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Harvard’s Capitulation On Climate Costs Us

By Timothy R. O'Meara
By Jasmine N. Wynn, Crimson Opinion Writer
Jasmine N. Wynn ’27, an Associate Editorial editor, is a History concentrator in Winthrop House. She is a co-founder of Sunrise Harvard.

Headline after headline of funding cuts, mysterious office shutdowns, and vague evasions from Harvard’s administration reign supreme.

Since President Donald Trump’s election, Harvard has pursued an unabashed rightward shift. At first, it was the continued unprecedented suppression of openly pro-Palestine affiliates. Then, it was the shuttering and defunding of diversity initiatives across the University, oftentimes with little explanation. Recently, this pattern of obfuscation bled into climate initiatives as well — the Harvard Management Corporation has failed to release its annual climate report.

In Harvard’s capitulation crusade, it is now evident that climate research and transparency are on the chopping block — something that costs us all a right to a livable future.

Of course, Harvard or any institution is unable to solve climate change in one swoop. However, as a leading research institution, Harvard has a responsibility to continue to heed the crisis with the urgency and moral principle it deserves.

For one, Harvard’s corporation appointed a former corporate lawyer for Exxon Mobil this past May. Before a Pioneer and Exxon merger in 2024, the son of a former Pioneer executive donated north of $800,000 to the Trump 47 Committee. Ahead of the 2024 election, Trump rallied several fossil fuel executives to donate a target of $1 billion to his re-election campaign. In exchange, he promised them significant rollbacks on climate legislation, such as the renewable energy tax credits established by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Furthermore, Exxon intentionally led — and seemingly still leads — efforts to downplay the impact of carbon emissions on Earth’s naturally existing weather patterns and overall carbon budget. Simultaneously, the company possessed accurate internal predictions on the impact of climate throughout the late 20th century, as verified by researchers in our own backyard. Two years ago, Harvard platformed on-campus research that supported the conclusion that Exxon had denied climate change while possessing internal data to the contrary.

Harvard seems pleased to platform such science when it compliments its public image, but not as much so when it must respect the truth of its findings. Yet the University routinely invites fossil fuel executives to institutionally-sponsored climate events on our campus despite what researchers, journalists, and experts have illuminated.

Most recently, this included Vicki Hollub, one of the participants in a Trump deal. Hollub’s company, Occidental Petroleum, appeared to donate upwards of $40,000 to Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican-aligned political action committees. Inviting Hollub is a tacit nod of acceptance to the presidential administration — this is precisely why my fellow Sunrise Harvard co-founders protested the event.

Some could make the argument that inviting such speakers is in the sake of intellectual vitality and good-faith discourse on a contentious issue. I beg to differ. Intellectual vitality requires “keeping our minds open and our discussion real,” as it states on the initiative’s website. If we platform individuals affiliated with peddling climate pseudoscience in the name of profit, our resolve as a research institution has lost all meaning.

How much more should climate impact our campus and our world before Harvard draws a firm ethical line? Harvard has taken such stances in the past — we know that it’s possible. It simply is a matter of willpower.

Worse, the capacity of Harvard to conduct necessary research on climate related issues has decreased. Last week, the School of Engineering, and Applied Sciences announced a 25 percent reduction in workers represented by its clerical and technical workers union. Harvard also recently announced cuts to its Ph.D. program admissions — graduate students who are the backbone of the high quality and output of research produced at our school. These cuts are bound to complicate the ability of laboratories, clinics, and other research organizations to analyze the climate future ahead of us. It doesn’t help that many of Trump’s federal research funding restrictions fixate on studies concerning climate change.

No one — and certainly not Harvard — can have it both ways. A University that boasts sustainability commitments and dedicated climate programs cannot then uplift those who willingly continue the global crisis. No amount of capitulation to Trump’s climate denialist agenda will stop the Charles River from rising. It won’t stop the sweltering temperatures that make summers in Cambridge more unbearable every year, on and off campus.

Harvard must grow a spine before it becomes a combusted fossil of the veritas we once held dear.

Jasmine N. Wynn ’27, an Associate Editorial editor, is a History concentrator in Winthrop House. She is a co-founder of Sunrise Harvard.

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