Op-Eds

2015
Fossil Free Freshmen Respond to Criticism of Civil Disobedience
October 27, 2025
"The fossil fuel industry has controlled the political space around climate discussions for decades, while the impacts of fossil fuel combustion have approached dangerous levels. The harm caused will and already does affect communities disproportionately...By divesting from companies that contribute to climate change, Stanford can refuse to support further oppression of these communities and encourage the U.S. negotiators heading to Paris to do the same by supporting a robust international climate agreement."

An Open Letter to the Stanford Board of Trustees
April 8, 2025
"Our work with you and with the administration has thus far been productive, but we are rapidly running out of time in the inexorable march towards irreversible climate change and falling behind in the courageous opposition movement which Stanford helped to catalyze."

Fossil Fuel Divestment: The Logical Choice
March 2, 2025
"Fossil fuel divestment is a calculated response to the fact that fossil fuel combustion is detrimental to human well-being. Indeed, it is in the moral and financial interest of Stanford University to move beyond all fossil fuels." Fossil Free Stanford lays out the economic reasons to divest from fossil fuels.
2014
Fossil Free Stanford's Movement is Only Getting Started
December 2, 2024
Our own Sophie Harrison recaps our movement in the Huffington Post: "The climate crisis requires more than partial action. It demands bold moral leadership from each of us as individuals, communities, and institutions. Replacing coal with the next worst thing is just not good enough."...

Do Divest From Fossil Fuels: A Response
November 13, 2025
"At its heart, though, divestment is an issue of conscience. The fossil fuel industry poses a grave threat to our planet and all its people, leaving us with an ethical duty to divest our endowment..." Fossil Free Stanford organizers Josh Lappen '17 and Charlie Jiang '16 argue for why Stanford must divest from fossil fuels.

Fossil Failure: Why Stanford's Future Depends on Divesting...
October 23, 2025
Ian Monroe BS '03 MA '04: "Stanford has a fiduciary duty to align investments with our founding charter to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford therefore already has a mandate to immediately divest from all fossil fuel holdings."...

Climate Change: A Test of Conviction
October 22, 2025
David Campos '93, a San Francisco Supervisor, writes, "Throughout the world, temperatures are reaching record highs and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. Extreme weather events, warmer oceans, ocean acidification, flooding, wildfires and droughts have become the new normal. Hotter temperatures are triggering..."

Stanford's Own Water Depends on Climate Divestment
October 21, 2025
Brian Schmidt, J.D. '99, and Vice Chair of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, on the link between water and fossil fuel divestment: "Stanford students and Stanford University both fully deserve the laurels they won last spring by enacting a climate divestment policy on coal investments, telling those companies they can take their coal and “shovel” it back where it belongs"...

Global Connections, Shareholder Divestment and Stanford
October 20, 2025
Stanford alum Margaret Goud Collins, '78, writes: "...the more fundamental insight of the divestment campaigns is their insistence on broader recognition of the connectedness of all the systems that support life and society, both natural — like ecosystems and climate systems — and anthropogenic..."

Teaching by Example: Divestment from Fossil Fuels
October 19, 2025
"The Board of Trustees’ decision to withdraw from coal investments is encouraging, but we hope the Board will extend the policy to ensure divestment from all fossil fuels. Students learn from the culture and the behavior of an institution as much as they learn from classes," writes Stanford alum Timothy E. Wirth, Ph.D. ’73. Wirth is a former U.S. Senator from Colorado and current Vice Chairman of the United Nations Foundation.

Our Surprise Victory at Stanford
August 17, 2025
Fossil Free Stanford alum Graham Provost revisits the campaign's history, his response to Stanford's move to divest from coal, and the power of regular people, working together, to make a real difference.

Fossil Fuel Divestment: Stanford’s Unique Role in a Global Movement
April 10, 2025
This week, Stanford undergraduates will vote on a referendum calling on the University to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. Representatives of the undergraduate student body on the ASSU Senate...

Tar Sands, Arrests, and a Movement: Fossil Free Stanford on the KXL Pipeline
March 5, 2025
On Sunday morning, 398 pairs of hands thrust through the White House fence and bound themselves with white plastic zip-ties to the iron bars in an act of peaceful defiance against the Keystone XL Pipeline. The protesters were all arrested...
2013
Earth Day and Fossil Fuel Divestment
April 23, 2025
Earth Day is a time to celebrate our planet and reflect on how our personal choices have an impact on the world around us. However, it is also a time to recognize that we need not only personal responsibility, but also...

Why Stanford Must Divest From Fossil Fuels
December 4, 2024
There will be more commotion than usual today in White Plaza. A student movement is rallying to President Hennessy’s office to promote the transparent phase-out of all fossil fuel investments in Stanford’s endowment. As a trailblazing innovator...