Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, is the co-author of "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future" and "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming." She is on Twitter.

Academic life is dedicated to the creation and dissemination of knowledge, so academics should be particularly offended by organized efforts to undermine knowledge. Yet this is exactly what the fossil fuel industry has done for more than two decades.

Scientists reached consensus in the late 1970s that burning fossil fuels would likely lead to anthropogenic climate change, and since the early 1990s their predictions have been coming true. Yet virtually as soon as scientists began to say so publicly, the fossil fuel industry began to work to challenge it. Following a strategy honed by the tobacco industry, they insisted that the science was too unsettled and uncertain to justify policy action, and have launched highly personal — arguably defamatory — attacks on individual scientists.

Some of the leading fossil fuel companies claim that they no longer promote disinformation, but nearly all of them are members of trade organizations that do. Why should universities invest in an industry that has deliberately sought to undermine the knowledge that we have produced?

Why should universities invest in an industry that has deliberately sought to undermine the knowledge that we have produced?



What's more, it is well established consensus that even the use of existing reserves of oil, gas, and coal will push the global climate well past the 2-degree target that would protect us from the most serious harm, but the fossil fuel industry has expressed no willingness to consider an alternative business model.

On the contrary, the major oil and gas companies are continuing to explore aggressively for still more fossil fuel resources, including tar sands, shale gas, shale oil, and conventional oil in hard-to-reach places. All of these resources have carbon footprints worse than conventional oil and gas, and given the time it takes to explore, develop, and exploit an oil or gas field, these activities promise to lock in another half century of fossil fuel dependence.



University leaders around the country have repeatedly stated that they understand the threat of climate change, and take it seriously. Many universities have expanded their commitment to climate change research. But what is the logic of working diligently — and spending billions of dollars of taxpayer and philanthropic money — to understand the threat of disruptive climate change, only to invest in an industry whose activities virtually guarantee it?



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