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.