Sense and sustainability

New movement aims to take campus radicalism beyond the classroom | Janie B. Cheaney

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," but you could have fooled the 648 college presidents who have signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) since 2006. The earth is theirs, to make or break.

Academic fads come, but over the last 40 years they haven't completely gone. The student uprisings of the late 1960s led to identity politics, which cleared the way for political correctness, which solidified into multiculturalism and "diversity." The ACUPCC pulls all these together under the rubric of "sustainability." Sustainability has a much broader application than clean air and water; it's a doctrine and a worldview that aims to influence every academic discipline. Its success so far is remarkable. "Five years ago, it [the sustainability movement] did not exist," writes Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars. "Today it is nearly everywhere, and declares itself as having over­whelming importance."