The divestment campaign began last October, when a student group, called the Brown Divest Coal Campaign, asked the university to stop investing in coal.
“We believe that our university should not be profiting from an industry as dangerous and outdated as coal, which devastates human health and the environment at each step in its life-cycle,” the group says on its website.
“Coal is the single largest source of greenhouse gases worldwide and thus a huge contributor to climate change. Mountaintop removal coal mining has already destroyed more than a million acres in Appalachia, and air pollution from coal-fired power plants kills 13,000 Americans each year.”
The group said Brown’s investments “should reflect the university’s values of sustainability and human rights; that’s why we’re calling on President Christina Paxson to divest our endowment from the coal industry immediately.”
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