Written for The Argo by Benjamin Dziobek

On Tuesday, February 16, the Stockton University Environmental Club, along with Divest Princeton, Divest Harvard, Divest Stanford, and New York Climate Leaders hosted a virtual event regarding the fossil fuel divestment movement.

The event featured guest speaker Varshini Prakash, who serves as the Executive Director and co-founder of Sunrise, a movement of young people working to combat climate change. Her work propelled the climate crisis to the forefront of American politics and is featured in the New York Times, MSNBC, The New Yorker, BBC, and The Washington Post. She also played a key role on the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Climate Change. In 2019, she was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list for law and policy and TIME 100 Next.

Ben Dziobek, president of the Stockton University Environmental Club, moderated the event and hosted a Q and A session with Prakash. Divestment was the main topic of the night, with discussions on how to effectively remove public and private investments out of fossil fuel companies. The divestment movement is globally progressing–a recent example being New
York City deciding to divest $4 billion from its pension fund.

The Stockton Environmental Club aims to bring this movement to Stockton by lobbying within the Student Senate. However, to push forward a resolution supporting the divestment of Stockton’s investments, the Board of Trustees must be consulted. The Environmental Club believes that as New Jersey’s “green university,” Stockton needs to have more action.