Introduction

Beginning with Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) in the late 1940s, oil companies have invested heavily in universities, not just to fund engineering programs and, eventually, climate science, but also to fund the public policy centers and economics programs that shape policy solutions. Fossil Free Research, a new group formed by many of the same students who pushed their campuses to divest from fossil fuels, is demanding that the world's top universities break their addiction to fossil fuel money and in late September they logged their first big win: Princeton University. In this episode we take a look at the roots of fossil fuel funding in universities and the evolution of the movement to root it out.

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