Just Stop Oil Double Down Clarion Call for Academia to Join Civil Resistance
Biochemistry student, Daniel Knorr, 21, said “I am taking action to resist the destruction of my generation. Oxford academics are fully aware of the scale of the climate crisis – this year Oxford scientists said that in a few years climate breakdown will routinely expose people to unsurvivable heat and humidity. In other words, hundreds of millions of people will be forced to move, or die. This is mass murder. It is genocide. It is no good to study the annihilation of everything we care about and do absolutely nothing about it, we have to act!”
Daniel was joined by another graduate student, Noah Crane.
Students are demanding that university leaders make a public statement calling on the government to end new oil and gas projects, and make a commitment to join their students in marching on the streets of London, if the government fails to respond.
The student who took action at Edinburgh, George Simonson, 23, said, “Studying engineering taught me that we already already have the solutions to address the climate crisis, what we lack is the political will. The politicians have been bought, and educational institutions are absolutely complicit in allowing them to continue this genocide. Universities are accepting tens of millions in dirty money and letting the fossil fuel companies come to careers fairs to give out free pens! Students have a duty to step up and show teaching institutions we won’t stand for it anymore…step up and march with us in November”
Recent reports have revealed that major fossil fuel companies have committed tens of millions of pounds in funding to UK universities since 2022.
According to Just Stop Oil, The University of Exeter has received the most from fossil fuel firms since 2022, having signed a £14.7m, five-year deal with Shell in November. Oxford has also received over a million dollars since 2022.
A lot of support was gathering at the Edinburg action, where a crowd was formed due to the location. For more information on the action, see their press release.
To join go to JustStopOil.org. To sign up as a student go to juststopoil.org/students
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