College Campuses Will Become Climate Change Battleground in 2014

Need To See More? Man rides past dead bodies littered along a road on the eastern island of Leyte after Super Typhoon Haiyan swept over the Philippines. How many disasters will it take to rouse Americans to the dangers of climate change? Image by getty images
The Forward asked a number of writers to offer their hopes and predictions for the new year. What ideas and trends will shape our world in 2014?
Human sources will spew billions more tons of carbon dioxide and other heat-retaining gases into the atmosphere. The industrial fervor that raised standards of living in many parts of the globe over the last two centuries will—at a redoubled pace and more so—generate icecap melts, droughts, floods, storms, and other extremities that threaten life next year and will continue to do so for millennia to come.
Government agencies everywhere will fail to act sufficiently to bend the greenhouse gas curve back toward a sustainable level.
Media will feel pressure to “balance” reports of scientific consensus with crackpot denials, though less so than in previous years.
With normal politics stalled almost everywhere, and mainline institutions in default, the initiative will be taken by activists. There will be more direct action (as against the tar sands pipelines in both the US and Canada). And the campaign to get university, city, pension fund and other investment funds to divest from fossil fuel corporations will accelerate. Already at work on some 400 campuses in the US, this movement will make the case, with increasing force, that stamping approval on oil, coal, and natural gas companies is not only morally destructive but financially foolish.
To go out on a limb, there’s a fighting chance that this campaign will force fossil-fuel divestment at one (at least) major institution of higher learning. One way or the other, the cascade will proceed.
Todd Gitlin chairs the doctoral program in communications at Columbia University and is the author most recently of “Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street” (HarperCollins, 2013).
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.