Many universities around the world have been active centres of climate change research. However, there are a number of barriers to climate change research, stemming both from the nature of the research and the structure of institutions. This paper offers an overview of the barriers which hinder the handling of matters related to climate change at institutions of higher education (IHEs), and reports on an empirical study to investigate these barriers using a global survey of higher education institutions. It concludes by proposing some steps which could be followed, with a view to making climate change more present and effective in university research and teaching. These include changing approaches to research, outreach and teaching to better support action on climate change.

A popular argument against direct duties for individuals to address climate change holds that only states and other powerful collective agents must act. It excuses individual actions as harmless since they (1) are neither necessary nor sufficient to cause harm, (2) arise through normal activity, and (3) have no clear victims. Philosophers have challenged one or more of these assumptions; however, I show that this definition of harm also excuses states and other collective agents. I cite two examples of this in public discourse and suggest we reconsider the notion of harmful action in our discussions about climate change.

Governments have been slow to address climate change. If non-governmental agents share a responsibility in light of the slow pace of government action then it is a collective responsibility. I examine three models of collective responsibility , especially Iris Young's social connection model, and assess their value for identifying a collective, among all emitters, that can share responsibility. These models can help us better understand both the growth of the movement to divest from fossil fuels and the nature of responsibility for collective action problems. Universities and colleges share a responsibility because they occupy similar positions of, among other things, power and privilege.

Colleges and universities already contribute significantly to the fight against climate change, but the UN has recently called upon them to do even more. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that institutions of higher education play a unique role in combatting climate change and other structural injustices, not only by conducting research and disseminating knowledge, but also by fostering a form of collective political responsibility. A philosophical analysis of different forms of collective responsibility, with specific attention to the Fossil Free divestment movement, reveals how social position facilitates this contribution more so in colleges than in other institutions.

This article draws from political ecology, animal ethics, and ecofeminism to examine sympathy, expressed by record-breaking donation from North Americans, for the death of Cecil the Lion. Sympathy is disclosive insofar as it reveals, relies upon, and reinforces different forms of sexual, racial, and neocolonial domination; especially when western sympathy remains ignorant of the politics and histories of the power relations that shape attitudes toward non-human animals and their status as members in a moral community. When does nature appear as something to take care of rather than take care against?Keywords: sympathy, animal ethics, ecofeminism, big-game hunting, wildlife conservation, Cecil the Lion