---
title: Fossils belong in museums.
date: 2015-08-21T18:48:00Z
modified: 2023-10-12T12:15:26Z
permalink: "https://350.org/fossils-belong-in-museums-2/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 40084
categories:
  - Finance
tags:
  - divestment
---

Friends,

Today, we’re announcing an exciting new divestment campaign: In partnership with _The Natural History Museum_, a new mobile museum that champions bold climate action, we’re launching **a brand new push in the divestment movement calling on museums to stand up as leaders in the face of climate catastrophe.**

The iron is red hot. In December, hundreds of world governments are meeting in Paris to try to strike a global climate agreement. But their commitments are falling short, and we need way more ambition.

**Divestment is a powerful signal to our world leaders that the time for strong climate agreements is now — but it’s up to us to keep the divestment dominoes falling.**

**[Click here to join us in asking 5 of the United States’ top museums of science and natural history to divest from fossil fuels.](https://gofossilfree.org/museums/)**

Every time a university, church, pension fund, or other institution divests from fossil fuels, it sends a strong message: _The age of fossil fuels is over. We need a transition that’s both rapid and just — and we need it now._ Now we’re asking museums to join the divestment call.

Earlier this year, our friends at _The Natural History Museum_ launched a campaign with dozens of the world’s top scientists calling on museums to cut all ties to the fossil fuel industry. Inspired by their call, we’re now teaming up to ask some of our biggest, most iconic museums to ditch their investments in the fossil fuel industry — the same industry that’s driving the climate crisis and causing the communities who have contributed the least to the problem to be hit the hardest.

**This moment calls for leaders that are ready to do more than observe and curate history — it calls for leaders who are ready to help make it.** We believe museums can be those leaders. If a few of our big, iconic museums were to divest, it would set a powerful precedent for a whole new sector of institutions around the world to step up and divest too — just in time for the Paris summit.

[**Click here to sign the petition telling the American Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum, California Academy of Sciences, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, & the Natural History Museum of Utah: _Fossils belong in museums, not in investment funds. Please divest._**](https://gofossilfree.org/museums/)

The world is evolving beyond fossil fuels. Let’s not leave our museums behind.

Thank you,

Jenny for the 350.org team & Beka for _The Natural History Museum_ team

——

More info:

- [An Open Letter to Museums from Members of the Scientific Community _(The Natural History Museum)_](https://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/open-letter-to-museums-from-scientists/)