GU Fossil Free is Georgetown University’s student-run campaign asking that our university divest from fossil fuel companies and re-invest in a more sustainable future.
Fossil fuel and coal companies continue to pose a threat to public health, the global environment and human rights. While fossil fuel and coal production damages the environment as a whole, it has a particularly acute impact on the human rights and health of marginalized people of the United States and in the global south. On a practical financial level, investments in these companies are becoming increasingly risky and more volatile. It is unconscionable to pay for our education with investments that will condemn the planet to climate disaster.
Divestment is about changing expectations of what is reasonable fossil fuel consumption. We seek a quicker transition to a clean energy world by proving the act of fossil fuel investment unconscionable. The license these companies have to extract and burn carbon unabated into the indefinite future is morally and ethically wrong in the face of planetary disruption to our global community. While Georgetown’s financial clout is limited, our symbolic action strikes at the heart of fossil fuel legitimacy by standing up to the pernicious and destructive assumption that fossil fuels need not go anywhere anytime soon. This is what makes divestment so powerful and so necessary. #GUDivestNow
