actions and events

Upcoming Events

  • Every Week: Cornell on Fire Office Hours

    Climate conversation and conviviality. During the academic year, drop by Cornell’s Ho Plaza every Friday between 11a-12:30p. Learn more, teach us, and connect with the movement.

    Stay tuned for our summer location!

  • Ithaca Climate Activism Calendar

    Ithaca Climate Activism Calendar

    Stay abreast of ongoing actions for climate justice locally.

Past Events

  • Advance Climate Justice Policy, May 3

    Advance Climate Justice Policy, May 3

    NYSERDA Senior Advisor for Climate Justice Sameer Ranade informs and invites public engagement with New York’s transformative Cap and Invest Progam (NYCI). This is a pivotal moment for public input to shape key features of climate policy. Watch the recording and make a public comment!

  • Bryan Alexander, Universities on Fire, Atkinson Topical Lunch, May 2

    Bryan Alexander gave an Atkinson Topical Lunch on his book Universities on Fire, which addresses how universities can respond to the Anthropocene. Our movement is named for his book!

  • Declare a Climate Emergency Reclaim Earth Day

    Reclaim Earth Day, April 22, 2024

    Campuses across Tompkins County joined a national youth movement to Reclaim Earth Day for collective action and climate justice. Experience the action in images, follow the press, and take further action.

  • Trustee Meditation Protest, March 22, 2024

    Cornell on Fire marked the Board of Trustee meetings with a meditation that silently and unignorably put CLIMATE on the agenda.

  • Sit for the Climate Emergency

    Past Event: On Fire Circle 12/4: Sit for the Climate Emergency

    In observance of the climate emergency and crisis of inequity, we suspended ordinary activities to sit in silence. The “On Fire Circle” on December 4 paid tribute to the last day of Fall classes by turning our gaze inward to our collective power.

  • Past Event: 12/1: Adam Aron on Social Mobilization for Climate Crisis

    Adam Aron is an academic who quit a career in cognitive neuroscience to focus on the climate crisis. Learn why and explore how you can act at his talk: “Why Social Mobilization Is Essential For Confronting the Climate Crisis And What Academic Psychologists Can Do.”

  • On Fire Circle 10/27: Sit for the Climate Emergency

    Past Event: On Fire Circle 10/27: Sit for the Climate Emergency

    Collective reflective action. Turn our gaze inward to reflect upon our collective power. This "On Fire Circle" provided a home for meditation, prayer, reflection, and quiet observance. Event held in solidarity with the Campus Climate Network.

Ongoing opportunities

  • Undergraduate Fossil Free Research Task Group

    Undergraduate researchers around the world are exposing the pernicious role of fossil fuel funding that influences research at prestigious universities. Join the new undergraduate Fossil Free Research Task Group at Cornell to use your research skills for climate justice.

  • Solidarity Letter for Climate Scientist Fired for Refusing to Fly

    “I hope that my decision to risk losing my job will contribute to breaking the wall of apathy, indifference, and greed that surrounds global warming.” Sign a letter in solidarity with Dr. Grimalda—ask his bosses to reconsider his termination.

  • Tenured Faculty: Speak Truth to Power

    A call to action from Cornell Professor of Literatures in English Dr. Caroline Levine. “Why I have stopped conducting business as usual, and I hope you’ll join me.”

  • Academics: Sign Fossil Free Research open letter

    This open letter calls on universities to lead the way in instituting a ban on accepting fossil fuel industry funding for climate change, environmental, and energy policy research. Its signatories include IPCC authors, Nobel Prize winners, and prominent political leaders.

“Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”

-Wendell Berry