Climate change is not a novel idea. The hypothesis that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be correlated to rising global temperatures was documented by scientists as far back as the 1930s. In 1965, Lyndon B Johnson was the first American president warned of climate change by scientists. As early as the late 1950s, the oil industry began to understand the impact of fossil fuels on climate; internal memos from Exxon in the late 70’s showed that the company was well aware that their products would have “dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050.”

Despite right-wing theories depicting universities as threats to [capitalist] society, academia serves as the primary institution in the reproduction of bourgeois ways of thinking.