Just over a month ago, Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina, an area once named a climate haven. Millions lost power, hundreds of thousands lost their homes and over 100 North Carolinians died.
Helene is but a harbinger for the devastation to come. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns we have six years remaining to at least halve greenhouse gas emissions to prevent catastrophic global warming. This was already an uphill battle before the election last Tuesday. Now, a climate change denier will be at the helm of the country, most responsible and best-equipped to fight the climate crisis.
Donald Trump has ties to Project 2025, which threatens to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and disband the Environmental Protection Agency. He will allow the fossil fuel industry free rein to pollute our air, poison our water and murder our loved ones. Joe Biden himself failed to pass the comprehensive legislation to decarbonize at the speed and scale science and justice demand.
With a fascist in office, this far-reaching federal action is now impossible. It is abundantly clear that this government won't fight for us. Therefore, we must fight for ourselves.
As the first public university in the country, UNC has a responsibility to model expansive climate action for other institutions and the world as a whole. Instead, Chancellor Lee Roberts and the Board of Trustees espouse phony climate commitments while actively propagating fossil fuels: a coal plant that chokes Orange County community members, $243 million in fossil fuel commodities held in the endowment and the receipt of over $20 million in donations from oil and gas affiliates.
It is no wonder that the same board members who propagate fossil fuels are the ones deciding climate policy at Carolina. Beyond on-site emissions, UNC administration grants the fossil fuel industry a social license to operate, enabling disasters like Hurricane Helene and then allowing the industry to cover up what caused them. They prioritize the interests of Big Oil over the lives of their students and all of the state. They are complicit in climate catastrophe.
Trump, Roberts and their billionaire friends want us to submit to their regressive world order. We refuse to give up. Instead we paint a vision for a better world, one free of fossil fuels and oil barons — one where our government works for working people, not billionaires and corporations.
We choose to believe that this world is possible and we will fight to make it a reality, starting at UNC. This goes beyond decarbonization and disassociation from fossil fuels. It compels our University to become an active instrument in liberation by investing in comprehensive climate education and affordable housing, paying workers a livable wage, supporting public transportation and paying reparations for past harms.
This is the vision for a Green New Deal for UNC. This is the only way toward a just and livable future. As Americans in this era of political upheaval, we each must pick a side: surrender to fascism and climate chaos, or join the resistance and take up the fight for a better world. We choose the latter.
