NMU’s Divestment student organization hosted a Climate @ Noon event Friday, March 15. The club covered topics regarding the campus’ institutional divestment and their project proposal which passed in December 2023. Divestment is the selling of shares, stocks or assets for a political or social reason.
During the meeting the group defined what divestment is, to clarify one of the main topics in the proposal. In addition, DivestNMU shared the details of their two year process in making the proposal which included many protests, sit-ins, marches and meetings with President Brock Tessman.
“Social movements often begin with brilliant and courageous youth willing to risk their livelihoods and lives to fix problems they didn’t create,” Ryan Stock, the group’s faculty mentor, said.
The club overviewed their proposal statement which gave suggestions for the campus to reinvest at least 15% of NMU’s investment portfolio into sustainable and low-carbon investments in comparison to the current 5.6% of the campus’ total investment being indirectly invested in the fossil fuel industry. DivestNMU proposed that the university should commit at least 50% divestment from companies involved in the fossil fuel industry by 2050.
“We can no longer hide behind threadbare excuses of not having enough information, not having enough money, not having the right leadership and not having enough time,” Stock said.
The group is made up of a cohort of 20 students who worked together to research and write the proposal for President Tessman and Vice President Gavin Leach and the board of directors to look at, and eventually sign off on.
“It is really big and a right step in climate change action,” DivestNMU Member Mackenzie Geary said.
Since the passing of the proposal DivestNMU wants students to continue to care about the environment, in addition to this continuing engagement of monitoring the effect our campus has on it.
“Effort and change is there. Bringing up new ideas does matter and change takes place from them,” Geary said. “We hope it inspires others whether it be clubs or individuals at NMU to do something similar, climate related or not.”
To view the Climate @ Noon meeting visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMe-kO4PaNM.
