As Fossil Free Penn continues camping out on College Green, climate-related organizations at Ivy League schools held protests on Friday calling for administrative action against climate change.
As part of the international Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike movement, student organizations at both Cornell University and Princeton University conducted demonstrations to bring climate-related issues to light.
According to The Cornell Daily Sun, Climate Justice Cornell — a group that focuses on climate change’s disproportionate impact on marginalized groups — organized the protest on Cornell’s Ho Plaza. CJC’s general body manager, Sachi Srivastava, told The Cornell Daily Sun that the protest aimed to "draw attention to climate justice in particular."
The speeches made during the strike covered various pertinent international events, including the recent Pakistan floods and Hurricane Fiona’s desolation of Puerto Rico, and spoke about a need for local climate action in Ithaca, N.Y.
Speakers also discussed FreeCAT, a movement that proposes sustainable and affordable mass transit in Tompkins County, where Cornell is located.
Divest Princeton, a student organization advocating for the school's administration to divest from fossil fuels, also held a protest on Friday, according to The Daily Princetonian.
This year, a Princeton faculty committee released a plan for dissociation from fossil fuels. However, due to its $1.7 billion fossil fuel exposure in the university's endowment, student activists called the plan a "stalling tactic."
Our Revolution, a group founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that fights for progressive policies against corporate power, sent representatives to the Princeton demonstration.
For the past two weeks, Fossil Free Penn has also recently been demanding that Penn both divest from fossil fuels and contribute funds to preserve the University City Townhomes by camping out on College Green.
"We are here with a larger focus, because our goal right now is to camp here until we get our demands met,” College sophomore and FFP coordinator Eug Xu said.
In 2019, FFP attempted to pressure the University into accepting their proposals by hosting weekly sit-ins at College Hall. Like the recent protests at Cornell and Princeton, these sit-ins were inspired by the Fridays for Future movement.
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