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}