A student movement is attempting to make SIU greener, but not in the conventional way.

Students Embracing Nature, Sensibility and Environmentalism, Gaia House, Buckminister Fuller Future registered student organization and the Geography Club have teamed up to promote a petition that encourages SIU to stop investing in fossil fuel companies.

Currently, SIU has an endowment of $100 million. That money is invested into stocks, bonds and mutual funds in an attempt to increase the value.

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This petition calls for all money invested in fossil fuel firms through mutual funds and stocks to be removed and allocated elsewhere.

Gabe Garcia, a senior from Chicago studying geography and one of the organizers of the petition, said the campaign is an attempt to take on fossil fuel companies where it would hurt the most: their pockets.

“This campaign aims to reveal the immorality of the situation that fossil fuel companies are one of the largest emitters of pollution and have zero interest in preventing devastating climate impacts, yet they don’t have to pay for dumping their waste,” he said. “Our campaign wants to get our institution to divest from those acts and everything that’s incorporated with it, and hopefully invest in more positive future investments that don’t harm the environment.”

The movement is part of 350.org’s national movement to encourage institutions to stop investing in fossil fuel companies. Several schools and large cities have already announced their intention to join the initiative, including Hampshire College, Unity College, Naropa University and San Francisco State University and the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland, Ore.

SIU would be the largest school to commit if it decided to join the initiative.

The name 350.org comes from the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air. To prevent runaway climate change the air must have fewer than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide.

Audrey Wagner, a lecturer teaching courses in geography and environmental studies, said we are well above a dangerous point.

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“If we stay on the track that we’re on right now it’s really bad,” she said. “Currently our carbon dioxide concentration is close to 400 parts per million. With less than that even, we are looking at a two degree Celsius rise since the 1800s.”

Wagner said this change could cause a chain reaction. She said with more heat, and therefore more energy, in the atmosphere, severe storms and droughts could affect the food supply.

“It’s like Jenga,” she said. “You’re putting strain on pieces and then the structure is at risk.”

Wagner said there currently are five times the amount of fossil fuels available for use than the earth can sustain. She said burning all of those would be catastrophic.

These statistics led to the student groups deciding in March 2013 to join the 350.org initiative, Garcia said.

Jessica Crowe, an assistant professor in sociology and supporter of the petition, said attacking the companies financially is a new angle at solving the problem of climate change.

“It’s a social movement,” she said. “It’s bottom up and having students understand what climate change is and understanding human contributions to climate change and particularly the consumption of fossil fuels. By taking measures at an institutional level by making fossil fuel stocks morally and financially unattractive, rather than at an individual level such as riding a bike, will be more effective in slowing down how much fossil fuel is burned.”

Erin Carman-Sweeney, a senior from Carbondale studying geography and environmental resources, and one of the organizers of the petition, said ending fossil fuel investments was also a practical matter.

“There’s a moral argument for doing this. Climate change affects everyone,” he said. “But there’s also the economic argument that as countries take action to deal with climate change and impose more regulations, a lot of this carbon is going to be stranded assets. If we intend to prevent the worst-case scenarios of climate change those reserves can’t be burned and fossil fuel companies can’t profit from them”

Carman-Sweeney said while SIU could do little alone, the campaign was about the message SIU sends to the public.

“It’s not going to bankrupt the fossil fuel industry or anything,’ he said. “But the whole point is that if SIU is concerned about climate change, they wouldn’t be investing in industries that base their stock prices on burning carbon reserves that every climate scientist says must stay in the ground.”

Rae Goldsmith, the chief marketing and communications officer for SIU, said the university did not have a formal statement about the petition as it is a brand new initiative, but they will look into it.

An open forum concerning the initiative and climate change featuring professors is taking place Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Morris Library’s Guyon Auditorium. To find out more about the petition, visit http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/southern-illinois-university-carbondale.