It’s time to divest of fossil fuels

One of the greatest threats to humanity is disruption of the climate. Most people feel powerless to do much about it, and we are growing increasingly frustrated by the ongoing failure of our country's leaders to take action to abate climate disruption.

The fossil fuel divestment movement shows the greatest promise for impressing our leaders with the urgency of the climate crisis. In February, concerned activists in 60 countries met in the streets, on campuses, in churches, in parks and in business districts to convey the message: Fossil fuels have no future if the rest of us are to have a future. Our banks, churches, governments, universities and all other investors must dump their holdings in fossil fuels. We don’t want our money used to fuel the climate crisis.

Divestment is the opposite of investment. It means to discard from your portfolio all stocks, bonds and other funds that promote unethical or morally questionable behavior. There have been a handful of effective divestment campaigns in recent history. One expressed opposition to the genocide in Darfur; another condemned the immorality of tobacco advertising. The most powerful campaign broke the power of the apartheid government in South African in the 1990s.

First Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee voted to divest its endowment funds of fossil fuels, becoming the second Presbyterian Church in the country to take this bold step.

Pastor Brant Copeland says “that moral stewardship of the Earth means more than driving fuel efficient cars and putting solar panels on our homes and places of worship. It means changing public policy and investing our money in ways that honor, rather than ravish, the planet.”

Thousands of entities — universities, churches, county and city governments — are divesting. Even the Rockefeller family, whose fabled wealth flowed from Standard Oil, is divesting its $860 million philanthropic organization from fossil fuels.

Divestment from fossil fuels is more than an economic strategy. It is a powerful statement that strips the moral license from big oil, gas and coal companies, which generate huge profits and overly influence public policy. It is an education strategy that explains to the public that the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is quickly warming the planet toward an uninhabitable state. It communicates the urgent need to invest in renewable fuels and energy-efficiency strategies to meet humanity’s energy needs.

Together we can muster greater power than the money and influence of the fossil fuel industry, but it will take all of our voices to persuade our institutions to divest from fossil fuels.

Pam McVety from Tallahassee and Ellie Whitney from East Windsor, N.J., are both biologists.