Columns

LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Re: ‘Tracking the Fossil Fuel Divestment Dollars’

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To the Editor:

A Feb. 16th letter to the editor in this section claimed that “[d]ivestment would harm Cornell, reduce its influence and, most significantly, do absolutely nothing to fight climate change.” However, the analysis was incomplete and misleading. Divestment is a moral imperative for the University and a meaningful sanction for the fossil fuel industry. It’s hard to believe that Cornell’s endowment would suffer by removing assets which effectively did not grow over 10 years. Selling fossil fuel stocks, coupled with the shrinking investor market, makes them less valuable.

Opinion

KROLL | Our Hand in the Resource Curse

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The resource curse is as tragic as it is predictable. Blinded by the allure of exorbitant wealth, nations rich in nonrenewable resources like bronze, oil and uranium mismanage their economies, winding up with stagnant growth or financial collapse. Much of this pattern can be attributed to two behaviors. First, governments overemphasize the production of their most valuable resources, often creating economies that rely entirely on global demand for a small bundle of goods. If demand falls, the economy suffers.