CoF Post 4/22: An unusual development
You’re invited!
Dear Cornell on Fire,
After months of advocating for Cornell to provide relevant education, we’re taking action to help them do so: Join us on Friday, May 2, for an unusual public lecture on “HOW TO DISRUPT FOSSIL-FUEL BUSINESS-AS-USUAL.”
Led by renowned scholar-activists Kevin Young and Bill McKibben, this lecture will lay out the evidence for how and why to leverage disruptive action against ecocide and genocide. It will also provide an unexpected opportunity to celebrate the Cornell activists who are challenging fossil-fuel extractivism and its military enablers.
Kevin Young (UMass Amherst, History and author of Abolishing Fossil Fuels) will present the historical evidence from movements that won. When activists join forces across causes, we can push back against the root causes of our struggles: capitalism, colonialism, racism, military aggression abroad and oppression at home, and the fossil fuels that power them all. Young argues that even when our goal is to push back against broader agendas such as that of the current regime, we are most effective when we focus our efforts where they have the most potential influence: our own workplaces and communities. Bill McKibben (Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and founder of Third Act and 350.org) will present the contemporary evidence: How universities such as Cornell continue to feed the root causes of genocide and ecocide through such practices as fossil-fueled pension funds, land grabs, or high-level partnerships with fossil-fuel corporations and business elites.
To dispel the shadows of “business as usual,” we must turn up the light of education. There already are thousands of people at Cornell who recognize the need for our University to stand up for climate justice, labor justice, social justice, decolonialism, and anti-militarism. They include TIAA-Divest, Fossil Free Cornell, the Coalition for Mutual Liberation, the Cornell Chapter of the AAUP, Extinction Rebellion Ithaca, and Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island. Together with them, WE DEMAND AN END TO BUSINESS-AS-USUAL.
This event will advance our coalition effort with TIAA-Divest! and Fossil Free Cornell to demand a fossil-free degree at Cornell, for which we have developed a resolution to bring before all five University assembly bodies. We will dispatch a formal delegation to deliver that draft resolution, along with personalized fossil-fettered degree certificates, to Cornell’s senior leadership. You, dear friends, can aid the effort.
Worried that agitating for a fossil-free degree is hopeless? The evidence, thankfully, allays such concerns. Our efforts are directly inspired by UCSD Green New Deal activists who originated the concept of the fossil free degree. Their efforts have already resulted in substantial wins in the UC system, including shifting the focus to emission reductions rather than carbon offsets, expelling Chase Bank from the campus student center, and instituting a new climate course graduation requirement. Their conclusion:
“As the climate and ecological predicament worsens, too many people seem to be waiting for policy to be implemented from ‘on high.’ Yet the history of many social struggles shows us that achieving policy wins requires a strong push from below.”
If you can make only one Cornell on Fire event all year long, this is it! There will be solidarity, intrigue, and actionable insights with Kevin Young, Bill McKibben, and activists from all over. Optional RSVP here! If you’re local, your in-person attendance is cordially requested to animate this singular event. If you’re arriving by bus, the location is perfect: Catch the 10 bus and disembark in front of Uris Hall. If you’re participating from afar, join the livestream with Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island.
For our part, we will deliver on our promise of an unusual public lecture. Now more than ever, it is our duty to become unconventional.* Happy Earth Day! We hope to see you at the People’s Earth Day action at Bernie Milton Pavilion at 2:30!
Just a bit unusual,
Cornell on Fire
*While you’re at it, consider becoming ungovernable. It’s a concept with a long history.
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View our corresponding Instagram post.
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Plurivocality: CoF Posts are written by a revolving team of writers. Our movement is diverse, so are our thoughts, and so will be our posts. If you receive a CoF Post that you think is wrong headed, can we still walk together? (We, like you, sometimes write things we later laugh at!)
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