Harvard’s climate change problem

“Universities,” says Harvard, “have a special role and special responsibility to confront the global challenges of climate change and sustainability.”

Indeed they do. But by financing the exploration and production of fossil fuels, Harvard is failing to live up to that responsibility.

In an effort to hold the university accountable, a group of prominent alumni, led by former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth, will try to reinvigorate a campaign to persuade Harvard to divest its $40-billion endowment of fossil fuels.

Joining Wirth, a longtime climate activist, in the campaign are writer and activist Bill McKibben, former SEC commissioner Bevis Longstreth and Todd Gitlin, an author and scholar, all of them Harvard alums. Working with them are Gina McCarthy, the former EPA secretary, who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Stephen Heintz, who as president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, led its successful effort to cleanse its endowment of fossil fuels. They’ll describe their plans on Earth Day, next Monday, as part of Heat Week, a week of climate activism at Harvard.

In a January letter to Harvard’s president, Lawrence Bacow, Wirth and his allies wrote:

We believe that the University should immediately cease holdings in companies exploring for or developing further fossil fuel reserves…