McGill

Compost Pilot Project to tentatively launch in La Citadelle Residence

As part of the McGill Vision 2020 plan to introduce environmentally-sustainable operations on campus,  McGill’s Facilities Management and Ancillary Services department is implementing the Zero Waste Project, which will introduce compost bins across campus. Composting is the natural biological process in which various microorganisms decompose organic waste—such as food scraps,[Read More…]

McGill professors debate the effectiveness of fossil fuel divestment

“The research shows that [divestment] does make a difference,” Mikkelson said. “The most comprehensive study [of divestment movements] was done at Oxford, and they looked at other divestment campaigns that didn’t necessarily cripple the industries they were targeting, but what they did do is make a big public impact, and that spurred governments to take action [….] Divestment creates impact by raising awareness, stigmatizing target companies, and influencing legislation.”

Etzion further emphasized the status of divestment as a social rather than economic movement.

“I don’t really perceive [fossil fuel divestment] as a financial tactic,” Etzion said. “It’s about something much bigger than what you invest in, it’s actually a social movement. And the objective of this tactic is to de-legitimize an entire industry. [Universities] are very influential in how the world perceives issues, and [divestment] empowers people to envision a world that is not running on a path to destruction.”

Read the latest issue

Read the latest issue