Markey and Harvard’s Engell Headline Climate Change Concert

Academics, artists, corporate sponsors, and activists joined on Friday to push for action to address climate change at a concert and speaking event at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The event, organized by the student-led campaign Know Tomorrow, took place on the group’s “National Day of Action.” Know Tomorrow is recognized by 60 colleges across the nation, according to its website, and is affiliated with former Vice President Al Gore ’69’s Climate Reality Project.

The event’s headliners included U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey and Harvard English professor James T. Engell ’73. Engell took the stage after a musical performance by Outasight and an address by Adam Sachs of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate.

“This is a fight that’s got a stopwatch on it,” Engell said. “Whether one believes in divestment or not as a tool, there is a lot to be learned about climate disruption and what human beings are doing to cause it.”

Engell signed an open faculty letter—which now includes more than 260 signatories—to University President Drew G. Faust and members of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, urging them to divest the endowment from fossil fuel companies in 2014. The Harvard Faculty for Divestment group formed after University President Drew G. Faust argued against divestment in an October 2013 open letter.

For his part, Engell said that he hopes for environmental education to play a bigger role in Harvard’s curriculum.

“We don’t require students to study anything in the environmental line,” Engell said. “They have Gen Ed requirements and concentration requirements. I myself wish that we might be able at some point to consider a requirement in environmental education because I think it’s absolutely crucial if you’re going to connect yourself with the realities of the world now and in the future.”

Perhaps the event’s most recognizable figure, Markey has been vocal about climate reform. His appearance at the event came a day after he released a statement calling for stricter pollution controls.

Emma Marshall-Torres, a student at Boston and an organizer of the event, said she liked how the function helped contextualize climate change for attendees and might make the issue “real for a lot of people.”

Cara Kennedy Cuomo ’17, another student organizer, called the event a success.

“It’s the kind of event that encompasses all different aspects of climate change and climate change activism,” Cuomo said. “I think students have a voice, and they should absolutely use it no matter what they believe in no matter where on the political spectrum they fall.”

Divest Harvard, an on-campus activist group that demands that Harvard divest its $37.6 billion endowment from fossil fuels, was offered an opportunity to participate in the event but did not send a group presence, according to Talia K. Rothstein ’17, a co-coordinator of the group.