On the evening of Sept. 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast. The Category 4 storm intensified unusually quickly, ravaging communities across the Southeast. In the days that followed, Helene would cause unconscionable devastation. As we write this, the storm has killed over 220 people, with over 600 more still missing. It left millions without access to power and did incomprehensible damage to critical infrastructure. Entire towns were erased overnight.
The damage that the storm has done to the South is difficult to overstate, and unfortunately, it will not be the last of its kind.
As residents of Atlanta, Georgia and Durham, North Carolina, the past several days have been a blur of emotions. First, there was shock and disbelief: this isn’t supposed to happen; our homes are far from the coast and usually insulated from powerful storms. Then, there was intense grief and fear: for our cities, but especially for our neighboring communities where the devastation was so much worse — our hearts break for Asheville, Tampa, Augusta and all the places that have borne the brunt of Helene’s destruction. We spent our weekend reaching out to our friends and families as they made evacuation plans despite interstates being cut off by immense flooding. But most of all, there has been intense anger. We are furious because we know that this did not have to happen. Hurricane Helene was not a “natural” disaster, but a crime. And we know who committed it: the fossil fuel industry.
It is undeniable that Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic impact was caused by the actions of the fossil fuel industry. The storm’s rapid intensification was the result of unusually warm air and water temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The climate crisis has transformed climate disasters like Helene from rare tragedies into routine catastrophes. In the past eight years, there have been eight Category 4 or 5 hurricane landfalls in the U.S. — that’s as many as in the 57 previous years combined.
The fossil fuel industry has committed itself to deceiving the public about the reality and severity of climate change while doubling down on the burning of oil and gas to generate record-breaking profits. During their decades-long disinformation campaign, fossil fuel companies have made universities priority pawns in their distortion of the truth. Over the past decade alone, the industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding climate research at influential institutions across the world.
Research that is funded by fossil fuel companies tends to be biased towards the industry’s interests, whether by deemphasizing the urgency of decarbonization or by promoting unworkable solutions that deepen our dependence on fossil fuels. This pernicious practice has dramatically slowed the global transition away from fossil fuels, and thus directly enabled disasters like Helene to ravage our homes and communities.
Brown is complicit in this.
Over the past two decades, fossil fuel companies have funded at least 63 academic journal articles published by Brown-affiliated authors. Brown has also received over $20 million from organizations affiliated with the fossil fuel industry and climate disinformation. The top funders — British Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell — are among the guiltiest perpetrators of the climate crisis.
Since spring 2023, Sunrise Brown has pressured the University to fully dissociate from the fossil fuel industry by severing all financial and social ties with the industry, primarily by adopting a Fossil Free Research policy. Such a policy would prohibit the University from accepting gifts and grants from fossil fuel companies and their affiliated foundations. This is a core component of Sunrise’s DIRE campaign, which seeks to address the climate crisis by attacking the power of the fossil fuel industry and building a better, environmentally-just future in its place. DIRE is an abbreviation of the two core principles we demand of Brown: dissociation (from the fossil fuel industry) and respect (for the city of Providence).
Sunrise has spent over a year navigating the Advisory Committee on University Resource Management in pursuit of Fossil Free Research. In June, ACURM sent its recommendations on Fossil Free Research to President Christina Paxson. Despite hearing repeated requests from the group, the University has yet to acknowledge the recommendation or make its contents publicly available. This lack of statement is a statement in and of itself. In this time of crisis, there is a clear choice in front of President Paxson: to stand with the destructive fossil fuel industry, or to stand with her students, whose communities have been — and will continue to be — its victims.
Currently, Brown’s research legitimizes and uplifts the industry that has caused unimaginable death and devastation for the sake of profit. Through its financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, Brown directly enables the companies which caused Hurricane Helene to demolish our home states. There is another choice to be made — Brown can dissociate from the fossil fuel industry by refusing to accept its bloody money for research or any other purposes. Christina Paxson must acknowledge ACURM’s recommendations concerning Fossil Free Research and commit to a policy firmly prohibiting fossil fuel funding at Brown.
As the path to recovery in our home states remains unclear, our anger and grief will only deepen. Much of what Hurricane Helene has taken from us can never be recovered. We’ve lost history, community, and a sense of safety. The South will carry the scars of Helene until the next disaster hits our community even harder.
Brown states its mission as being to “serve the community, the nation and the world.” If the University intends to fulfill this promise, it cannot continue to allow itself to be a pawn of the industry that is willingly destroying our communities, our nation, and our world.
Garrett Brand '26 and Chloe Daniel '27 can be reached at garrett_brand@brown.edu and chloe_daniel@brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
