Good news we could easily miss ...

The University of California announced Tuesday that it has fully divested from all fossil fuels, the nation’s largest educational institution to do so as campaigns to fight climate change through investment strategies proliferate at campuses across the country.

The UC milestone capped a five-year effort to move the public research university system’s $126-billion portfolio into more environmentally sustainable investments, such as wind and solar energy. UC officials say their strategy is grounded in concerns about the planet’s future and in what makes financial sense.

“As long-term investors, we believe the university and its stakeholders are much better served by investing in promising opportunities in the alternative energy field rather than gambling on oil and gas,” Richard Sherman, chair of the UC Board of Regents’ investments committee, said in a statement.

Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

The article goes on to discuss quite thoroughly the long history of activism to force public institutions out of thrall to dirty energy giants. Hampshire College, a prestigious though precarious, institution led the way as far back as 2011. Other prestigious universities such as Harvard and Stanford seem on a path to follow. But U.C. is the big fish setting a path for academia.

University divestment signals that our best minds and scientists know that fossil fuels are a dead end. That matters.

Some of these bristlecone pines have survived over 4000 years. We can try to let them live another millennium by preserving the harsh habitat in the White Mountains where they thrive.