Urge the University of California to divest from fossil fuels

Hello all!

Thank you for signing the petition urging the University of California to divest its funds from fossil fuels! An exciting update: tomorrow, Thursday, May 16, student delegates from the 10 campuses will be in Sacramento at the UC Regents meeting. We'll be for the first time approaching them about divestment and making our case. With any luck, we will then get on the official agenda for the next meeting!

Your signatures help; with them, we are able to show how many people really want divestment. We're going to be able to go into that meeting and tell them that over 8000 people on and off campus support this.

I'd also like to deliver a bit of bad news. 6 days ago, the Mauna Loa observatory, which measures levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reported that we just hit 400ppm. 350ppm was deemed by climate scientists as being the highest concentration of carbon dioxide we can have in the atmosphere to support life as we know it. The fight is urgent; we've been successful thus far but we need to ramp it up. Divestment is the one solid way that universities and other large institutions can ban together and say to these companies: "enough"!

We ask for your help to spread the word. Invite your friends to sign the petition! Let them know that this is happening, and that the University of California--one out of many schools--is fighting to create a fossil-free future.

Hello!

We are making quite a bit of headway, with nearly 6000 signatures! You may be interested to know that this movement, as well as the general climate activist movement, is gaining a lot of momentum. Just this past week, the divestment campaign and Keystone XL pipeline opposition were featured on NPR's On Point show with Tom Ashbrook. There was a panel of three activists: Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition's Executive Director; Dorian Williams, a Keystone XL protester; and myself, Emily Williams. You can listen here: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/03/11/environmentalism

Keep your eyes out for more updates coming soon!

Wow! We met our original goal of 5000 people signing the petition! The movement is growing and going strong, and starting to spread like wildfire. Our students are organized and mobilized, our faculty is beginning to reach out to each campus to form a faculty-UC-wide coalition, staff is jumping on board; we have a HUGE teach-in planned for April 22, were featured on NPR's On Point show on 3/11/13, and have a Regents meeting to look forward to in May!

So what about a new goal of 10,000?! Let's show the Regents how much support there is for them to divest. After all, their mission statement calls upon the UC's to provide "long-term societal benefits." And in the long run, fossil fuels aren't a part of that equation.

Thank you all for signing the petition! Thanks to your help, when we go to the Regents this March, we will be able to show them the immense support behind this movement. Much has happened since the petition took off. Three UC's—UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego—passed resolutions through their student senates urging the Regents to divest from fossil fuels. As I write this, the other UC's are working on their own resolutions, to be presented to the student senates in the near future. Thanks to these resolutions, when we go to the Regents, we will have the student voice of the UCs supporting us.

We are also starting to work with the faculty on our campuses, and thus far, there are 53 faculty members who have signed on to sponsor a resolution through the faculty senate at UCSB. As the movement continues to grow, we hope to get all faculty and staff from each of the campuses on board.

Yet what is really exciting and inspirational about this movement is that this past weekend, February 22-24, there was a national fossil fuel divestment convergence held at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, called Power Up! (http://studentsdivest.org/). This was the first-ever fossil fuel divestment convergence, and California sent about 15 representatives to it! The convergence was truly a weekend of learning and inspiration; we heard from those frontline communities whose water has been poisoned from fracking and mountain-top-removal-related toxins, as well as from the First Nations in Canada (the indigenous peoples) whose land was taken away from them so that the government could develop tar sands. But we came away from that weekend with not only inspiring stories, but also with a national network and movement.

The movement is going stronger than ever, and it is partly thanks to you for signing on and helping spread the word. So if you have the time, please invite your friends, families, and colleagues to sign this petition and help us persuade the Regents to divest!