Love letter to our critics
Newsletter #26 is a love letter to our critics. Our valentine speaks to those who find our work too confrontational, too satirical, or too disruptive. We explain why we’ve chosen our course on these issues: Namely, because corporations like Cornell don’t have a conscience. We are your bad conscience – and a conscience is love in action. Compassion moves us to call out carbon injustice, but we’re not always agreed or certain that we’re right. If you still disagree with our methods after reading this valentine, please continue to let us know – and please pursue the same goals your way!
Students want climate action
Newsletter #25 brings you student views on the climate crisis and Cornell’s role in it. As a freshly passed Student Assembly resolution asks Cornell to cut ties with fossil fuels, new student research projects shed light on the knowledge and sentiment behind collective appeals on this topic from across campus, and on peers’ personal journeys through climate breakdown. Students are asking for more from Cornell. Will the administration listen?
Faces to Phrases: Cornellians speak on the climate crisis
A student capstone project with Cornell on Fire leveraged a creative strategy to bring the climate crisis into personal focus. Scroll through their visual collage that puts faces to phrases in order to express the Cornell community’s thoughts on the climate crisis.
Climate and Kinship
In a guest post for Cornell on Fire, Professor Eric Cheyfitz asserts that the Western approach to climate collapse fails to pay serious attention to an Indigenous kinship point of view. He foregrounds insights from Indigenous scholars on ecological and social tipping points to ask: Will Cornell develop a plan, in consultation with and with the consent of traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership, to take responsibility for climate health on the university’s site on what remain of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ lands?
Cornell Sustainability Summit: Seasonal Sadness
Our special newsletter orients you to 6 key questions that need to be answered at the upcoming Sustainable Cornell Summit on Monday, December 8. In years past, this annual event has neglected to provide quantitative reports on Cornell’s progress towards climate goals. We share Cornell’s own (disappointing) data, draw out the key issues, and note what to expect of a Sustainability Summit focused on climate action, not brand management.
The settlement, TCAT, and Cornell’s hypocrisy
Newsletter #23 analyzes the principles revealed by Cornell’s settlement with Trump’s regime - which are diametrically opposed to the principles they claim to value in their negotiations with the local TCAT bus service. Corporate Cornell’s latest moves betray their core values, their community, and their climate commitments while treating one thing as sacred above all else: their ballooning endowment.
Institutional Voice from the grave
Newsletter #22 reviews Cornell’s draft report on “Institutional Voice,” concluding that its primary intent is to kill voice. The policy contends that “discretion,” rather than speech, is often more strategic for the university. This underpins a series of warnings to deans, departments, and units to restrain their speech. Faculty, students, and staff must wrestle power out of the hands of authoritarian bureaucrats, whose protestations of “neutrality” hide a conflict of interest.
Thrones are empty for a reason
On the eve of No Kings Day, we update you on the latest developments in Cornell’s campus authoritarianism. More to the point, we highlight action steps to join the resistance (if you’re one of those people who can’t see yourself becoming the subject of a king, on campus or otherwise). Sneak peek: Sign the student petition referendum for a democratic code of conduct, sign the No Loyalty Oaths petition for US universities, and show up for No Kings Day tomorrow!
Cornell program trains students to greenwash fracking
We call out a Cornell Dyson School project that trains students to lead the fossil-fuel industry’s climate denial. Project PulsePoint: Promoting Transparency & Sustainability, USA aims to “[d]evelop a public relations program to strengthen stakeholder engagement and trust for Repsol’s operations in the Marcellus Shale.” Why is Cornell educating students to greenwash the life-threatening fracking industry?
Cornell has a gas problem
Newsletter #21 gives the scoop on what’s happened since our Decarbonization Report provoked an op-ed from President Kotlikoff and a flurry of public presentations from Cornell. There are positive signs that Ithaca will hold the line on their fossil-fuel phaseout law by requiring compliance from Cornell — but larger forces indicate that Cornell won’t solve their gas problem without bottom-up pressure. Read on to help us do so.
Your rights are subject to police discretion
The day after Banksy’s protest art was scrubbed from London’s Royal Courts of Justice, we received Cornell’s official answer as to why Cornell Police shut down our graduation protests on May 24: According to CUPD, punishments are issued at the “discretion” of police, unburdened by reference to policy and unconstrained by rights to free speech. We disclose our institutional correspondence with CUPD and offer conclusions about Cornell’s revealed free speech policy.
A great university, about to self-destruct
Cornell on Fire Newsletter #20 welcomes you back to campus with two questions. (1) Besieged and ransomed by fascists, will Cornell restore its original mission or betray it? We lay out the possibilities for positive transformation. (2) Will you help TAKE BACK THE UNIVERSITY? Join campus groups for a rally this Thursday, 8/28 from 12-1pm on Ho Plaza with march to Day Hall! This is the best possible time to resist fascism. In the absence of resistance, it’s all downhill from here.
Foes in the Right Places
Our Newsletter #19 issue updates from a hot July, inspired by legal cases posing the question: Will Cornell side with climate activists or climate criminals? Unfortunately, they’re currently criminalizing the activists and lionizing the criminals. But it’s not too late for Cornell to side with Youth and the International Court of Justice to protect their students’ human rights to a livable planet.
Free Expression Unwelcome Here!
As freedom of expression narrows on all sides, one would hope that Cornell would stand up for public freedoms. If only this were so. Instead, the Cornell administration seeks to distance itself from the "woke" university stereotype by repressing legitimate protest and undermining their own institution's "indispensable condition" - freedom of expression. The stakes keep growing while those in power suppress dissent under the usual fascist pretense of a “national emergency” while ignoring the real climate emergency.
Expressive Activity: Theory vs Practice
On Graduation Day, Cornell authorities quashed our climate protests and catapulted them into front-page news that catalyzed solidarity across the movement. Help us subvert their attempt to silence our message by amplifying it!
CoF Post 5/12: Nonviolent direct evidence
Thanks to all who joined our public lecture that took to the streets on May 2! “How to Disrupt Fossil-Fuel Business-as-Usual” was a rousing success. Here, we explain the research findings that inspired our experimental event to ignite direct participation in climate action and invite you to further inform the results.
Newsletter #16: Doggedly Sustaining the Status Quo
April was “Sustainability Month” at Cornell, and it was frankly unbelievable. We provide a roundup of Cornell’s real, unexaggerated accomplishments over the course of the month. It was a raging success in sustaining the status quo. The only way forward is for ordinary folks to begin cordially disrupting fossil fuel business-as-usual. Join us at 11:15am this Friday, May 2 to begin studying our options at an unusual public lecture with Kevin Young and Bill McKibben. Not to be missed!
CoF Post 4/22: An unusual development
After months of advocating for Cornell to provide relevant education, we’re taking action to help them do so: Join us on Friday, May 2, for an unusual public lecture on “HOW TO DISRUPT FOSSIL-FUEL BUSINESS-AS-USUAL” with Kevin Young and Bill McKibben.
CoF Post 4/11: Notes from the above-ground
If the Cornell administration thinks it’s hard to do research on a $1-billion funding cut, they should try doing research on a dead planet. American democracy (such as it is) is imperiled. As we fight back, let’s keep the long view and tend to what matters: life on earth. In that spirit, we share notes and invite you to join our latest efforts to raise the cost of the status quo for those who would pursue climate business as usual.
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!”