Sustainability and the politics of death

The IU Board of Trustees made fiscal responsibility its top priority in approving the decade-long Integrated Energy Master Plan for Bloomington’s campus.

But how likely is it the trustees would defend the IEMP if the lives threatened by the effects of the continued consumption of fossil fuels were not those from poorer nations, but their own?

A recent study released by the United Nations states 100 million people could die by 2030 as a result of climate change unless drastic measures are taken to reduce carbon emissions.

Measures that the Board of Trustees would likely find fiscally irresponsible.

Most of the potential deaths will occur in developing countries, and the trustees’ lives will hardly be affected.

Here at home, the board has announced that until a mixture of financial incentives and government pressure appears, no plans exist to invest in renewable energy or to stop using coal, arguing that it should stay committed to fiscal responsibility in these tough economic times.

But now suppose a fictitious study was released, titled “Evidence Links Extraction, Consumption of Fossil Fuels to Deaths of Board of Trustees Members, Administrators Nationwide.”

In it, scientists claim that unless drastic measures are taken to reduce carbon emissions, administrators and their families across America will be dead within a decade from maladies such as starvation, extreme weather, and lack of access to clean water.

Though this example is intentionally absurd, can you imagine how our trustees might respond to the situation?  

It would be quite different than the inaction we have recently witnessed.

We would see them petitioning the local and federal government to provide subsidies for renewable sources of energy immediately in order to make the costs of implementation affordable.

Assured of financial support, they would begin preparing for construction at the first chance.

At the same time, they would recognize that a single campus going

carbon-neutral wouldn’t make enough of an impact to save humanity.

To avoid the terrible fate awaiting these higher-ups, it would require the involvement of the entire industrialized world.

So they might network with their corporate allies and plead with them to use their international connections and large amounts of capital to revolutionize modern industry to fit into a sustainable environment.

They would be wise to sponsor an unprecedented level of research and development in the hopes that it could perfect the technology of this new infrastructure.

They would hire their expert faculty to lecture, petition and lead the movement towards a sustainable society.

They would want to make sure that the visibility of this movement was constant in order to accomplish the needed changes.

They would humbly admit that they needed the whole world to cooperate if they were to avoid horrific deaths, and in acts of good faith, they would be willing to lead by example.

And because of their position as owners of one the largest research institutions in the world, they would have at their disposal more connections to power and influence than most climate activists.

The ample amount of resources would give their efforts a higher chance of succeeding than most.

But in our world, it’s not the lives of the trustees that are in danger.

It’s the lives of those suffering without a voice who will perish.

Their fates being decided without a thought from the Trustees, whose principles guiding their decisions could extend further than the University’s pocketbook.

­— tydthomp@indiana.edu