Fossil fuel divestment is a direct reaction to climate change, specifically the role that the fossil fuel industry plays in the climate crisis. The fossil fuel industry is responsible for a massive amount of carbon pollution in our atmosphere, which is already above the level that is safe for sustaining life and is only rising as we allow for the fossil fuel industry to operate without being held accountable for its participation in climate change. The divestment movement was initially started by Bill McKibben in 2012 with the goal being a shift in power – moving it from the hands of fossil fuel corporations and instead placing it in the hands of people.

Divestment is not, by any means, a new tactic. The Apartheid divestment movement, which took place from the late 1970s to the 1990s, serves as a model of what the divestment movement is hoping to accomplish. A large part of the Apartheid divestment campaign was the power of the student organizations that existed within it – initially at Michigan State University and Stanford University in 1978. While the fossil fuel divestment movement is not at all confined to university campuses, I will focus on the student movement within fossil fuel divestment in this article. The goal of the Apartheid divestment movement was targeted at corporations that traded or operated in South Africa and that were, therefore, profiting from Apartheid in the way that fossil fuel companies are profiting from the climate crisis. However, what the Apartheid divestment did not have is the networks available to the fossil fuel divestment movement because of the technology readily available to us today.

Since the founding of the divestment movement in 2012, the network of student movements for university divestment has grown to upwards of 300 schools working toward the same goal. These groups are in no way detached and isolated from each other, but are instead working and collaborating with each other; an idea made accessible by social media. When I think of my involvement and understanding of the divestment movement, I think immediately of the national network of student divestment campaigns that I’ve become connected to this past year. Therefore, I associate the national student divestment movement with the use of social media and technology.

Facebook is an instant example of these types of networks where groups like the Student Divestment Network, a national network that can connect schools working toward divestment together. More locally, the Cascade Climate Network connects youth activists in Northwest America working towards climate justice. These networks are able to exist solely because of online communication. Out of these online networks have come national and regional climate justice convergences that have physically brought members together to collaborate and form community in the movement. Networking and collaboration is essential for any movement and it can be made much easier with social media and the ubiquity of technology. In this case, technology has allowed for the people working in the campaign – especially the student movement within fossil fuel divestment – to create relationships and community with each other.

Other tangible examples of this online network of student divestment campaigns include Twitter accounts like @DivestStudentNetwork individual campaign account that allow for the divestment movement to easily share experiences, steps forward, and updates about local campaigns. Similarly, there are often parallel Instagrams which allow for visual updates of what is going on across the nation in regard to student divestment movements. The movement and communication that occurs within fossil fuel divestment is directly in the hands of those involved when information is able to spread as quickly as someone can reach for their smartphone.

There are often large struggles in the divestment movement. This year, we received a “no” on divestment from the Seattle University administration. Across the country, including at Harvard where divestment was rejected as well, the rejections and naysaying from university administration has been largely documented online. Conversely, there have been some amazing victories like the recent decision at Pitzer College to divest from fossil fuels and Stanford University’s decision to divest from the coal industry. Because people involved in these student movements are easily connected online, these victories have been able to be shared victories, not isolated ones. The divestment movement is a collective one because of the online networks that exist within it. We can all share in these successes and struggles because our movement exists within social networks that allow for the formation of community and collaboration.

By Ashlan Runyan