CoF Post 3/24: Institutional Voice, meet Activist Voice
An exclusive news briefing to the Cornell on Fire movement relaying the unexpected events of March 2025. ACTIVISTS TAKE OVER CORNELL’S CLIMATE MESSAGING - CORNELL LAUNCHES TASK FORCE TO INVESTIGATE WHO HAS “INSTITUTIONAL VOICE” - ACTIVISTS TELL TRUSTEES: “OUR CORNELL!”
Cornell Declares a Climate Emergency
The extended Cornell Community received a stunning announcement today: Cornell has Declared a Climate Emergency and launched the Office of Climate Science and Activism to oversee 30 bold initiatives for climate action. The official pronouncement from the new Office landed on March 7, also declared national Stand Up For Science Day. Read on!
Announcing the Cornell on Fire Faculty Fellows
We have good news to announce in spite of world events. True, the news for our campus community has been grim. But if the attack on science and the academy’s values inspires you to act like never before, then you are not alone. We are thrilled to announce the Cornell on Fire Faculty Fellows program. Read how these Fellows are mobilizing academia to confront the climate crisis, starting right here at home.
CoF Post 2/13: A true story – decarbonization at a crossroads
Cornell’s decarbonization is at a crossroads. Much has transpired since we shared the white paper on Cornell’s decarbonization pathways with you on December 30. Here, we share highlights of recent developments and how the drama has caused us to reflect upon larger questions.
Newsletter #13: Who belongs on the climate front lines?
Lots of us are scared right now. Will we be punished for speaking truth to power, protesting, pushing back against injustice? Read this call to action from a professor, a student, and an administrator, united on the need for action. People often overestimate the risks of speaking up—that’s one of the ways we get misled into compliance and inaction. The truth is that collectively, we can distribute risk and apply positive pressure that transforms institutions.
CoF Post 1/20: An MLK Reflection
We observe Martin Luther King Day with a reflection on his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," penned in 1963 and precisely relevant today. King’s recognition that "we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality” made him "radical" in his day. That same recognition should make us all "radicals" today.
To be alive on earth today is to be an activist…or a moderate. Please be an activist.
Newsletter #12: Good Tidings of Decarbonization
Two of Cornell’s governing bodies weighed in on Cornell’s State of Sustainability this month, and their conclusions could not have been more divergent. As the administration doubled down on their well-intentioned incrementalism, the Student Assembly had enough: they advanced a resolution to dramatically expand and accelerate Cornell’s Climate Action Plan. We bring good tidings: the students are right, and a new white paper on Cornell’s Heating Decarbonization pathways underscores the strength of their case.
Post 12/6: AD White weighs in on the expressive policy
Andrew Dickson White has weighed in on the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity Draft Report Policy. Although hardly known as a man of principle (he was zealously involved in Indigenous dispossession), even he is perturbed by the administration’s silence and silencing in the face of an existential crisis. It is remarkable for one so long dead to send a message, but send a message he does: “The science is clear. Don’t look away. Don’t muzzle protesters. Declare a Climate Emergency.”
Newsletter #11: Thanksgiving and Mourning
This is a week of grieving and thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving season, we asked Robin Wall Kimmerer: what teachings are needed now for universities like Cornell? She pointed us to the principles of the Honorable Harvest. This Thanksgiving, we invite you to envision what an Honorable Harvest might look like in higher education. It’s an open call: will you help us experimentally apply these Indigenous principles to our shared predicament?
Cornell on Fire Post 11/6: On Love and Rage
Yesterday, half the people of the US voted for Trump. For many of us, the election results feel like hearing that someone (or everyone) we love is dying. But the day before the election, insights from a campus panel on “Indigenous Perspectives in Education” shed light on how to contain our rage and engage with multiple ways of knowing.
Cornell on Fire Post 10/24: The times they are a-changin’
Word is spreading. This week, an action by Cornell on Fire and co-organizers Fossil Free Cornell, Sunrise Movement Ithaca, TIAA-Divest!, and the Cornell chapter of the Association of American University Professors (AAUP) made front page news in the Ithaca Voice. Their message to Cornell’s Council and Trustees: for earth’s sake, stand up or step aside.
Cornell on Fire Post 10/11: The sound of a policy backfiring
“Actions have consequences.” And the consequences of the Cornell administration’s repressive expressive policy actions have been swift and unequivocal: they have masterfully backfired. Their willingness to walk so far out on the quaking branch of overreaching authority reflects the degree to which they fear activism that dares to go beyond sidewalk-chalk to engage in actual protest and civil disobedience.
Cornell on Fire Post 9/26: Three transmissions
We write to transmit three tidings of mixed import (bad news/good news), and invite you to build upon the "good news" side of the equations with us. Read on for compelling new evidence to support the adage: Never doubt that a small group of the committed can change the world.
Cornell on Fire Post 9/11: A Love Poem
We present a love poem dedicated to Cornell's own anti-science consultants and their Cornell paycheck-writers. Titled "In this House We Believe Science is Real," this poem commemorates the twisted romance between a world-class research institution and a bottom-class lobbyist firm engaged in an astoturf campaign to greenwash the health and environmental impacts of plastic grass.
Cornell on Fire: A call from our alliance partners
While CoF is regenerating, our Alliance Partners are calling for concerned citizens and Cornellians to add their names to a public sign-on letter calling for sound science and democratic participation around Cornell's proposed artificial turf fields.
Cornell on Fire Weekly 7/5: On regeneration
Cornell on Fire will take a regenerative break in July to slow up and dig deeper, while some of us remain active in working groups. As we take a regenerative pause, we are grateful that earth has never taken a moment’s pause from supporting our lives. This month, we invite each one of you to actively contemplate what it will take to create the world we wish to live in.
Cornell on Fire Weekly 6/20: We’ve always done it this way
We are alive at a time when the way things have “always” been is no longer a good guide to the future. But this simple point is hypnotically hard to communicate. On this Summer Solstice, consider four true stories…and imagine changing our lives for the vastly more beautiful. To the miracle of the commons!
Cornell on Fire Weekly 6/12: On disruptive action
Our banner action last Friday calls for two confessions and a question: what constitutes disruptive action?
Cornell on Fire Weekly 6/5: Earthside
The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable: we are in the middle of a climate catastrophe. The Climate Defiance movement has been calling on people to “drop everything” and act. Why don’t we? Together, we have immense power to help Cornell lead by example in the transition we all desperately need.
Poem: Extrapolation of the Facts
A poem by Cornell undergraduate Lee Linus Jing Wo, on the pretty lies of fossil fuels that lead us to our grave.