Such catastrophes include increased exposure to extreme weather, forest fires, drought and disease, all to take place by the end of the century.
The IU Graduate and Professional Student Organization wants IU to help stop the damage.
GPSO has proposed that the IU Foundation divest from the top-200 fossil fuel companies within the next five years. To divest is to withdraw an investment.
“We’re trying to put pressure on these fossil fuel companies, on these largest 200 fossil fuel companies, to change their practices,” GPSO sustainability officer ?Andrew Bredeson said.
Bredeson said approximately 400 universities have campaigned to divest or partially divest from the top-200 fossil fuel companies.
“Universities need to do something,” he said. “Universities have a moral obligation to do something. They’re leaders in society. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. They’re centers of research and ideas and ?innovation.”
IU, however, does not make the list of the approximately 14 universities, including Stanford University and the University of Dayton, that have successfully divested or partially divested from the top-200 fossil fuel companies, Bredeson said.
Bredeson referenced a portion of the IU mission statement that states IU seeks to offer leadership in creative solutions for 21st century problems.
“What is more of a 21st century problem than climate change?” he said. “What is our creative solution for that? We’re doing nothing to combat climate change on a large scale.”
As of 2013, IU had the 16th largest endowment of any public university, according to the IU Foundation website. An endowment is money donated to a university.
“Say Indiana University divests,” Bredeson said. “That’s some huge news.”
GPSO began urging the IU Foundation to divest from the top-200 fossil fuel companies last year by passing the Resolution Regarding Fossil Fuel Divestment and Carbon Neutrality last December, GPSO communications coordinator Jessie Mroz said.
GPSO president Brady Harman and former GPSO sustainability officer Jeffrey Meek met with Gary Stratten , IU Foundation vice president and chief investment officer , in March.
“It was great that he brought them in and heard them out, but he just said that it’s not going to happen,” Bredeson said. Divesting from the top-200 fossil fuel companies raised too many financial concerns.
Harman and Bredeson, however, will get a second chance to make their case during a conference call with the entire IU Foundation investment committee this December.
Though Bredeson said he recognizes that divesting from the top-200 fossil fuel companies raises short-term financial concerns, he said it offers a long-term financial solution.
“Investing in fossil fuel companies is extremely unsustainable for our University to be doing with our endowment,” Mroz added.
GPSO was not able to obtain the specific companies and amounts of money that IU invests in fossil fuel.
Bredeson said he has been working with a group of undergraduate students from the Kelley School of Business to analyze the financial benefits and risks associated with divesting from fossil fuel companies.
He said he has also been collaborating with a group of graduate students from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs to analyze the current and potential government regulations against fossil fuel ?companies.
“The contention certainly is that this is not just an environmental issue,” he said. “This is not just a moral issue. Climate change poses a real threat to the financial security of our endowment.”
Since the first meeting with Stratten, GPSO has been building additional support for the initiative.
The Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Association , the IU Southeast Student Government Association , the IU Student Association , SPEA’s Graduate Student Association and the Sustainability Council have already shown their support of the initiative. Last Wednesday , the All University Student Association, composed of student government leaders across eight IU campuses, unanimously voted in support of the initiative.
“Through their representative bodies, this signifies that all 114,000 IU students across the state of Indiana support this initiative,” Mroz said.
An online petition, to be listed on the GPSO website this week , will allow individual students to show their support of the initiative.
“I think this is a cool example of when students clearly want something to happen. We’re not just going to take the first initial “no,” Mroz said. “We’re going to do more research and we’re going to gather more support, and we’re going to try to take a different ?avenue.”
She said GPSO will not stop urging the IU Foundation to divest from the top- 200 fossil fuel companies if they receive another “no.”
“That one man’s ‘No’ silencing 10,000 graduate students’ voices was so frustrating, that this is what’s come of it,” she said. “So much more research. So much more support. I just don’t think that this is going to die if we get another ‘No.’”
