Fossil fuel divestment fever hits campuses

Can universities really force a change in the world’s fossil fuel companies? More than 220 University of British Columbia, or UBC, professors think so. In a key faculty vote last week, the academics signed a petition pledging they will cast their ballots to urge UBC to sell off the university's holdings of the world’s “200 most polluting” fossil fuel companies, writes Mychaylo Prystupa for Vancouver Observer.

UBC is the latest campus to catch what has become a nationwide fossil fuel divestment fever.
Some 30 Canadian universities now have active campaigns, including the University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria and McGill University. Ten campuses have had successful student votes to divest, and four have had faculty votes in favour of the idea.

Advocates say the billions of dollars that universities control via pensions and endowments should be used to stimulate a wider social push against fossil fuels.
Full report on the Vancouver Observer site