On June 15, Professor Cyrus Taylor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Truman Scholar and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, stood before a crowd of eager Case Western Reserve University environmentalists. The group had gathered in attendance for Taylor’s lecture titled “10 Things I Want You to Know About Climate Change.” Taylor delivered his presentation in clinical fashion. Each slide building logically upon the last, he described, as only an expert could, exactly how western corporations created—and currently perpetuate—the global climate crisis.

Professor Taylor is undoubtedly a brilliant man; however, his words seem to have fallen on deaf ears that day, and ever since. Across our campus there exists a severe misunderstanding as to who is truly responsible for the climate crisis. Talking with students and staff, I have found that many feel a sense of personal culpability. Some have asked me how they can best reduce their “carbon footprints.” This jargon refers to the estimated carbon output of an individual according to their lifestyle. Often, the term accompanies a philosophy that blames citizens, not industry, for the ongoing climate crisis.

In truth, ordinary citizens contribute relatively little to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—the vast majority actually come from corporations. In fact, roughly 71% of all emissions since 1988 came from only 100 companies. What about energy consumption? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “residential” use constitutes around a third of American electricity consumption. Again, the industrial and commercial sectors deserve the lion’s share of liability. How about plastic waste? Take a guess. In 2019, just 20 companies created over half of the world’s 130 million metric tons of single-use plastic waste. These figures should not discourage us from pursuing sustainable lifestyles, but they should refocus our attention to the crisis’ root cause: corporate power and the institutions that uphold it.

Though CWRU is quick to boast about its prolific undergraduate STEM research, the institution works hard to sell unscientific climate narratives. Both the university’s 2011 Climate Action Plan (CAP) and 2020 CAP Refresh overemphasize the responsibility of students and staff in achieving carbon-neutrality by 2050. In reality, “residential” GHG emissions account for solely 10% of campus-wide emissions. Simultaneously, the administration employs misleading statistics to present its failures as successes. The 2020 Refresh exaggerated the significance of its partial 2018 transition from coal to natural gas and expects to “offset” 29% of remaining emissions. Essentially, these GHGs will still burn, and CWRU will pay to “protect” unthreatened forested land as recompense. When all is said and done, the burden will fall, once again, squarely on the shoulders of ordinary people.

Even the CWRU Climate Action Network (CAN), an organization of which Professor Taylor is a founding member, is guilty of harping on individual behavior while ignoring that of the CWRU institution. For example, the CAN’s 2022 Climate Action Week Pledge calls on students to forego personal energy usage by planning a “daylight-only” day, air-drying laundry and taking stairs in place of elevators. Requests range from the frivolous “get a cone instead of a cup at Mitchell’s” to the grave “skip a trip” to avoid burning gasoline fuel. These proposed solutions seem to inhibit students and staff for no good reason. What good does climate action serve when it protects the guiltiest at the expense of the most innocent?

When the CWRU administration asks students and staff to solve the climate crisis on its behalf, it prescribes ineffective solutions to climate issues. Whereas legitimate climate solutions attribute proportionate responsibility to all culpable parties, CWRU’s solutions attribute disproportionate responsibility to the most disadvantaged—and least culpable—parties. Obviously, there is no reason a physically disabled community member should have to take a staircase over an elevator. There is no reason a student paying thousands for university housing should have to live in darkness after sunset. There is no reason a near minimum-wage staff member should have to “skip a trip” to the grocery store. These expectations degrade us and deny our humanity. Ironically, the fact that our institution fails to present more practical and just climate solutions suggests a fundamental inability to “think beyond the possible.”

If CWRU truly cared about “cultivating the citizenry of its students,” as the 2020 CAP Refresh suggests, it would prioritize climate justice. To actively organize our community in pursuit of fair and effective climate action is a far higher mark of citizenry than to passively internalize climate disinformation. Ultimately, collective action, not individual scrutiny, will bring about the change that eludes our campus. Various student-led organizations, including the Student Sustainability Council and Sunrise CWRU, have undertaken this objective thus far. Nonetheless, we are all entitled to organize for our community and planet as we see fit. A year ago, Professor Taylor identified Ohio’s legislatures and courts as emerging battlegrounds for climate action, but with CWRU’s Fall 2023 Climate Action Week approaching rapidly, his words take on new meaning. Indeed, “local battles will be key to winning the war.”