"Our way of walking on the Earth has a great influence on animals and plants. We have killed so many animals and plants and destroyed their environments. Many are now extinct. In turn, our environment is now harming us. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether we can wake up or not depends on whether we can walk mindfully on our Mother Earth. The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps."

"The human predicament was exceptional in that, empowered by a planetary larder of fossil fuels, they developed a global complex society, grew exuberantly at the expense of surrounding life, and collapsed a planetary life-support system. The consumer society selected for a phantom of happiness/purpose that the consumer bots were conditioned to pursue by working to make ‘money’ they use to consume products produced by an economic system NOT REMOTELY CLOSE TO SUSTAINABLE. Our collective unintended Calhoun rat-like experiment on ourselves is having what should be expected outcomes as our empire-building socio-economic pathology makes for a world of pathologies (or what was merely a world of wounds as Aldo Leopold noted) filled by human pathogens."

"[W]e are endowed with ...intuitive and intellectual capabilities as ...discovering the genes and the R.N.A and D.N.A. and other fundamental principles governing ...life systems as well as of nuclear energy and chemical structuring as part of the ...design of the Spaceship Earth ...It is ...paradoxical ...that ...we have been mis-using, abusing, and polluting this ...system for successfully regenerating all life aboard our planetary spaceship. ...We have not been seeing our Spaceship Earth as an integrally-designed machine which to be persistently successful must be comprehended and serviced in total."

"The problems which spaceship earth is going to present... are not all in the future... Many of the immediate problems of pollution of the atmosphere or of bodies of water arise because of the failure of the price system, and many... could be solved by corrective taxation. If people had to pay the losses due to the nuisances they create, a good deal more resources would go into... prevention..."

"We are all familiar... with the wastes... in planned obsolescence... competitive advertising... poor quality of consumer goods. ...[N]o serious attempt has been made to assess the impact ...of changes in durability ...[W]e have underestimated ...the gains from increased durability ...one of the places where the price system needs correction through government-sponsored research and development."

"The law of torts... is inadequate to provide for correction of the price system... There needs, therefore, to be special legislation to cover these cases... If we were to adopt in principle a law for tax penalties for social damages, with an apparatus for making assessments... a very large portion of current pollution and deterioration of the environment would be prevented."

"[I]n the spaceman economy... any technological change which results in the maintenance of a given total stock with a lessened throughput ([i.e.,] less production and consumption) is... a gain. This idea that both production and consumption are bad... is very strange to economists..."

"I am tempted to call the open economy the "cowboy economy," ...symbolic of the illimitable plains and... reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behavior... characteristic of open societies. The closed economy of the future might... be called the "spaceman" economy, in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution, and in which, therefore, man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system..."

"It is always... hard to find a convincing answer to the man who says, "What has posterity ever done for me?" ...[A] society which loses its identity with posterity and ...its positive image of the future loses also its capacity to deal with the present problems, and soon falls apart."

"Systems may be open or closed in respect to a number of inputs and outputs. Three important classes are matter, energy, and information. The present world economy is open to all three. We can think of the world economy or "econosphere" as a subset of the "world set," ...the set of all objects, people, organizations [etc.] This total stock of capital is... an open system... it has inputs... being production which adds to the capital stock, [and] outputs being consumption which subtracts from it. ...[W]e see objects passing from the noneconomic into the economic in... production, and... products passing out of the economic set as their [monetary] value becomes zero. Thus we see the econosphere as a material process involving the discovery and mining of fossil fuels, ores, etc., and at the other end... effluents... are passed out into noneconomic reservoirs—[e.g.,] the atmosphere and the oceans—which... do not enter into the exchange system."

"It was during one of the Apollo flights that... ... exclaimed, "the earth from here is a grand oasis in the great vastness of space." From these words and from pictures showing a tiny marbled sphere developed the popular metaphor—spaceship earth. Our tiny spaceship carries its own life support system: atmosphere for supporting respiration, vegetation for supporting life, and resources that can be transformed into goods and services. ...[W]e hope that studies of our past history (...as far as 5 billion years) as to the way... earth evolved... will help us in predicting our future course. ...We develop the broad concept of earth as an ecosphere (ecological system) and include... speculations pertaining to the long range future of earth as an inhabitable planet."

"[A]t long last the concept of Earth Day, of world patriotism and of the family of man, have come into being. May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful space ship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life."

"[T]he econosphere involves inputs of... energy... In advance societies this is supplemented very extensively by the use of fossil fuels, which represent... a capital stock of stored-up sunshine. ...This supplementary input ...is by its very nature exhaustible."

"[T]omorrow is not only very close, but in many respects it is already here. The shadow of the future spaceship... is already falling over our spendthrift merriment. ...[T]he fouling of the nest which has been typical of man's activity... on a local scale now seems to be extending to the whole world society... [O]ne... cannot view with equanimity the present rate of pollution... atmosphere... lakes... oceans."

"What is man? As Homo sapiens he experiences the ecological crisis with all the rest of Spaceship Earth: but as imago Dei he alone knows it, writes books and laws about it, and is able to pray for as well as prey on his fellow creatures. ...Co-author H. Paul Santmire devotes the second half of the volume to an impassioned plea for the reorientation in human values at this critical juncture in man's ecological life. The issue, he contends, is... the survival of humanity. ...Thinking ecologically ...calls for a restructuring of our entire way of life. ...Immediate remedies include the stabalization and reduction of population growth, a radical cut-back in the non-essentials of economic growth, massive programs for recycling and pollution control, the substitution of cooperation for competition as the prevailing ethos of community life, and a thoroughgoing redistribution of wealth. ...Chaplain Santmire calls for the acceptance of a universal good to serve as the valuational fuel for the moral inhabitants of Spaceship Earth."

"It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we sail through space. If the bread and beef above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great command over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches are opened are permitted to say, "This is mine!""

"Bucky's phrase "Spaceship Earth" captured the imagination not only of those young graduates but also the imagination of the world. People use it commonly today. More importantly, our view of the earth, our planning and direction for the future, and our understanding of the universe have all been influenced significantly by this use of Bucky's concept."

"We really are approaching the end of the era of expanding man. ...Man has always had somewhere to go... somewhere to beckon him as a virgin land of promise. ...The photographs of the earth by astronauts in lunar orbit symbolize the end of this era. ...[T]he earth is a beautiful little spaceship, all blue and green and white, with baroque cloud patterns... and its destination is unknown. It is getting pretty crowded and its resources rather limited. The problem of the present age is that of the transition from the Great Plains into the spaceship or what Barbara Ward and I have been calling spaceship earth. ...[W]e must develop a cyclical economy within which man can maintain an agreeable state. ...[T]he idea of the GNP simply falls apart. ...This is a fundamental change in human consciousness, and it will require an adjustment of our ethical, religious, and national systems which may be quite traumatic. ...If the whole world developed to American standards overnight, we would run out of everything in 100 years. Economic development... will result in final catastrophe unless we treat this interval in the history of man as an opportunity to make the transition to spaceship earth. ...We will have to aim for much lower levels of growth, because the cyclical process costs more than the throughput does. ...The idea that we are moving into a world of absolutely secure and effortless abundance is nonsense."

"The ethic of of the land is not yet part of the national consciousness. People are coming to it only gradually. They have yet to be convinced that we're on the Spaceship Earth, and it's all we have."

"The lives of 3½ billion astronauts on board Spaceship Earth are just about as much in peril today as were the men aboard Apollo 13 in 1970. However, the pervasive irony of this analogy is that we... have nowhere else to go... We must begin to treat our spaceship within this context. ...Proper and moderate use of our mineral resources is necessary. Maintaining the correct atmospheric mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen is critical. Renewable resources such as minerals, gases, and water must be returned to their cycles in a reusable form. Solid wastes on board... must be efficiently disposed of... in a form that can be degraded by decomposer organisms so that such materials will not accumulate. ...In short, the environment of the spacecraft must be kept orderly, balanced, and efficient. ...[P]otentially, overpopulation is more dangerous than a malfunctioning of... life-support systems... We can restore the craft's environment only if we fully understand not only its processes, causes, and effects, but also all the ramifications of our attempts at restoration... [and] the physical inner-workings of the entire system. ...[T]he current environmental crisis can ultimately be alleviated only by a massive shift in our individual and corporate lifestyles. ...Drastic changes in our economic, sociological, political, moral, ecological, and religious practices and beliefs must occur ...to live in relative harmony... to change our style of living... to that of a spaceman... being, acting, thinking, living, and responding like an astronaut on board Spaceship Earth."

"The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system."

"It should be possible... to distinguish that part of the GNP... derived from exhaustible and that... derived from reproducible resources, as well as that part of consumption which represents effluvia and that which represents input into the productive system again. Nobody, as far as I know, has ever attempted to break down the GNP in this way..."

"[W]e can make all of humanity successful through science's world-engulfing industrial evolution provided that we are not so foolish as to continue to exhaust in a split second of astronomical history the orderly energy savings of billions of years' energy conservation aboard our Spaceship Earth. These energy savings have been put into our Spaceship's life-regeneration-guaranteeing bank account for use only in self-starter functions. ...Thereafter , our "main engine," the life regenerating processes, must operate exclusively on our vast daily energy income from ...wind, tide, water, and direct Sun radiation energy. The fossil-fuel savings account... for the exclusive function of getting the new machinery built... to be sustained exclusively on our Sun's radiation's and Moon pull gravity's tidal, wind, and rainfall generated pulsating and therefore harnessable energies. The daily income energies are excessively adequate for the operation of our main industrial engines and their... productions. The energy expended in one minute of tropical hurricane equals the combined energy of all the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. nuclear weapons."

"The metaphor of ‘Spaceship Earth’ employed by a diverse array of scientists, economists and politicians during the 1960s and 1970s points to the Cold War origins of the first global environmentalist movement. With the advent of Spaceship Earth, nature itself became at once technological artifact and a vital object of Cold War gamesmanship. The evolution of this metaphor uncovers the connections between Cold War technologies such as nuclear weapons, space travel and cybernetics, and the birth of the first global environmentalist movement. Revisiting Spaceship Earth may help us to better understand the implicit assumptions that have both empowered and limited that movement."

"Young people are always asking what it's like to be on a spaceship... Well, what does it feel like? Because that's what you're on. The Earth is a very small spaceship hurtling through space. ...This spaceship is so superbly designed that we've had men on board here for about two million years reproducing themselves, thanks to the ecological balance ...all the vegetation is breathing up [out] all the gases needed by the mammals and all the mammals are giving off all the gases needed by the vegetation ..."

"Until recently, economists have not been particularly carried away with concern over environmental problems caused by industrial development. ...[T]he few economists ...who have always sounded the alarm ...are somewhat out of the mainstream. These humanist concerns seem to have gone out of style after the age of classical economics. Even the conventional analytical models of contemporary economics seem to prefer to exclude these concepts by ignoring them entirely or by shunting them off into their own branch, called "economic externalities." ...In recent years concern over these ...externalities has grown. The environmentalists are beginning to be included in the mainstream. ...Attempts are even being made to extend the theoretical framework to include the changes in the environment caused by economic activity... The Materials Flow of the Economy... sees the human race living on a 'space ship earth' in which all the inputs and outputs, all the original resources and all the final wastes, must be accounted for. ...[W]hen the materials are returned in the form of smoke, sewage, garbage, junk, heat, noise, and a wide variety of noxious gases... the change is seldom for the better. ...[T]he less production that is needed to maintain an adequate level of affluence, the better. An efficient economy is one that gets big results with little effort. More industries, more mines, more businesses, more employment, and more consumer goods do not always mean more well-being... because all these also mean more destruction of our natural resources and despoilation of our surroundings."

"Spaceship Earth not only illustrated but also created a fundamental shift in the conception of life and living space on the earth that brought about new regimes and visions of efficiency. Spaceship Earth signified the threat to earth as a natural habitat, but it also created expectations for science and technology to provide a 'blueprint for survival', substituting the of the earth with possible surrogate spaces elsewhere. ...[T]he singular historical constellation around... 1970... may be characterized by the intersection of the aspirations of space flight, rising environmental concerns, Cold War conflicts, the consciousness of a new global interdependence, and... the hitherto unprecedented potential for intervention—and destruction—by scientific and technological means. ...New in the 1960s were not the environmental concerns but the optimistic ideas of being able to turn the dismal fate of the planet into a bright future planned by scientists and engineers. ...[U]p to the late 80s ...Spaceship Earth did not simply serve as a metaphor to express the fragility of the planet; rather... a range of aspects associated with the constraint and crowdedness of the earth. Spaceship Earth became the central part of a mythology to present the problems of planetary closure meaningfully and to propose strategies and solutions of escape."

"In the cowboy economy, consumption is regarded as... good... and production likewise; and... success is measured by the amount of throughput... If there are infinite reservoirs from which material can be obtained and into which effluvia can be deposited... throughput is... a plausible measure of... success... The gross national product is a rough measure of... total throughput."

"We travel together, passengers on a spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I will say the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

"In the last few decades, mankind has been overcome by the most fateful change in its entire history. Modern science and technology have created so close a network of communication, transport, economic interdependence—and potential nuclear destruction—that planet earth, on its journey through infinity, has acquired the intimacy, the fellowship, and the vulnerability of a spaceship. In such a close community, there must be rules for survival. We have... a reasonable idea of... the rules... since we live by them inside our own domestic society. We abandon the "right" to settle... disputes by force and violence and hand them over to... impartial... courts of law. And... we expect... through the concept of "general welfare"—that misery, grievance, and injustice do not drive us to violence. ...These ...are what we have to seek in the world at large. ...The gaps in wealth [and] ideology ...make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation. It is on these disproportions that world policy has to concentrate... a reasonable balance of power... wealth... between the planet's developed... and underdeveloped... a reasonable balance of understanding and tolerance between... creeds. Then... there can be... hope of building the common institutions, policies, and beliefs which the crew of Spaceship Earth must acquire... to have... hope of survival."

"Hugh Downs: We have harnessed the power of the atom. We have reached the moon. And yet we do not seem to understand our place on earth and the natural laws that govern us. It is in the understanding of these laws, and action in concord with them, that our salvation lies: the salvation of the earth and our own salvation. There is still time. Raymond Burr: Hopeful times are beginning to appear on the international horizon. The recent agreements signed between the United States and the Soviet Union on mutual environmental problems is a large step forward. Only through international cooperation can we hope to correct the crisis facing all mankind. Hugh Downs: Man inhabits two worlds, the natural one that preceded us by billions of years, and the world we have built from our technology using our machines and science to create an environment obedient to our purpose and directions. And now, as we reach the last stages of the twentieth century, there is a spreading sense of awareness that something fundamental and irrevocable is happening to man's relations between both his worlds. Our new knowledge of planetary interdependence demands a reshaping of our individual loyalty. We must develop a sense of planetary community and commitment. We must make our earth a center of rational loyalty for all mankind. Nationalistic loyalties must become secondary to our allegiance to earth. We can only hope to survive in all our prized diversity by achieving an ultimate loyalty and devotion to our single, beautiful, vulnerable planet, the earth. Alone in its life-supporting systems, powered by inconceivable energies mediated for us through the most delicate adjustments. Is this not a precious home for all us earthlings? Is it not worthy of our love? Does it not deserve all the courage and care of which we are capable, to preserve it from degradation and destruction? Now for the first time in the history of man an international movement is underway. The people of the nations, and the nations of the world, have joined together to find the answers. ...[T]he world's representatives hold the solution. We have seen what we've done to bring about the destruction of our earth. Is it not the time now now to cure the disease that we ourselves have created? The answer is in our own hands. In your hands. Don't let this moment in time pass, or we may never have another, not in our lifetime, not in anyone's lifetime."

"We can think of the stock of knowledge, or as Teilhard de Chardin called it, the "noosphere," and consider this as an open system, losing knowledge through aging and death and gaining it through birth and education and the ordinary experience of life. ...A machine ...originated in the mind of man, and both its construction and... use involve information processes imposed... by man... The cumulation of knowledge... is the key to human development... especially economic development. ...[W]here the material capital has been destroyed by war, as in Japan and Germany... knowledge was not destroyed, and it did not take long... for most of the material capital to be reestablished..."

"One of the great puzzles... is why the take-off into science... an "acceleration," in the... growth in knowledge in European society in the sixteenth century, did not take place in China, which... was ahead of Europe... Perhaps the most significant factor... is the existence of "slack" in... culture, which permits a divergence from established patterns and activity... not merely devoted to reproducing the existing society but... to changing it."

"My upbringing does not allow me to take a life... When we go against nature then everything becomes dangerous; human beings too become dangerous. On the other hand, if we co-operate with nature, then she also co-operates with us."

"In the country of Hindustan there are four defences,... The second defence consists of woods and forests and trees, which, interweaving stem with stem and branch with branch, render it very difficult to penetrate into that country."

"Nature seems to have taken pleasure in embellishing and enriching the favoured country of Hindostan with every choicest gift. Under a pure sky and brilliant sun the soil produces the most exquisite fruits, and the most abundant harvests; the rocks are rich in gems, the mountains teem with gold, and the fleecy pod of the cotton furnishes in profusion the light garment fitted to the climate. In travelling in the interior, your eyes will often be enchanted with the most delicious landscapes. Amidst stupendous forests you will not unfrequently be charmed with a cultivated spot, where, if ever, you might realize the dreams of the poets, and indulge in that impassioned indolence which is the parent of poetry and of the fine arts."

"Boston is among an increasing number of municipalities, universities, and private foundations that have announced plans to divest from fossil fuels. In late October, ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26, Auckland, New Zealand; Copenhagen, Denmark; Glasgow, Scotland; Paris; Rio de Janeiro; and Seattle announced commitments to divest from fossil fuel companies and increase investments to make cities more sustainable. Also last month, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott signed a bill that requires the city’s three pension funds to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Those are in addition to divestment commitments made last year by Berlin; Bristol, England; Cape Town, South Africa; Durban, South Africa; London; Los Angeles; Milan; New Orleans; New York City; Oslo; Norway; Pittsburgh; and Vancouver, Canada. “Cities are at the forefront of tackling the climate emergency and there is real momentum to move investments away from fossil fuels and toward climate solutions,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is chair-elect of C40 Cities, a network of mayors working to confront climate change, said in a statement. “I will continue to encourage more cities to join the movement, and urge national governments and private finance institutions to mobilize more finance to invest directly in cities to support a green and fair recovery.”"

"The city’s mayor signed a bill to eliminate the controversial investments by 2025. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has signed into law an ordinance to divest the city from the fossil fuel, tobacco, and private prison industries by the end of 2025. The ordinance prohibits using public funds to invest in the stocks, securities, or other obligations of any company that derives more than 15% of its revenue from those industries. Under the new law, fossil fuel investments are defined as investments in any company that derives more than 15% of its revenue from the combustion, distribution, extraction, manufacture, or sale of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and gas, or fossil fuel products. It also includes electric distribution companies with corporate affiliates that derive revenue from fossil fuels."

"The College’s endowment will no longer be directly invested in fossil fuels and the Dartmouth Investment Office intends to allow its remaining public holdings in the sector to expire, according to an Oct. 8 announcement. Although this release marks the College’s first formal announcement of its divestment plan, the DIO banned fossil fuel holdings in 2020. The College’s divestment approach results from two decisions made over a four-year span: a 2017 decision that barred the endowment from making any “new investments in private fossil fuel extraction, exploration and production funds” and a decision in early 2020 “for [the College’s] direct public portfolio to no longer hold investments in fossil fuel companies,” according to the announcement. The move comes after Harvard University announced a similar divestment strategy in September, after the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report outlined the disastrous effects of continued climate inaction, after the student body presidents of the eight Ivy League schools called on the League to divest in April and after years of activism from Divest Dartmouth... According to the statement, “evidence that correlates the production of fossil fuels with the warming of the atmosphere is convincing and widely accepted.”"

"Over 550 students and alumni are calling on the University to divest from the U.S. prison system and publicly disclose its endowment holdings. “We, the undersigned, call upon the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) to immediately and unequivocally divest Princeton’s holdings from the Prison-Industrial Complex,” notes a petition by Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform (SPEAR)... The campaign broadens the definition of the prison complex system to include public prisons at the local, state, and federal levels. It also includes companies, such as Aramark, a food services corporation...that profit from the prison system... As of 2013, prisoners held in privately owned prisons constitute 8.4 percent of the total U.S. prison population... Such a small percentage makes the University’s divestment from private prisons “low-hanging fruit,” said Masha Miura ’21... Given the University’s renewed commitment “to identify specific actions that can be taken in their areas of responsibility to confront racism” in June — SPEAR leaders expect substantive change. For Miura, private and public prisons alike are enmeshed in capitalism. Private companies serving the prison system also receive funding from the government and actively marginalize and abuse people of color..."

"Together, these bylaws prohibit any future fossil fuel investments from entering the endowment....As the terms of these partnerships approach their legally-contracted conclusions… the [investment] managers will move through the sale processes of those assets... In the past few years... the College has found that the investment in sustainable energy companies provides great returns and also allows the College to support new technology developments and make a huge difference.... Our investment team’s analysis indicated that there is a continued growing global shift in demand towards renewable and clean energy,... What we’ve noticed is that investments in energy transitions are now comparable or better than the investment opportunities in fossil fuel companies...Our investment team’s analysis indicated that there is a continued growing global shift in demand towards renewable and clean energy... What we’ve noticed is that investments in energy transitions are now comparable or better than the investment opportunities in fossil fuel companies."

"Ultimately, nuclear weapons will be abolished. They will either be abolished through the means outlined in the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” and by divesting from them or, through their use in nuclear war, the aftermath of which may end all of life on this planet. The choice is ours. Our children and the future of the planet demand abolition now."

"We will not invest in our annihilation. Now we can avoid it... Our world and everything we care about is threatened every moment of every day by nuclear weapons, either by intent, accident, miscalculation or cyber-attack. These weapons, though now illegal following the July 2017 U.N. “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, adopted by 122 nations, continue to be modernized at an expected cost of $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years... Now is the time to stop the insanity and divest of nuclear weapons just as apartheid was ultimately stopped by divestment in South Africa. If we want to abolish nuclear weapons, we must stop investing in them. The just released “Don’t Bank On The Bomb“ report draws attention to the “Hall Of Shame” companies that are either financing or producing nuclear weapons and their components."

"The Vatican urged Catholics on Thursday to disinvest from the armaments and fossil fuel industries and to closely monitor companies in sectors such as mining to check if they are damaging the environment. The calls were contained in a 225-page manual for church leaders and workers to mark the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) on the need to protect nature, life and defenseless people. The compendium suggests practical steps to achieve the goals of the encyclical, which strongly supported agreements to contain global warming and warned against the dangers of climate change. The manual’s section on finance said people “could favor positive changes ... by excluding from their investments companies that do not satisfy certain parameters.” It listed these as respect for human rights, bans on child labor and protection of the environment... Last month, more that 40 faith organizations from around the world, more than half of them Catholic, pledged to divest from fossil fuel companies. The document urges Catholics to defend the rights of local populations to have a say in whether their lands can be used for oil or mineral extraction and the right to take strong stands against companies that cause environmental disasters or over-exploit natural resources such as forests."

"A movement to divest from fossil fuel is gaining support among foundations as activists push for funding to be shifted away from coal, oil and natural gas. The call from activists to the charitable world is simple: Ditch fossil fuels and direct your investments into climate-friendly companies and funds. The worldwide divestment campaign has sought commitments from universities, corporations and other entities. Now, two of the biggest names in philanthropy — the Ford and MacArthur foundations — are reorienting their investments away from fossil fuels, a move that leaders of the divestment movement hope will prove to be a tipping point for the charitable world.... “We’re calling on governments and corporations to act on climate aggressively and commensurate with the science,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund and a leader in Divest-Invest Philanthropy, which is pushing the philanthropic community to dump its fossil fuel investments.... The MacArthur Foundation, an $8 billion organization known for its “genius grants,” pledged two years ago to halt new investments in oil and gas. It went further in September, saying it would switch to U.S. index funds that exclude fossil fuel companies. And it's aiming to change its global index funds to do the same within a year."

"Divestment campaigns urge banks, local councils, churches, pension funds and universities to withdraw investments from all Israeli companies and from international companies involved in violating Palestinian rights... BDS initiatives have been passed by more than 50 councils in Spain and by dozens of other councils in the U.K., Australia, Sweden, Norway and Ireland. U.S. churches, including the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church (UMC), and several Quaker bodies have voted to divest from Israeli and international companies targeted by the BDS movement. Academic associations in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, South Africa and the U.K. have voted to support BDS. More than 30 U.S. student associations and 11 Canadian student associations have voted to support divestment from Israeli apartheid... The E.U. has introduced rules prohibiting funding of Israeli companies and bodies based in illegal Israeli settlements and has warned businesses about the risks of doing business with illegal Israeli settlements."

"[[w: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions|The BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement]] was launched in 2005 by representatives of Palestinian civil society. They called upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era …” This call for BDS specified that “these non-violent punitive measures” should last until Israel fully complies with international law..."

"In recent budget negotiations, Senate Democrats agreed to a boost in military spending that exceeded the cap for fiscal 2018 by $70 billion, bringing the total request to an enormous $716 billion... more Pentagon contracts will be awarded to private corporations that use endless war to line their pockets... If neither major political party will stand up to this status quo, what can be done? One answer might be found in the recent push to divest from fossil fuel companies undertaken by, among others, Norway and New York City. By December of 2016, 688 institutions, representing over $5 trillion in assets, had divested from fossil fuels... Author Naomi Klein described the fossil fuel divestment effort as “a process of delegitimizing” the sector and of affirming that it yields “odious profits.” An analogous campaign to delegitimize beneficiaries of war is long overdue."

"On October 27, University of Toronto (UofT) President Meric Gertler announced the university’s commitment to divest from fossil fuel companies within its endowment fund of $4 billion, citing findings from the United Nations and the World Health Organization on the impending climate crisis which “now demands bold actions that have both substantive and symbolic impact.” This divestment includes a pledge to divest from all direct investments in fossil fuel companies within the next 12 months... This decision follows those of many other universities across Canada and the United States in the past few years, including Concordia University in 2019 and Harvard University this past September....As of 2021, approximately 220 postsecondary institutions have divested from the fossil fuel industry. UofT’s decision was motivated by its perceived role as a leading academic institution to meet the “urgent challenge” of the climate crisis and its responsibility for the detrimental effects that will “disproportionately fall on students and generations of future students and children around the world.”"