What is the PCAC?
The Purdue Climate Action Collective is a group of over 400 students, faculty and staff at Purdue University (West Lafayatte campus) who take climate change, and our responsibility to do everything we can to mitigate it, seriously. We want to see the campus where we live, work and study doing more to reduce its planet-warming emissions.
Core Beliefs
- Climate change is the most pressing issue of our day.
- All institutions—large and small—have an obligation to decarbonize.
- Justice demands that we who have benefited from years of burning fossil fuels lead the way to a greener, more sustainable future.
- Huising and Aron are right that universities have a particular responsibility to move away from fossil fuels.
- We must heed the United Nations' IPCC report that says we must decarbonize “this decade” in order to avoid the worst effects upon our environment.
- These efforts must start now.
Timeline
Fall 2022
PCAC begins as a group of faculty concerned about Purdue's commitments to fighting climate change on campus.
March 2023
Students join PCAC and, now united and bigger and louder, the PCAC holds a town hall to introduce ourselves to the Purdue community.
March 2023
The University Senate, backed by members of the PCAC, endorses the resolutions already passed by the Purdue Student Government and the Purdue Graduate Student Government. These resolutions call on Purdue to join the Greater Lafayette Climate Action Plan and to commit to decarbonization goals.
February 2024
Members of the PCAC attend the Board of Trustees meeting, letting them know that we want them to take action.
