
“Fossil Fuel Divestment and Climate Change Communication,” ORE Climate Science featured article July 2017.
Since 2012, the fossil fuel divestment movement has expanded beyond college campuses in the United States and United Kingdom to include 688 institutions, in 76 countries, and 58,399 individual investors, with commitments totally more than $5 trillion dollars. In an article published in June by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, along with Luis Hestres of the University of Texas at San Antonio, I examine the origins, growth and arguments for and against divestment from the fossil fuel industry.
The article is the ORE Climate Science featured article for the month of July. In December it will appear in print in the new Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication, edited by Matthew Nisbet of Northeastern University. As Nisbet writes:
“Until now, however, there has not existed a leading scholarly outlet where the broad range of climate change communication, media and public opinion research is reviewed, synthesized, and critiqued; or translated in relation to other disciplines and professions. To address this gap, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication is a curated series of 115 original peer-reviewed articles published in print and digital format, and by way of the web-based Oxford Research Encyclopedia (ORE) Climate Science. The collected articles comprehensively review research on climate change communication, advocacy, media and cultural portrayals, and their relationship to societal decisions, public knowledge, perceptions, and behavior. Co-authored by more than 250 experts representing more than a dozen disciplines and twenty countries.”