Mount Allison must divest from fossil fuels

In 2013, a group of students at Mount Allison started Divest MTA. They joined thousands of activists from across the globe calling on their universities to divest all endowments from fossil fuels. In the last three years, the movement has repeatedly been dismissed by various decision-makers at Mt. A.

Divest MTA’s efforts highlight a widespread disregard for the concerns and well-being of students and the planet.

The fossil fuel industry has exploited the earth for over a century. Now, as climate change intensifies, the need for substantive change is more pressing than ever.

Climate change cannot be understood only as an ecological issue – we must recognize its social ramifications. It enacts violence on the world’s most vulnerable populations – worsening food insecurity and displacing poor and racialized groups from their homes – all in the name of corporate profit.

In Canada, we are far from innocent in the continued perpetuation of this violence. As a settler colonial state, Canada has accumulated wealth at the expense of Indigenous peoples and their land.

This university claims to value Indigenous knowledge, a system of understanding that is rooted in reciprocal relationships with the land. By refusing to distance itself from an industry that threatens the unceded territory on which Mt. A rests, the senior administration not only erases this knowledge but reveals its willful complicity in colonialism.

In past years, the Argosy has remained neutral on this issue in an attempt to uphold objectivity – a stance that disregards the need for moral opposition to climate injustice. We can no longer justify this neutrality.

The theme of this issue is “Environmental Horror.” We find it horrific that senior decision-makers are willing to defend Mt. A’s morally corrupt investments in the name of practicality and business as usual.

For this reason, the Argosy supports the students who are calling for Mt. A to divest from fossil fuels.

At homecoming, divest MTA activists called on the university to take their investments out of the fossil fuel industry. Shannon Power/Argosy
At homecoming, divest MTA activists called on the university to take their investments out of the fossil fuel industry. Shannon Power/Argosy

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