14 Reasons Why The Fossil Fuel Industry Can't Sit With Us

Oil, coal and natural gas executives are life ruiners. They ruin people's lives.

1. Between federal subsidies and record profits, the fossil fuel industry has a lot going for it.

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2. Colleges, churches and pension funds all invest in the fossil fuel industry, giving it a virtual army of institutional supporters.

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These investments lend not just financial, but moral support to the industry.

3. And that's not even counting the politicians getting paid to push the industry's interests in Congress.

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According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Atlas Project, the American Petroleum Institute--a major lobbying force for the fossil fuel industry--poured $721 million into the 2014 midterm elections alone.

4. Conservative politicians are total frenemies with fossil fuel industry. Don't worry, we know they're not scientists.

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As chair of the Committee on Public Works and the Environment, bonafide climate denier Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is the Senate's highest ranking official on climate issues. In 2012, he authored a book entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. "Increases in global temperatures," Inhofe claimed on the Senate floor in 2003, "may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.” So not fetch.

5. Because scientists--and the majority of Americans--know that global warming is scary.

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In September, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe that global warming is caused by "human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels." The latest report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of thousands of scientists from around the world, called the effects of climate change "severe...pervasive" and "irreversible." What's more, to avert catastrophic warming, 82 percent of global carbon reserves will have to stay in the ground.

6. Besides fueling climate change, corporations such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have been linked to toxic water contamination, worker abuse and human rights atrocities.

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Unlike Regina George's reign of terror, the effects of climate change and extraction are disproportionate. While we all live on this warming planet, low-income communities, communities of color in the US, and many in the Global South are already dealing with the devastating impacts of climate change, including increased storms, droughts, flooding and food insecurity.

7. In the wise words of Janis Ian...

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8. That's why, starting in 2011, students around the country started calling on their colleges and universities to divest from fossil fuels.

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Since that time, the campaign has spread to over 400 schools worldwide. The New School in New York City just became latest to join Stanford University, Pitzer College and 22 others in pledging to take its holdings out of the fossil fuel industry. And students aren't alone. Aside from the dozens of foundations, churches and individuals (we see you Mark Ruffalo) that have already pledged to divest, groups like the Climate Justice Alliance and Uprose are fighting the industry from the front lines of its worst impacts. Divestment is a crucial part of a much bigger movement to value people and the planet over corporate profits.

9. Getting universities to divest from fossil fuels isn't about telling them they're wrong.

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"We gotta crack our colleges. We crack our colleges, and then we crack the fossil fuel companies' whole dirty profit model.” It's about showing our collective strength.

10. Students have learned that their administrations and boards of trustees love talking about personal and institutional solutions to climate change...as long as they don't involve the college's endowment.

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In an open letter rejecting majority student support for divestment, Swarthmore College's Vice President for Finance and Administration, Gregory Brown, cited "personal [obligations] to...reduce our own carbon footprint, be it through the use of mass transit, turning off lights, composting, or recycling." We agree! But colleges also have an obligation to make sure their investments aren't funding the climate crisis.

11. At first, the fossil fuel industry gave literally zero fucks about the divestment movement.

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"Oh my god I love your protest sign! Where did you get it?"

12. Until, suddenly, they gave many fucks.

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In the last few days, the industry and its backers have gone on the defensive. The American Energy Alliance discovered Twitter this week, and has been pedalling the hashtag #DivestmentTruth. The PR group Big Green Radicals is trying to draw hokey ties between environmental groups and the USSR. The "Independent" Petroleum Association of America released a bogus report outlining the costs of divestment. They even made an adorable cartoon about making out with an oil drum.

13. What are they, like, in love with divestment or something?

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Maybe it's because $50 billion have been committed to divestment. Or because there are 400 events planned in the next two days, with more gearing up on college campuses all through the spring semester.

14. It's Global Divestment Day, duh.

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Today and tomorrow. Check out events happening near you! Biatch.

Follow the Divestment Student Network on Twitter (@StudentsDivest) and Facebook for updates throughout each day.