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!”
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.
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.
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 4/17
Five days until we Reclaim Earth Day for climate justice! Our most provocative and primary demand is decolonization. Climate justice communities are the essential power for climate action because they offer a way of being that is decolonized. Here is what they say: Your society has lied to you. The earth is not a resource to be exploited, but a relation to be honored and tended.
Cornell on Fire Weekly 4/10
If you felt communion under hushed and darkened skies on Tuesday, please channel that collective recognition. We can mobilize around the path of habitability just as we did for the path of totality. Just as we left work, skipped class, and shut down business for personal totality on April 8th, we can do so to Reclaim Earth Day for collective survival on April 22nd. (Minus the emissions, obv.)
Cornell on Fire Weekly 4/3/24
Because the hundreds of you on this list have never met one another, we wanted to share some inspiring words from four of your fellow listserv members. Why now? Each story below offers a meditation on risk.
Cornell on Fire Weekly 3/27
The Cornell Trustees have departed after a highly-protested visit to campus. We learned three lessons.
Quiet Success: Trustee meditation protest
A synopsis of the meditation protest held at the Cornell Board of Trustees meeting on March 22, 2024.
Cornell on Fire Weekly 3/6/24
Cornell on Fire met with the Carbon Neutral Campus Committee yesterday. We asked them to demonstrate radical climate leadership by committing to a 1.5 degree pathway and leading with insights from climate justice communities. Their response? “Meh.”