Bowdoin must focus on alternatives to divestment

Divestment: To fulfill Offer of the College, we should divest

I write to address two issues raised in recent Orient articles: whether environmental literacy should be a distribution requirement, and whether the College should divest from fossil fuels. When David Orr wrote, “All education is environmental education,” he could have had in mind the second line of William DeWitt Hyde’s Offers of the College: “To count Nature a familiar acquaintance.” Bowdoin’s environmental studies program is built on that same ideal; its website emphasizes that “A liberal arts education should promote environmental literacy: an understanding of the world around us… our role in it, and our effects upon it.” Compared to most colleges, Bowdoin has a vibrant ES program and a rich array of courses that address sustainability. We are leaders in terms of campus recycling, reducing our carbon footprint, etc. But is the College actually fulfilling Hyde’s famous offer? Do our students graduate with enough know-how and motivation to address the hugely serious environmental problems they will inherit? Ten years ago, when the Curriculum and Education Policy Committee was working on a new system of distribution requirements, a number of faculty argued that environmental literacy ought to be included. Today, 10 years deeper into an extinction crisis, and with our climate changing right before our eyes, it’s time for our curricular structure to catch up. Given logistical problems such as staffing new courses, adding a distribution requirement in environmental literacy may not be the best answer. But I believe the College needs to show much more urgency and creativity in trying to figure out what the best answer might be.
As for the proposal for Bowdoin to divest from investments in fossil fuels—gradually, responsibly, by targeting the most egregious fossil fuel companies, and without unduly compromising our core programs and commitments—I support it for several reasons. First, the tough questions asked by the student Climate Action group have sparked exactly the sort of debates one would hope to hear on an intellectually engaged college campus. Not just among students, but also among a faculty and administration that seem newly energized by our students to grapple seriously with environmental issues. Witness the packed attendance at the Sustainability Panel two weeks ago, as well as recent film showings and seminars by visiting speakers on the issue of climate change. Second, our curriculum says a lot about what Bowdoin stands for. So does our endowment; it should reflect the same values as our curriculum. If in the classroom we decry the mining and burning of fossil fuels, should the College be enjoying profits from those activities? Third, although divestment won’t solve the problem of our overreliance on fossil fuels, it’s a start. Even symbolic gestures can have an outsized educational impact. Two colleges in Maine have already made the move to divest, leveraging their relatively small endowments to make a nationwide statement about sustainability. Soon, though, to effect change we will need to end public subsidies for oil and gas companies and put a price on fuels that reflects their true environmental and social costs.
Finally, we don’t have to be purists or turn our back on modernity in order to make a difference. After all, safeguarding our environment for future generations is a marathon, not a sprint. But our students should know that the issues are real, complicated, serious, and upon us. So, all hands on deck.

Divestment: Bowdoin Climate Action stages protest on Quad

Members of Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) constructed a makeshift “climate camp” on the Main Quad Wednesday night, in hopes of pressuring the College’s Board of Trustees to meet with the group next week to discuss divesting the endowment from fossil fuels.
Sarah Nelson ’14, who took over as president of Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) Wednesday evening, informed BCA at around 5:30 p.m. yesterday that it could not have a demonstration on College property without written permission, and asked the students to dismantle the camp by 7 p.m. In response, BCA agreed to lose its status as a chartered student organization in order to prolong the protest.
A statement on the website of the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs explains, “No person shall utilize the College’s property, including photographic reproductions of its property, for commercial, business, political or public purposes without express written consent.”

Divestment

Bowdoin must focus on alternatives to divestment

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

April 19, 2013

Like my colleague Nat Wheelwright, I applaud student concern about climate change and activism in the political arena. However, I am unsure that divestment of college and university endowments is the best target on which to focus student action for two reasons.

First, almost of us are willing consumers of fossil fuel energy—some more willing than others—but all of us consume fossil fuel energy. Therefore, we are complicit in the problem. As such, the divestment movement seems to contain an element of hypocrisy at its core.

To be clear, I understand very well how some major oil producers have funded the egregious disinformation campaign about anthropogenic climate change. These companies and the people responsible deserve society’s contempt for obfuscating the issue and potentially delaying action on climate, but I don’t know that all oil and gas companies are equally culpable.

My second concern with the divestment movement is its potential effectiveness. To me, it seems a roundabout way of effecting change. Sure, it may eventually lead to political action that weakens the hold of oil producers on Congress, but do we have enough time? Climate scientists warn that we are already past the point where nonlinearities inherent to the climate system may push it into rapid and catastrophic change. In my view, political action should focus on the most crucial target, which will bring about change as quickly as possible.

Society faces a predicament today. That is, there is so much energy condensed in oil that it almost defies belief. Think about it. A single gallon of gas will move your car somewhere between 25 and 50 miles depending on size of the car and the type of engine. Put your car in neutral and try pushing it a mile to get an idea of how much energy is in a gallon of gas; and all that for $3.67 a gallon. This impressive energy density has been a boon for humanity and industrial economies today are founded on cheap, abundant energy. However, the environmental costs not accounted for in the $3.67 price of gasoline are now coming back to haunt us. As we say in ecology, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The problem is that the price we pay for a gallon of gasoline in no way properly values what its energy does for us or its environmental costs. In order for a transformation of our energy system from fossil fuels to renewable technologies to take place, we must adequately price oil and natural gas so that alternatives become cost competitive. By cost competitive, I do not merely mean that renewables pay for themselves over time, but that they are cheap enough such that people earning median family incomes can afford to convert. Or better yet, cheap enough so that people earning median incomes cannot afford not to convert.

May I suggest another target for political action? One that I think is more direct and which must be tackled before a meaningful transformation of our energy system can begin. That is, the annual subsidies and tax breaks which fossil fuel companies receive out of the federal budget.
Last week in his 2013 budget, President Obama proposed to eliminate $40 billion in tax breaks to oil and gas producers over the next decade. The president will need strong support to get his budget through Congress. However, this is just a start. Annual subsidies to oil and gas companies in the US exceeded $500 billion in 2011 according to a study conducted by the International Monetary Fund. Its estimate for global fossil fuel subsidies was an equally astonishing $1.9 trillion. For comparison, annual subsidies to renewable energy technologies only add up to $12.2 billion in the US.

Yes, eliminating oil and gas subsidies would mean that producers would pass on their additional costs to consumers, and yes, the poor would be the most affected. But until alternatives are cost competitive with oil and gas, they will never scale up to levels that can actually make a dent in our collective carbon footprint. Oil and gas subsidies place a huge burden on the growth of alternatives in the marketplace. However, with a level playing field, we might see quick progress toward a renewable energy economy.

So how can students target oil and gas subsidies?

In 2005, I was asked by the Union of Concerned Scientists to meet with the Maine congressional delegation in Washington to express support for two bills. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a non-profit whose membership is made up of active scientists willing to step outside of their roles as scientists to get involved in finding solutions to some of our most daunting problems. The UCS has conducted successful information campaigns about climate and energy, nuclear weapons, food and agriculture, and the importance of keeping science independent of the political process. The reason they asked me and two other scientists from Maine was that our senators at the time, Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, were perceived as politically moderate and potentially willing to cross party lines in support of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act and an “Integrity in Science” bill aimed at the Bush administration.

The Bush administration was infamous for pressuring government scientists to tone down or even falsify their conclusions in scientific papers and reports that were inconsistent with its ideology. Although the senators were reluctant to go against their party on the Integrity in Science effort, they were very much on board with McCain-Lieberman. Before meeting the senators, we spent a day with experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists honing our message and learning how a few well-informed, passionate, and well-prepared people can influence the political process if their efforts are well aimed and they show dedication and real concern for their cause. People, senators included, are motivated by face-to-face interactions with real people and their personal stories and concerns.

Today, Senator Collins is still perceived as a moderate Republican and Senator King is, of course, an independent. This independence makes each of them influential on particular issues where the Senate is evenly split between the parties. Both are well informed about climate warming and might be amenable to this cause, although Senator Collins receives some campaign support from oil and gas interests. As Bowdoin students, you have extraordinary access to these two influential senators. You are part of their constituency and you are well informed and passionate young people who are very concerned about the future of our planet. Make an opportunity to meet with each of the senators along with Representatives Chellie Pingree and Michael Michaud. The Obama administration is facing an uphill battle even with this initial step toward weakening the power of the oil and gas industry. Even if his budget is passed, there is an enormous distance yet to go. You can find out when the senators will be in Maine by calling their offices. If you should need to travel to Washington to meet with them, I suggest you take the train.

In addition to political action, each of us needs to reduce our carbon footprint and provide an example for others. Doing so is not going to be easy or painless. You can find out how you consume fossil fuel energy and reduce those sources that contribute most to your footprint. For example, purchasing an electric or hybrid car can reduce your personal fuel consumption, but many of us still fly frequently. It takes only three moderate distance, there and back flights (four hours each way) to equal the fossil-fuel consumption of a moderately sized car for an entire year. Taking trains for long-distance travel reduces much of the carbon cost and supports our underutilized railway system. In short, you can lead by example and by understanding key processes in our political and socioeconomic systems to thereby focus your efforts on the actions most likely to be effective. Likewise, institutions such as Bowdoin College can assume a leadership role by investing in the currently available alternative technologies to reduce its carbon footprint and provide an example for other institutions and businesses.

John Lichter is director and professor of environmental studies.

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