That is certainly how today’s student activists see it. Though careful not to overdraw moral comparisons between apartheid and climate change, they have embraced divestment as one of the few ways available to them to call attention to the gulf between the risks of global warming and the weak political response to it. They cite 1980s apartheid activism as a model.

So how is their movement going?

My sense is that the students themselves are surprised by how far and fast their divestment demand has spread. Since the idea was championed last year by the group 350.org and its leader, Bill McKibben, student groups have demanded divestment on more than 300 college campuses.

The idea is spreading to other countries, and it is spreading beyond campuses to city governments and religious institutions. Indeed, while only a half-dozen colleges have committed to divestment so far, nearly 20 mayors and city councils have made pledges of some sort.

Quite a few churches have done so, especially in New England, and last week the general synod of the United Church of Christ approved a divestment resolution. It was the first national religious denomination to go for the tactic, but probably not the last.

Neither Mr. McKibben nor his followers pretend that they are going to move the stock prices of Exxon Mobil or other fossil-fuel companies. Their real goal is to force the most important people in the country, many of whom sit on college boards, to grapple with the morality and practicality of unchecked fossil-fuel burning. In that sense, the students may stand to win even when the colleges say no.

So far, all indications are that big colleges will do just that. Not a single school with an endowment exceeding $1 billion has agreed to divest. They have generally argued it would be too difficult, or would hurt investment returns.