Climate Justice: College Unity

To the Editors:

We are fellow students from Oberlin College, hoping to submit a letter to your newspaper. We are sending the same letter to over 50 other college and university newspapers in hopes of unleashing dialogue, activism and leadership among students like ourselves on the biggest potential catastrophe to face mankind-climate change. We believe that now is the critical time to seek solutions, that we have the ability to avoid potential disaster, and that it is our moral obligation to do so. We also believe that universities are the seeds for change and that by creating momentum, understanding, and discourse among and between campuses we, the students, hold the power of true leadership.
We are members of the student group Climate Justice, whose mission at Oberlin is to get our administration to adopt policies that will make serious reductions in campus greenhouse gas emissions. Eventually we would like to see Oberlin reach a target of climate neutrality (to have zero net emissions). We follow the examples of Tufts, Cornell, and Lewis & Clark -- schools that have already set a remarkable precedent toward mitigating climate change at their universities. We look forward to reading letters from your student body in the future.

–Mira Inbar
College senior

–Claire Jahns
College senior