TU Delft climate philosophers James Hutton and Anna Melnyk help students deal with the many climate dilemmas they face during and outside their studies. How can they handle all the pessimism surrounding climate change? “Letting despair take over is not an option.”
On 19 February, activists occupied the ME Faculty. (Photo: Marjolein van der Veldt)
By Nathan Lont
Rain is pouring down on the concrete tiles in front of the Erasmus Building in Rotterdam. A sobbing student is dragged into a van by two police officers. The screams of her fellow protestors, coming from inside the building, are clearly audible in the background. They are aimed at Erasmus University’s ties with the fossil fuel industry. After having called the police on her students, Rector Magnificus Annelien Bredenoord hides under her raincoat.
This footage, available on the leftist activist YouTube channel LeftLaser, is indicative of the hardened debate currently taking place at universities in the Netherlands. Student protests, opposing collaborations between universities and fossil fuel companies such as Shell, are becoming increasingly more common and emotions are rising in the process. At TU Delft, teachers of Philosophy and Ethics (Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management) Anna Melnyk and James Hutton regularly deal with these frictions. They try to get both students and staff members to think about the ethical dilemmas in their studies and work.
A blank stare
Melnyk’s interest in the moral aspects of climate change partly stems from her Ukrainian roots. Her grandmother still still uses a little stove to heat her house. Melnyk has been teaching ethics and philosophy to a class of future engineers for more than four years. Recently, her colleague James Hutton joined her in class. The coffee mug on his desk reveals his academic background. It is marked with the phrase ‘I Kant even’, a reference to the enlightened philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose ideas Hutton now applies to the ethical issues concerning climate change.
‘Nobody wants to be an asshole. Those are ethical notions’
“When I first start talking about ethics, students usually give me a blank stare,” says Melnyk. Nevertheless, both teachers see that students are dealing with ethics unconsciously. “Everyone is always thinking about what is good or bad. Nobody wants to be an asshole. Those are ethical notions,” says Hutton.
He believes that engineers make many moral considerations during their work. “Our students started studying at TU Delft because they believe in technological progress. Not only do they want to build cool stuff, but in doing so they want to make society a better place. To do that, you have to think about what that entails.”
Climate debate
One of these students is Gui Alvarenga, who started a master’s in Applied Earth Sciences last year. Like many of his peers, he was not really interested in ethics at first. “My first reaction to the course was my God, how stupid,” he says. “I like programming and mathematics.” But it turned out that ethics is more interesting than he thought. “The course was very different from what I had previously done. No lectures with endless slides, but interactive discussions. I was mostly interested in the debates about the energy transition.”
TU Delft’s executive board is facing a moral dilemma
Gui is not the only student preoccupied with the climate. Just like in Rotterdam, activist groups have occupied TU Delft buildings twice already. They demand that the university cuts all its ties with the fossil fuel industry. Some students want TU Delft to share their values and concerns. After all, they too are part of the institute. TU Delft’s executive board is now facing a moral dilemma: should we help fossil fuel companies go green, or should we cut ties altogether to avoid contributing to even more emissions?
Melnyk sympathises with the activists. “It is a heated discussion. The ties between TU Delft and Shell go back a long way and are deep. Shell funds a lot of research and organises activities to recruit engineers. This raises ethical concerns. On the other hand, there are also people who simply need a job. That’s what makes it a difficult issue.”
Unfair division
The protesters cannot count on the support of their fellow student Gui. He believes that the occupiers have not thought things through enough. “It is far too easy to think that we can just stop using oil from one day to the next. The economies of many developing countries are dependent on fossil fuels. It is not fair to ask them to stop while it is the Western countries that have caused this problem,” he says. Gui thinks that companies like Shell are still needed for the energy transition to progress smoothly.
‘We should be wary of fooling ourselves when it comes to the intentions of fossil fuel companies’
Hutton has less confidence in the contribution that the fossil fuel industry can make. “It is already quite encouraging that students are thinking about whether they are making the world a better place, instead of just being concerned with money,” he emphasises. “However, we should be wary of fooling ourselves when it comes to the intentions of fossil fuel companies. ExxonMobil has been aware of climate change since the 1950s, and BP spends more money on advertisements about solar energy than on solar energy itself. Do they really have the best intentions for the planet at heart?”
Light switch
Despite all the negativity, both philosophers remain positive about the role students can play in the energy transition. Previously, engineers were proud to work for Shell, something which is less common nowadays. “More and more students are worried about the ties between fossil fuel companies and TU Delft. These concerns are bringing a lot of positive changes on campus. For example, our employees’ retirement funds are no longer invested in the fossil fuel industry,” says Melnyk.
Although Gui may be more positive towards the university’s ties with the fossil fuel industry compared to his teachers, he underlines the urgency of advancing the energy transition. Emphasising the influence of students’ actions, he has realised that ethics can play an important part. “This course has taught me to express my opinion better. You have to avoid letting emotions take over by basing your arguments on facts.” That said, he believes that students’ main focus should lie on fixing the problems at hand “It makes no sense to keep repeating your opinion unless you actually do your research on practical solutions.”
Hutton also sees the importance of the search for solutions and stresses we should not let despair bring this to a halt. “People who are thinking of giving up, often see climate change as some kind of light switch. They believe that since climate change is already happening, the switch has already been thrown, and we’re doomed. However, this is an oversimplification: the climate is more like a dimmer switch. You can keep on turning it, leading to more energy accumulating in the earth’s system. Or, on the flipside, you can stop turning it and create a better world by reducing emissions”
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