Climate activists attend Divest Dartmouth talk
Speakers from 350.org and the Better Future Project encouraged Divest Dartmouth to pursue their goals.
By Sean Connolly And Brian Chalif, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, February 21, 2013
Climate change activists Craig Altemose and Shea Riester passionately advocated for the College to divest from fossil fuel companies in a panel discussion organized by Divest Dartmouth on Wednesday evening.
Altemose, executive director of the Better Future Project, has extensive involvement in climate change activism, said Leehi Yona ’16, who introduced the speakers. Riester is a campus outreach coordinator at 350.org and Better Future.
The talk featured a heated discussion about the implications and impact of climate change, potential strategies to encourage Dartmouth to divest and an examination of past successful divestment efforts.
Altemose emphasized the crisis posed by climate change.
“It is a lot worse, to be frank, than people are making it out to be,” he said. “I think we need to speak the truth about these issues.”
Altemose opened the panel discussion with an anecdote about Russia’s rising temperatures. In its recorded history, Moscow had never seen temperatures as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit before the summer of 2010, he said. A heat wave caused forest fires and led to the deaths of 11,000 people in Moscow and 50,000 across Russia due to smoke inhalation or heat exhaustion.
The forest fires caused significant shortages in wheat production in Russia, Altemose said. This forced to Russia to limit its wheat exports to the rest of the world.
Altemose linked this contraction of wheat exports to the Arab Spring, claiming that Middle Eastern and North African countries that import staples faced a food shortage and increased social tensions as a result.
“It is now the question of whether climate changes will be huge or drastic,” Altemose said. “It is scary, but it’s real.”
He continued to draw out the potential drastic effects of climate change by highlighting the effect of rising temperatures on the world’s population.
If there were a global temperature increase of four degrees, there is no guarantee that the human race could adapt, he said, referring to a 2012 World Bank report. With a five-degree rise in temperature, the carrying capacity of the earth’s resources would be less than one billion people.
From 2012 to 2030, reports have suggested that 100,000 people will die from pollution from fossil fuels, Altemose said.
“If we transfer from fossil fuels, we can save lives as we know it,” he said. “It is pretty simple what we need to do. We need to push for wind turbines, electric cars and weatherization of homes.”
Riester spoke about the divestment movement’s objectives.
The first focus of the divestment movement should be to increase student power and build the student climate change movement, Riester said. Secondly, society should view fossil fuel companies to be on similar footing with slavery or tobacco companies, he said.
“It needs to be immoral to hold money in these companies,” Riester said.
The movement’s final goal should be to reduce the amount of money in fossil fuel extracting companies.
One problem with the American political system is that an oil company can “buy off” politicians, Riester claimed, so politicians are afraid to vote against fossil fuel companies.
“All they need is one day of profit to buy off any number of senators,” he said.
Dartmouth’s divestment from companies who supported the Apartheid movement in South Africa shows that it can also divest from fossil fuel companies, Riester said.
Sterling College, Unity College and Hampshire College have all eliminated their investments in fossil fuel extracting companies, which Riester said had little impact on their endowments.
About 20 people attended the panel discussion, which was held in Paganucci Lounge.
Victoria Pan ’16, one of the co-organizers for the group, said she was pleased with the turnout and optimistic about the future of the movement.
“We did have a really good showing,” she said. “A lot of people stayed to the very end. I do believe we’re gaining momentum and moving forward.”
The group’s immediate goals are to continue educating fellow students and build support across campus.
Yona said she enjoyed the lecture’s message and is looking forward to working with the administration in an open manner.
Philip Mannes ’16 was put off by the rhetoric of the panel, though he said he appreciated the ethical questions raised by Divest Dartmouth.
“The first speech was a bit alarming and, I think, a scare tactic more than anything else,” Mannes said in an email. “I was left somewhat unconvinced.”
These Climate activists are becoming a parody of themselves. The earths carrying capacity will be reduced to 1 billion with we raise the temperature 5 degrees? ARE YOU SERIOUS? IS THIS MAN REALLY TRYING TO SAY THAT!
I have been on the fence about the issue of climate change, but that thanks to the radical insanity of Craig Altemose I see little choice but to start a movement to have Dartmouth invest more money in fossil fuels.
By Stop The Madness on Feb 21 | 10:40 am
Isn’t it great to see the wingnuts gets together and lie about “Fossil fuels”? This “reports have suggested that 100,000 people will die from fossil fuels.” What reports Altemose? Who wrote them? What facts are they based on? “4 degrees rise is too much and 4 degrees rise is more than too much.” We are all going to die, well at least 6 billion out of 7 billion will die according to Altemose. Where is the data? “We need wind turbines and solar right away.” “Russia had a bad wheat harvest.” Russia has never had a good wheat harvest whether they were Soviets or Russia, since the Tsars. This whole activity is a fraud. Nothing this guy said is true. These people are community organizers for Obama.
By Robin on Feb 21 | 12:17 pm
Why wasn’t there a head count? Must have been less than “nearly 20.” It looks like the photo was cropped to make it look like someone was there in a nearly empty room. This guy Altemose is a fraud. “It is a lot worse, to be frank, than people are making it out to be.” There has been NO worldwide temperature rise in the past 16 years. That is the factual satellite record. Look it up. This activity is purely political leftwing trash.
By Bobo on Feb 21 | 1:30 pm
So excited to see this movement making strides. Climate change is the defining issue of our generation and the divestment campaign is a wonderful vehicle to bring together all interests: this is a social justice issue, an economic issue, a sustainability issue, a health issue, an international development issue, a policy issue
By Morgan Curtis on Feb 21 | 2:31 pm
@ Morgan Curtis “this is a social justice issue” The defining issue of this generation has about 10 people showing up to listen to someone promoting a fraud and a hoax. The same people used to just say that we were running out of oil and gas. Now that we are swimming in it here in the US they want it shut down. They are doing nothing to shut it down around the world. They aren’t stopping Saudi Arabia, Russia, China or any other country from using coal, oil, gas or any “fossil” fuel. This is an activity of the Center For American Progress a leftwing Obama campaign vehicle. People with any sense at Dartmouth College should invest their tuition money in every fracking activity going on anywhere in the US. They will do more for America, more to drive energy prices down, more for American jobs, more for the poor, the middle class and everyone else than Craig Altemose will ever do even if he wises up sometime in his life and does something constructive.
By How Do You Do on Feb 21 | 4:17 pm
Bobo, there was a head count, actually. It was 32.
By ‘16 on Feb 21 | 8:26 pm
Nice turnout for the campus Communists. What happened? Some wandering “Occupiers” overshot their tents?
By Bobo on Feb 22 | 12:42 pm
Since a number of folks want to know where Altemose got his reports, here you are. I’m including the links to articles rather than the reports themselves, as I imagine most would sooner read a 1-2 page synopsis than multiple 130 page reports, but feel free to look up the actual reports and read them in entirety if you have questions.
On the 100,000 dead by 2030. The number is actually 100 MILLION dead. And here’s the link:http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/us-climate-inaction-idUSBRE88Q0ZJ20120927
As for the 4C, here is an article discussing this report whose introduction was written by the former President of Dartmouth, Jim Yong Kim:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/19/were-on-pace-for-4c-of-global-warming-heres-why-the-world-bank-is-terrified/
Here’s the study about the earth only being able to support 1 billion people with a 5C rise in temperature.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/scientist-warming-could-cut-population-to-1-billion/
So you can choose to chalk the World Bank, Reuters, Washington Post, the New York Times, Jim Yong Kim, and me as part of a global conspiracy, or you can choose to accept that maybe we should start producing energy without killing people and destabilizing our global climate.
By Altemose on Feb 22 | 1:29 pm
Every one of the reports you cite is full of sh-t. Anyone can make a bogus prediction. Bad predictions that have no historical or any other basis other than a paid bias. The whole millions and billions of dead as a result of “climate change” and CO2 is false. If you are so worried about it, who is the worst polluter? China. Doing anything in China? No? Go have a few divestments in China and see how they enjoy that. Warming has been going on since the end of the last ice age and if it hadn’t we wouldn’t be alive today. There isn’t any conspiracy. Let’s see. The World Bank, Jim Kim, leftist. Reuters publishes a false article, the Washington Post is reliably fascist, the New York Times is socialist and Jim Yong Kim, we already covered that fool, who is trying to use the climate change thing in order to redistribute wealth to the third world. It is all a fraud and what’s more, you know it’s a fraud. No one believes that climate stuff anymore. Crying wolf gets a little old especially when it always involves taxes, shutting down energy companies, businesses that depend on them and taking taxpayer money and giving it to leftwing cronies for bankrupt contributors of Obama’s campaigns. Obama is funding this effort that is using Dartmouth dupes to further their agenda. Americans for Progress, right down the toilet.
By HeyAltemoseYou’reaBoob on Feb 23 | 2:27 am
Wow, so great to see that students at Dartmouth are finally joining all the other schools in mobilizing for climate change! Starting social movements is notoriously difficult at Dartmouth, so what these men and women are doing is commendable. Funny to think that there are still people, like those who have commented above, who try to deny climate change, but fortunately they are comprising an ever-diminishing swath of the population. As a leading academic institution, it is of course fitting that Dartmouth students are taking scientific knowledge of climate change and transforming it into concrete action. Thanks for all who put others before themselves by joining the fight against climate change.
By Anonymous on Feb 24 | 11:57 am
“Wow, so great. Mobilizing for climate change. Funny to think there are still people. People who deny climate change.” Tell us why it is now called climate change when all of the deniers of the facts of the climate and weather used to call it global warming? No one in the political movement of climate change has changed their minds that what they mean isn’t that it is warming, so why is it now climate change? Hey, I know, because if you call it climate change it can be anything that happens that is untoward according to you and you can call it climate change. It’s a catchall of whatever. That doesn’t sound scientific it sounds like you are now denying your own consensus by throwing away what you say is happening. The problem is that what you say is happening isn’t happening. Sure the weather is still occurring but there hasn’t been even a tenth of a degree of warming on Earth for 16 years. According to the scientific models you believe in, that isn’t possible. So, voila, “Climate Change.” it is hilarious that people still think they’re the smart ones who deny the facts while they change the name of their cause as a result of those same facts that make them the true deniers. Isn’t that “wow, so great to see?” I know I love it!!!
By Anonymous on Feb 24 | 7:38 pm