AC Response | Hugh Truempi
Hugh Truempi is a senior undergraduate student at Creighton University pursing a degree Economics with minors in Cultural Anthropology and Sustainability. He is a founding member and organizer of the Creighton Climate Movement, a recently formed coalition of students working for institutional climate action on their campus. He feels most alive on a bicycle, yoga mat, or as an outsider when immersed in a culture other than his own.
During my time as a student at Creighton University, my awakening to the disturbing reality of the climate crises lead me to reflect on my lifestyle and make some changes to lower my individual carbon footprint. However, as the world around me went on business-as-usual, despair, hopelessness, and anxiety began to creep in. For many of my peers at Creighton, a similar phenomenon was taking place.
Watching the rise of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement inundate Europe and spread to cities around the globe brought inspiration to me and many of my classmates. However, merely coming together to discuss our concerns and cheer on Greta did not sufficiently put us at ease. With no effective outlet for our anxieties on campus, or in Omaha in general, we decided to create our own. After all, if 16-year-old Greta can pull over a million students around the world to the streets on a school day, we could surely mobilize Creighton’s already well-connected campus, we thought. We also hoped that adding Omaha to the network of youth-driven climate movements in cities around the world would create an increased sense of urgency around the climate crises within the Omaha community.
As word spread across campus, our small group rapidly expanded. The idea of a large and diverse, unofficial student movement demanding institutional change was unheard of at Creighton, and our cause—climate action—organically drew broad student support. Two weeks following our initial meeting, with the end of the semester approaching, we held our first demonstration where we demanded university administration to act on our top three priorities: fossil fuel divestiture, a revised carbon neutrality goal aligned with both science and our institutional mission, and climate change education as a requirement for all students.
The event was powerful, to say the least. I have vivid memories standing in the sprinkling rain alongside nearly 250 members of the Creighton community, before heading to class to take a final exam. We stood side by side as a student gave a speech from the steps of St. John’s church, calling for bold climate action and reminding administration of the university’s professed values. The event gave us purpose and meaning; our anxiety was substituted with hope and a sense of agency. The following day, we named ourselves the Creighton Climate Movement, and immediately began strategizing for the following semester.
Ten months have passed since this demonstration, and our group has nearly tripled in size. This past November, we passed a referendum calling for partial divestment from fossil fuels over the next five years, and full divestiture by the time we reach carbon neutrality. Despite passing with an 86 percent majority, and a notably high voter turnout, the university swiftly responded with its decision to reject the referendum and refrain from divesting. Realizing the apparent triviality of our collective voice as students (not to mention the yet-to-be refuted moral and financial arguments that support it) was certainly unsettling, but the coinciding unveiling of the institutional power structure added commitment and energy to our movement. Moving forwards, our plan is to employ more creative tactics targeted at those who hold the bulk of the decision making power when it comes to divestment: the university Board of Trustees.
We believe that through bold creativity and long term commitment, we will indeed achieve our goal of fossil fuel divestment. Just as important, though, is the fact that we are taking part in the creation of a future that we desire, and as a result, filled with hope.