Extinction Rebellion Columbia University Begins Five-Day Hunger Strike to Compel Action on Climate and Ecological Emergency
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 18, 2019
Extinction Rebellion Columbia University Begins Five-Day Hunger Strike to Compel Action on Climate and Ecological Emergency
At 9 AM, four Columbia students began a hunger strike in Columbia University’s Butler Library.
The strike will continue until Friday evening or until the university declares a climate emergency and publicly agrees to an immediate, community-led divestment from fossil fuels.
Photos, videos and background information: http://bit.ly/XRCU-hunger
New York, NY, 18 November 2019 - Today, at 9 AM,, four Columbia students arrived in Butler Library to begin their five-day hunger strike urging the university to declare a climate emergency and divest from fossil fuels. The students are part of the global movement Extinction Rebellion and are participating in a global hunger strike of over 400 people in almost 30 countries. Extinction Rebellion Columbia University, composed of students, staff and neighbors maintains that the university’s divestment campaign must be led by a community assembly, that it must foreground the voices of frontline communities, and that it must include leaders from local communities as well as representative members across the university (including staff, students, faculty, and administrators).
“I’m afraid of going hungry,” said one striker, who preferred to use only her first name, Abby. “But I’m more afraid of what happens if we keep pretending that funding fossil fuels is totally normal. I’m afraid of a world that thinks mass climate death is an acceptable consequence of business as usual.”
On Friday, the Extinction Rebellion Columbia University delivered a letter stating their intentions to university officials, both in person and via email. The University responded by reaching out privately to individuals they assumed were linked to the strike in an effort to seek further information. An official statement from the strikers was released Friday afternoon to clarify their demands, this was followed by the University scheduling a meeting early this week with a designated spokesperson.
The strikers will continue refusing food until the university declares a climate and ecological emergency and publicly announces plans for a community-led divestment. Extinction Rebellion Columbia University is open to ending the strike when a meeting with proposed outcomes is scheduled and looks forward to speaking with key members from the Earth Institute and from the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing.
“I’m striking because there will be no food on a dying planet,” said another student, Abi. “Because Columbia has a responsibility to its students and its community around it to divest from companies which knowingly caused this crisis. The school knows what’s happening and they won’t stop it. I don’t see any other way to get them to listen to us, to take our demands seriously. But most of all, I’m striking with love, for this planet, and for all humans and animals on it.”
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement framed within regenerative culture that uses nonviolent direct action to achieve radical change to minimize the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. The four demands of Extinction Rebellion Columbia University are:
1. TELL THE TRUTH
The university must declare a climate and ecological emergency, acknowledging that its current plan is a lie of omission, eliding the hundreds of thousands already dead and the weight of the crises to come.
2. ACT NOW
The university must plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions–including complete divestment from fossil fuels–by 2025.
3. FORM A COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY
The university must create an assembly of community members, modeled on Citizens Assemblies, in order to deliver a binding resolution on the university’s path towards divestment and net-zero emissions.
4. ENACT A JUST TRANSITION
This assembly must include leaders from the surrounding communities and foreground the voices of frontline populations, in addition to representative numbers from all stakeholders within the University (staff, students, faculty, and administrators alike).
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