This week the Green Amherst Project is holding a week of action in an attempt to convince Amherst’s board of trustees to divest from the coal industry.

The week kicked off on Thursday, Nov. 13 with an event called “Climate Change 101: How to Talk to Climate Change Deniers,” which included an introduction to the science supporting climate change and a discussion of the most common arguments made by climate change deniers. The group followed this event with a T-shirt-making event on Friday and an event on Monday called “The Frontline Speaks” in which students shared their personal experiences with climate change. On Tuesday, some senior Amherst administrators led a discussion in Frost Library about ways to address climate change.

On Wednesday, the group will hold a demonstration at 6:30 p.m. in Valentine Dining Hall. The week will conclude this Thursday, when members of the Green Amherst Project will deliver a letter formally asking the board of trustees to divest.

For the past two years, the Green Amherst Project and other supporters have requested the board of trustees to divest from the coal industry, but they have yet to receive an official response. Recently, 22 Amherst professors sent a letter to President Biddy Martin and Cullen Murphy ’74, chairman of the board of trustees, requesting that the board divest from the fossil fuel industry. The letter discussed the effect that the coal industry has had on the global climate and cited the successful divestment from apartheid-era South Africa as precedent.

Jan Dizard, a professor of sociology, environmental studies and American studies at Amherst, was one of the 22 professors involved. Dizard also spoke at the Green Amherst Project’s event about talking to climate change deniers.

“My colleagues and I felt that the time was right to put this on the table forcefully,” Dizard said. “Not in a coercive way or an angry way.”

Dizard also said that the burden has been put on the private sector to divest because the upcoming Congress will obstruct legislation restricting carbon dioxide emissions.

Green Amherst Project member Brian Zayatz ’18 said that GAP is asking for Amherst to divest from coal particularly because it is the “dirtiest fossil fuel.”

Ben Walker ’16, a main organizer of the week of events, said that the week of action was motivated by a concern about the global impact of climate change.

“Climate change is the defining issue of our time because it affects everyone,” Walker said. “Whether you live in the Upper East Side, whether you are living in the suburbs of Atlanta, whether you are living on the coast of Western Africa, you are affected in some way by climate change.”

Walker said that this issue is important to Amherst in particular because of the school’s focus on diversity.

“Climate change disproportionately affects working class communities, people of color and women,” Walker said. “The problem right now is that the marginalization [of these] communities is being exacerbated by climate change, whether you want to believe in climate change science or not.”

However, not all Amherst students share this opinion favoring divestment from the fossil fuel industry.

Maximos Nikitas ’17 cited economic concerns in explaining his opposition to the divestment movement.

“I think we should consider the benefits that [fossil fuel industries] can have on investments for the school,” Nikitas said.

Neither Walker nor Dizard believes that the board will immediately approve divestment from the coal industry. Dizard said that after participating in efforts to divest from South Africa, he knows that this process may take a long time. However, members of the Green Amherst Projects say they will continue applying pressure to the board.

“We are trying to show that we haven’t forgotten about [divestment] and that we are going to keep applying pressure until [the board] gives us an answer,” Zayatz said. “If they say no, we are going to keep asking them for it.”