How We the People can Stop Climate Change through Disinvestment (Gitlin)

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/11/climate-through-disinvestment.html

How We the People can Stop Climate Change through Disinvestment (Gitlin)
Posted on 11/22/2013
by Juan Cole

Apocalyptic climate change is upon us. For shorthand, let’s call it a slow-motion apocalypse to distinguish it from an intergalactic attack out of the blue or a suddenly surging Genesis-style flood.

Slow-motion, however, is not no-motion. In fits and starts, speeding up and slowing down, turning risks into clumps of extreme fact, one catastrophe after another — even if there can be no 100% certitude about the origin of each one — the planetary future careens toward the unlivable. That future is, it seems, arriving ahead of schedule, though erratically enough that most people — in the lucky, prosperous countries at any rate — can still imagine the planet conducting something close to business as usual.

To those who pay attention, of course, the recent bursts of extreme weather are not “remote “or “abstract,” nor matters to be deferred until later in the century while we worry about more immediate problems. The coming dystopian landscape is all too real and it is already right here for many millions. (Think: the Philippines, the Maldives Islands, drowned New Orleans, the New York City subways, Far Rockaway, the Jersey Shore, the parched Southwest, the parched and then flooded Midwest and other food belts, the Western forests that these days are regularly engulfed in “record” flames, and so on.) A child born in the United States this year stands a reasonable chance of living into the next century when everything, from available arable land and food resources to life on our disappearing seacoasts, will have changed, changed utterly.

A movement to forestall such menaces must convince many more millions outside Bangladesh or the Pacific islands that what’s “out there” is not remote in time or geographically far away, but remarkably close at hand, already lapping at many shores — and then to mobilize those millions to leverage our strengths and exploit the weaknesses of the institutions arrayed against us that benefit from destruction and have a stake in our weakness.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I'd say people should start with a boycott of fossil fuels

"We the people" have more control over the buying of fossil fuels than over the investment in the companies - investment comes overwhelmingly from the rich rather than the average person, whereas our use of the fuels is more egalitarian. It makes much more sense to switch to renewable-only electricity suppliers, a boycott of petroleum-using transport, and so on, rather than threatening to remove a small part of the investment dollars that a few hedge funds can replace, if they still see a profit in it because we the people are still buying the product.

Has refusal by many to invest in tobacco companies been instrumental in cutting smoking rates? I'd say it's individuals giving up the product that has had far more of an effect on the amount of tobacco consumed.

[kristopher]

2. The divestment movement is built on a solid premise

Which is that the future value of fossil fuels is predicated on the false premise that climate change is a debatable issue and that the uncertainty of this reality isn't properly priced into the value of fossil fuel stocks.

The idea doesn't depend so much on individuals as investors so much as it does creating momentum by individuals as part of larger institutions. It is a logical question for an investor at any level to ask - "when the music stops, am I the one who is going to be left standing with a portfolio of worthless/severely devalued fossil fuel assets?"

If 10 million people call their pension fund managers and complain about that possibility it is quite likely going to have an impact.