Yesterday, students used their graduation to get political by urging the University of Auckland to stop investing in fossil fuels to help protect their future from climate change.
Erica Finnie, graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Geography and Environmental Science, held up a banner that read ‘Stop Funding Coal, Oil, Gas’ while crossing the stage to receive her degree. Meanwhile, other students gathered outside to get photos with the banner in support.
“My degree is meant to set me up for the future, but climate change is a direct threat to this,” said Finnie. “By investing in companies that extract coal, oil and gas, the University of Auckland is fuelling climate change and undermining our future.”
“It’s time for Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon to stand up for students and show some leadership by telling the Foundation to divest.”
The University of Auckland Foundation currently has over $1.5 million of its $100 million plus investment portfolio in fossil fuel companies, with that figure set to treble as it conducts a fundraising campaign ironically entitled ‘For All Our Futures’.
Despite the occasion of celebration, graduates took the time to get their photo holding a banner in Aotea Square and voice their support for cutting University funding to oil, coal and gas.
Students have been campaigning for over two years to lobby the University to divest, but have so far been refused by the Vice Chancellor, who sees divestment as a political tool. The campaign has the endorsement of the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA), as well as twenty two other student associations and clubs.
Said Finnie: “The University of Auckland taught me about the harm fossil fuels and climate change are causing to human health, to our environment, and to cultures and ways of life in the Pacific. An institution that shares such knowledge can’t be neutral about where it puts its money – it’s time to take a stand.”
“It’s time to divest for all our futures.”
Posted on Erica’s facebook
Alas Erica, you have been sold a pup. We are currently seeing a CO2 reading of 410 ppm global average, and various other GHG gasses raising our collective CO2e reading to at least 700ppm, the last time the environment was in this condition 96% of all life went extinct, the oceans rose 26 meters, and the global temperature went up by 5 – 12 degrees C. ‘They’ say there is about a ten to 20 year lag time from atmospheric CO2 readings and the affects on the environment, ie we are seeing the affects of the CO2 emitted 20 years ago now, AND CO2 hangs around for up to 1,000 years, so there is NO reversing what is in motion, The previous time the planet went above 400 ppm CO2 it went up by about .02ppm per year (if that?) currently ‘we’ are adding 2-3 ppm per year, and most of that is coming from Nature in a positive feedback loop. So yeah all our so called leaders are full of shit, and you and your fellow students have swallowed it hook line and sinker. http://www.guymcpherson.com
WOW thanks Martin …. moving outside the box for a change.
Good on you allowing the truth to be published. Erica removed my comment, it is telling that even the young victims do not want to know.
Hence the outcome I guess?
Posted on Fossil Free UoA — I’m sure this will last about 5 minutes, but here goes anyway. If you think humans can ‘negotiate’ their way out of climate change you are extremely uninformed. The time for divestment was way way before we were born, and I’m 59. This system, the one you are all surviving under, is a HEAT ENGINE – meaning for us all to remain alive, we have to create heat. And if any of you have been following the debate HEAT is the one thing we don’t need. So when you are demanding the UoA divests it’s investments in fossil fuels etc, you have to also ask it to stop investing in anything that creates HEAT, like say cell phones and iPads, even the necklace around Julia’s neck created HEAT in it’s manufacture, and her clothes, …. all of which couldn’t have been brought into existence without fossil fuels. 9 out of every 10 calorie we consume is fossil fueled dependent, asking to stop fossil fuel use is asking to starve. The manufacture of Campbell’s bike and helmet created more CO2 than his great great great grand parents created in their entire life times. The very existence of AoU is leading to humanity’s extinction, the building alone would have generated several hundred thousand tons of CO2, let alone the maintenance/up keep and use …. via students. With all the free information out here you people should be able to work it out, I did and I’m a 4th form drop out???? go figure. Now here is the hard part THE ONLY WAY TO REDUCE FUTURE HUMAN SUFFERING, IS TO REDUCE FUTURE NUMBERS OF HUMANS. The inescapable fact is – if you are alive (and not planing to drop dead from cancer or road kill) you are going to suffer from Climate Change. The best starting place for your self education (because no one at AoU is going to help you) is Professor Guy McPherson, he has a 3,000+ word essay backing up my diatribe, and also the movies The Road, The Book of Eli, Mad Max, and 22After will help get your head around the world we are now in. Good luck post, and good luck people.
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