‘Divest or we escalate’, Extinction Rebellion warns University of Cambridge
Extinction Rebellion is ready for an extensive campaign next month to encourage the University of Cambridge to divest fully from investments in fossil fuel companies.
Extinction Rebellion Cambridge (XRC) and Extinction Rebellion Youth Cambridge (XRYC) are “beginning their campaign by delivering their demands to the university and the non-divested colleges”.
The activist group add that “if divestment isn’t announced by the end of July”, they “will begin an escalating campaign of non-violent direct action until it is”.
The issue of divestment raises complex issues for the university, which has a connection to big oil dating back to 1945 when the Shell chair was created after a donation by Royal Dutch Shell to create the Department of Chemical Engineering. Such endowments have since become normalised to the point that chemistry and earth sciences students have been handed BP-branded lab coats: today’s named professorships include the BP professorship of chemistry, the Shell professor of chemical engineering, and the Schlumberger professorship of complex physical systems.
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