Hundreds of Climate Change Activists Delayed the Harvard-Yale Football Game

Climate change activists interrupted and delayed the Harvard-Yale football game for a half hour as halftime was ending on Saturday. More than a hundred students and alumni took over the Yale field, CNN reported.

The student organizers said over 200 people interrupted the game. Activists held a banner reading “Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice.” Activists ran onto the field as halftime was concluding and ended up delaying the game by about 20 minutes, CNN reported. Eventually, police escorted people off the field.

The students groups, Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard, Fossil Free Yale and yale endowment justice coalition, are demanding the universities — essentially — treat climate change like the crisis it is.

“Harvard and Yale claim their goal is to create student leaders who can strive toward a more ‘just, fair, and promising world’ by ‘improving the world today and for future generations.’ Yet by continuing to invest in industries that mislead the public, smear academics, and deny reality, Harvard and Yale are complicit in tearing down that future,” the student groups said in a joint statement.

“We demand that our universities take responsibility for their role in perpetuating the climate crisis and global climate injustice — we call on Harvard and Yale to fully disclose, divest, and reinvest their holdings in the fossil fuel industry, putting an end to business as usual and taking meaningful action towards building a more just and stable future.”

The Harvard football captain, Wesley Ogsbury, and the team supported the protest. “But at this moment, both of our institutions continue to invest in the industries destroying our futures,” Ogsbury said in a video shared on Twitter. “When it comes to the climate crisis, no one wins.”

He said the two historic rivals are using the rivalry game to come together for a greater cause. “Harvard and Yale can’t claim to truly promote knowledge while at the same time supporting the companies engaged in misleading the public, smearing academics and denying the truth. That’s why we’re joining together with our friends at Yale to call for change,” Osbury said.