The four Los Angeles wildfires have now killed at least 27 people, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and burned 40,000 acres — an area larger than Paris.
The climate crisis is driving this disaster. A “hydroclimate whiplash” — when a wet season is followed by extremely dry seasons leading to high vegetation shriveling and the creation of kindling for fire — set Los Angeles up for disaster. The city had its second driest period on record from May to December 2024. These conditions are only expected to worsen as climate change causes global temperatures to rise. Big oil companies such as Exxon have known about the escalating horrors of the climate crisis for more than 50 years and, instead of transitioning to renewable energy sources, funneled millions to spread climate denialism and misinformation. Part of their disinformation campaign is taking place right here at Dartmouth.
According to a 2024 joint staff report by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Committee on the Budget, “The fossil fuel industry strategically partners with universities to lend an aura of credibility to its deception campaigns while also silencing opposition voices. Fossil fuel companies establish funded partnerships with academic institutions to enhance their credibility [and] shape academic research programs to provide studies supportive of a prolonged life for oil and gas.”
Dartmouth needs to cut all ties with Big Oil. The first step is to prevent the fossil fuel industry from recruiting students for employment and exploiting our Dartmouth education. For example, Dartmouth advertised job postings by B.P. via the Irving Institute for Energy and Society — founded with a gift from Irving Oil — and Exxon from Thayer in October 2024. These advertisements and relationships must end.
Limiting which companies and careers the College promotes is not a new or radical idea. The Center for Professional Development already makes choices about which companies it brings to career fairs, sends informational emails about and forms continual relationships with. Around the world, plenty of universities choose not to advertise certain industries to students — think tobacco and weapons companies. Industries do not have the inherent right to be advertised to students; promotion is an intentional decision by each college.
This policy will not change how students interact personally with the CPD in counseling sessions, including if a student comes in wanting to work for fossil fuels. However, it is contradictory to say we are a school supporting a green transition while we openly promote the industry to our students.
It is a fallacy to suggest that we can address the climate crisis at the pace demanded by science through working inside oil and gas companies. Sustainability initiatives and carbon neutrality pledges undertaken by the fossil fuel industry have been repeatedly revealed as empty commitments and false advertising. Nearly all of these pledges exemplify greenwashing, which “mislead[s] the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is,” according to the United Nations. Greenwashing “promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action,” the U.N. adds. Careers within the industry that are oriented toward sustainability do more to support the continued burning of fossil fuels than their phasing out. The bottom line is this: climate action and continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels are simply incompatible.
Therefore, I, along with Fossil Free Dartmouth, advocate for the policy outlined below to be enacted as soon as possible by the College. The wording below could easily be adapted into first-person to form a new College policy.
Dartmouth has committed itself to sustainability by divesting from the fossil fuel industry and conducting the Climate Collaborative. The CPD’s guidance and support for students must be aligned with the principles of this commitment.
In keeping with this commitment, the CPD should refuse to program any new relationships with companies that demonstrate they are working against the goal of a green and just transition. The CPD should also decline to renew any currently held relationships with these companies, accept their monetary gifts or donations or promote their careers through recruitment strategy. Companies that will be affected by this restriction should include:
- Any fossil fuel company that is not on track with Paris Agreement goals.
- Any fossil fuel company that has reneged or backtracked on sustainability goals.
- Fossil fuel organizations listed in the Carbon Underground 200, which “identifies the top 100 coal and top 100 oil and gas publicly-traded reserve holders globally, ranked by the potential carbon emissions content of their reported reserves.”
- Mining organizations listed in the Transition Mineral Mining 50, “the 50 largest, publicly-traded transition mineral mining companies which are implicated in an active case on Environmental Justice Atlas.”
Lastly, the College should adopt a publicly available ethical careers policy that explicitly excludes the aforementioned oil, gas and mining companies from recruitment opportunities.
The CPD must affirm that it understands the importance of harnessing multiple viewpoints to help in the fight against climate change. However, some groups have a vested interest in continued societal reliance on and profit from fossil fuels. This policy would only be intended to remove the influence of companies that have demonstrated that they are not working cooperatively to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. Thus, they are misaligned with the mission of the College.
Harper Richardson is a member of the Class of 2027 and steering committee of Fossil Free Dartmouth. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
