The Dartmouth Climate Collaborative — announced on April 22 — signifies a major step forward in the College’s response to climate change. The College has committed to investing more than $500 million into reducing carbon emissions, while also kickstarting other projects to reduce emissions and raise awareness about climate change. This policy change exists because of the hard work of organizations like the Sustainability Office and because students have never stopped demanding more from Dartmouth. As such — while we should celebrate the achievements of this plan — we must continue to push for more. Although College President Sian Leah Beilock proclaims that “the time for bold action is now,” the truth is that Dartmouth’s climate response is not nearly bold enough, failing to prioritize climate and environmental justice.
According to a definition provided by the University of California, climate justice “recognizes the disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income communities and communities of color around the world … address[es] the root causes of climate change and … a broad range of social, racial and environmental injustices.” Philosopher Olufemi O. Taiwo explained the need for a climate justice-centered approach in an essay published in The New Republic.
“Responding to the full history that caused the present situation — meaning not just different levels of emissions but also the imperialist and exploitative practices they came from — could both help solve the climate crisis and help undo systems of oppression,” Taiwo wrote.
The climate crisis is rooted in colonialism, extractivism, notions of human superiority over “nature” and incentives to exploit people and land for profit. To truly tackle climate change, we must transform our economic and socio-ecological relations. As Naomi Klein writes in her book, “This Changes Everything,” the climate crisis sends “a powerful message — spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts and extinction — that we need a new way of sharing this planet.”
The alternative to climate justice is a militarized, securitized and violent response to climate change. In this scenario, wealthy, predominantly white countries secure their assets and tighten their borders to exclude climate migrants. They bolster their own power at the expense of Black, brown and low-income communities who face extreme heat, flooding and wildfires. This scenario creates what the United Nations calls a “climate apartheid”: climate impacts segregated by race, place and income.
Beilock’s climate response lacks an explicit prioritization of justice and upholds harmful structures that exacerbate climate injustice and apartheid. Her other actions as President demonstrate this: having students arrested when protesting for climate justice and a free Palestine, busting the unionization efforts of student-athletes, greenwashing the fossil fuel industry’s injustices by placing its executives on the Irving Institute Board and awarding honorary degrees to former Rep. Liz Cheney, oil lobbyist Richard Ranger and surveiller-in-chief Paul Nakasone.
This is not climate justice.
Climate justice means reparations to fenceline communities poisoned by fossil fuels.
Climate justice will be built by the hands of workers in good union jobs.
Climate justice will be studied by graduate researchers in good union jobs.
Climate justice requires democracy and self-determination globally — not U.S. imperialism.
Climate justice will arrive on the path of free expression and protest for students.
Climate justice demands a free Palestine.
The Dartmouth Climate Collaborative — and humanity as a whole — will most meaningfully achieve its climate action goals through the prioritization of justice. This looks like:
Teaching and research that grapples with survival amid — and transformation of — the root causes of climate change: capitalism and colonialism.
Centering the perspectives of involved community members and students throughout the Climate Collaborative.
Hiring and granting tenure to significantly more BIPOC faculty.
Dissociating from the fossil fuel industry.
Properly bargaining with the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth-United Electrical to give the workers fair compensation and benefits.
Encouraging a flourishing culture of student free expression.
Divesting from companies with connections to human rights violations in Israel-Palestine.
Dartmouth has the opportunity to set a powerful example for how to advance climate and environmental justice. As we celebrate the new climate plan, let’s demand that Beilock and the Board of Trustees end their climate justice hypocrisy and undertake the steps above to meaningfully and justly address the root causes of this crisis.
Correction Appended (April 30, 3:11PM): A previous version of this article stated that a goal for future climate plans should be to "Encourag[e] a widespread culture of student protest." This clause has been updated to reflect more specific wording: "Encouraging a flourishing culture of student free expression." The article has been updated.
Ben Stevenson ’27 is a member of the climate activist Sunrise Movement. Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
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