Good morning, readers.
In advance of our Earth Day paper (coming tomorrow to a newsstand near you!) I took a journey up Durham’s Main Street to my alma mater, dear old Duke University.
In 2022, the university announced its “climate commitment,” a pledge to “take the entire mission of the university…and force it through the lens of climate and sustainability,” in the words of Duke’s vice president and vice provost for sustainability, Toddi Steelman.
It’s an ambitious idea, and the staff working under the climate commitment’s framework are determined and capable. If given the money and mandate to succeed, the commitment could be a model for how the world’s wealthiest universities use their unique positions to address the climate crisis.
But some students and faculty who work in the climate field are worried that the commitment, with unclear goals and a lack of authority to make change where it matters most, will end up a well-intentioned failure.
That’s because Duke’s $11.6 billion endowment is still wrapped up in fossil fuel companies despite a decade of student calls—as well as a 2022 referendum with 90 percent support—to divest from those companies. That divestment drama has played out between an alphabet soup of Duke organizations, with administrators arguing that divestment is not as important as students make it out to be.
Skeptics of the climate commitment also have concerns about future goals, the use of carbon offsetting, and a lack of plans from the university for how to engage the reasonably cautious Durham community.
To take stock of the university’s progress, I spoke to students, faculty, staff, and the administrator in charge of the commitment.
Check out the full story here.
And happy early Earth Day!
—Chase
Durham
ICYMI: Durham Public Schools is up against a ticking clock in its superintendent search.
At Duke’s Alumni Weekend, student groups held a protest calling for divestment and sustainable campus infrastructure.
Wake
The City of Raleigh is working to remediate its urban heat islands.
Orange
East Rosemary Street is scheduled to reopen after being closed to traffic for eight months.
Chapel Hill hosted a Public Streets Workshop last week to engage the community on its plans for downtown revitalization.
North Carolina
Here’s how Mexican kitsch-themed rest stop South of the Border keeps going after all these years.
Today’s weather
Sunny with a high of 86 degrees, chance of storms.
If you’d like to advertise your business to the Daily’s 30,000-plus subscribers, please contact [email protected]
Love the INDY? Support it by joining the INDY Press Club.
You must be logged in to post a comment.