Cal Poly, do the right thing. Fight climate change by divesting from fossil fuels
On Oct. 6, California State University Chancellor Joseph Castro announced that the nation’s largest public university would divest from fossil fuels.
He cited the need to assure CSU’s future financial security and to honor its commitment to sustainability principles.
For our coalition of student organizers — who for the past nine months have been advocating for system-wide divestment as the group Divest the CSU of Fossil Fuels — this announcement was cause for celebration. But for members at Cal Poly, that excitement was quickly tempered by the following response from our university: “At this time, the Cal Poly investment portfolio will not be changing.”
While the CSU made the informed decision to move roughly $162 million out of fossil fuel investments, the 23 CSU campuses are not required to do the same. By choosing not to divest, Cal Poly jeopardizes its reputation as a leader in scientific and technological innovation and sides with an industry whose myopic greed is the root cause of the ongoing climate crisis.
‘Greatest challenge of our generation’
Growing up, our generation has experienced increasingly severe ecological catastrophes and dire scientific warnings of the threat posed by climate change and the role of the fossil fuel industry in causing and perpetuating it.
While the climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our generation, it is by no means a new issue. Fossil fuel companies have known about the impact of burning oil, gas and coal since the 1970s, when a study by Exxon’s own scientists revealed the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.
Instead of raising the alarm, the company, which is now ExxonMobil, suppressed the report, and alongside other industry leaders, began a decades-long propaganda campaign to shift responsibility for climate change from the fossil fuel industry to the individual.
These companies have also poured millions of dollars into lobbying efforts to protect their financial interests and delay meaningful action on climate change. Continuing to invest in fossil fuel companies makes Cal Poly complicit in the destructive course these companies have taken. If it is wrong to destroy the climate that enables life as we know it on Earth, then it is also wrong to profit from that destruction.
Fortunately, Cal Poly has not yet condemned itself to the wrong side of history. The past has shown divestment to be a powerful instrument for change. Divestment movements in both the United States and South Africa helped dismantle apartheid, and campaigns to divest from the tobacco industry in the 1990s significantly reduced cigarette consumption globally.
Critics of divestment are usually quick to say it does not have an immediate financial impact on the company — shares sold off are bought by neutral investors, and the company suffers no short-term losses. However, every time an institution announces it is choosing to divest, it stigmatizes the company or industry it is targeting. This effect on public perception has incited change in the past, and it is only a matter of time before anti-fossil fuel sentiment leads to changes in policy and innovations critical to combating the climate crisis.
Financial consequences
Despite the positive social and political effects of fossil fuel divestment, the Cal Poly administration has voiced its concern that divesting will be financially harmful to the university.
However, both the CSU and the University of California found divestment was actually financially beneficial to them — in fact, the University of California cited purely financial motivations for its decision to divest in 2020.
Cal Poly officials have also pointed out that the university has ties to the fossil fuel industry outside of its investments portfolio — the Marine Sciences pier facility in Avila Beach is a gift in perpetuity from Chevron to Cal Poly, and the soon-to-be-completed William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation was made possible by William Frost’s profits from fracking. Many Cal Poly students also obtain jobs and internships with fossil fuel companies. The university worries that if it were to divest, fossil fuel companies and alumni donors in the industry would be compelled to sever ties, negatively impacting Cal Poly students.
This fear is unfounded — when San Francisco State University partially divested in 2013, scholarships sponsored by Chevron in the business department were not impacted by the university’s decision. It is apparent that fossil fuel companies are aware that they’re losing favor in the eyes of the public, so they are not inclined to further publicize divestment by retaliating.
By refusing to even consider fossil fuel divestment, Cal Poly is aligning itself with the industry that bears the chief responsibility for the current climate crisis. When influential institutions such as our own fail to publicly acknowledge the seriousness of the climate crisis, it suggests apathy toward an issue of dire concern to students and the vast majority of Americans.
The university has no good reason not to divest. It is financially beneficial, promotes much-needed changes in policy and innovation, and has no negative impact on student success. Choosing not to implies Cal Poly does not care to take action in response to the climate crisis, which will ultimately harm Cal Poly students as climate-related disasters increase in severity and frequency.
To our coalition, the correct choice is clear — Cal Poly should join the CSU in divesting from fossil fuels.
To voice your support for divestment from fossil fuels to the Cal Poly Foundation, please sign our petition: https://forms.gle/jD6JNueMrB1mGXVN8
Cal Poly students Heath Hooper and Nicholas Trautman are co-chairs of Divest the CSU of Fossil Fuels.