Tag Archives: divestment

Divesting from oil and gas –Prof. Matthew Richard

Dr. Richard posted this letter to the editor of the The Spectator, VSU’s student newspaper, on SAVE’s facebook page today. I added the links and the images. -jsq

To the Editor:

I would like to address the VSU community with this letter.

VSU Students, faculty, and staff, did you know that many of the clothes that we admire and purchase in the USA are made in places like Bangladesh? Indeed, some of our most popular brands of clothing, including GAP, Old Navy, and Banana Republic originate there. Perhaps you know that many Bangladeshi clothing manufacturers employ children as young as 12 years old who earn as little as $32 per month despite working up to 14 hours a day? It’s little wonder that so many of us can look so stylish—and for relatively little money.

If you didn’t already know this, does it matter to you now? Are you concerned that the money you spend supports sweatshops in Bangladesh and elsewhere, perpetuating the misery of millions of our fellow human beings? Undoubtedly many of us are concerned, and we understand that we can make a difference in the world by being more judicious about where we shop. It’s why we choose to buy groceries at worker-friendly Publix rather than Continue reading →

Display the kind of responsibility that will benefit our university, community, region, and world –S.A.V.E. to VSU Foundation

A copy of what the VSU Foundation called the “ “well-intentioned request” by Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.). I added the links and images. -jsq

October 17, 2013

Dear VSU Foundation and Board of Trustees,

Recent years have brought climate change to the forefront of public discussion. A newly released report from the United Nations indicates with 95% certainty that humans are the primary cause of the issue. It is our concern that the continuation of our current practices and our dependence on fossil fuels will only result in continued environmental degradation and human struggle. Knowing the impact that anthropogenic climate change has upon our environment, our health, and our economy, we are asking Valdosta State University to take a stand and join in the effort to address this issue, as social responsibility is part and parcel to the role of public institutions.

As a public institution, Valdosta State University has a responsibility to shape the debate about climate change through its voice, and fossil fuel divestment is another medium for that voice. We are asking that VSU immediately Continue reading →

Your well-intentioned request is impractical –VSU Foundation

The VSU Foundation knows more than 98% of climate scientists, and also sneers at former divestment from tobacco and apartheid companies. Nevermind that fossil fuel divestment is going faster than either of those. Is it good fiduciary responsibility to stay invested in the stranded investments of fossil fuel stocks while solar stocks are skyrocketing? Is this really how to encourage people to give to VSU? Is that how the alumni want their investments used?

Seen today on S.A.V.E.’s facebook page, VSU Foundation’s response to S.A.V.E.’s fossil fuel divestment request:

October 29, 2013
Danielle Jordan, President
S.A.V.E.
Valdosta State University
Dear Ms. Jordan,
The Investment Committee of the VSU Foundation Board of Trustees has reviewed the request from your organization that securities issued by companies engaged in the production of fossil fuel energy be excluded from the foundation’s endowment portfolios. Compliance with your well-intentioned request is impractical for a number of reasons and perhaps even a breach of the fiduciary responsibility that all of our trustees take very seriously.

The various VSU Foundation endowment portfolios are managed Continue reading →

Fossil fuel divestment fastest

Not just faster than apartheid divestment; faster than divestment from tobacco, armaments, and others: fossil fuel divestment. It’s not about direct reduction of market capitalization; it’s about making it socially unacceptable to buy from stigmatized companies, and it works, and it’s working faster than ever for fossil fuels. Oh, and fossil fuel companies are a tiny sliver of university endowments, so ditching them is pain free, especially now that fossil fuel stock prices are not rising while solar stocks skyrocket (and nuclear stocks don’t). Go fossil free, go VSU.

Stranded Assets and the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign: What Does Divestment Mean for the Valuation of Fossil Fuel Assets? 8 October 2013 | Authors: Atif Ansar, Ben Caldecott, James Tilbury

Damian Carrington wrote for the Guardian Monday 7 October 2013 Campaign against fossil fuels growing, says study: Investors being persuaded to take their money out of fossil fuel sector, according to University of Oxford study,

A campaign to persuade investors to take their money out of the fossil fuel sector is growing faster than any previous divestment campaign and could cause significant damage to coal, oil and gas companies, according to a study from the University of Oxford.

The report compares the current fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has attracted 41 institutions since 2010, with those against tobacco, apartheid in South Africa, armaments, gambling and pornography. It concludes that the direct financial impact of such campaigns on share prices or the ability to raise funds is small but the reputational damage can still have major financial consequences.
Continue reading →

Solar SAVE goes to SGA about fossil fuels @ VSU

SAVE‘s fossil fuel divestment request made the front page of The Spectator at VSU, and Danielle Jordan of SAVE was pullquote about fossil fuels in another front page story, about solar panels on the Odum Library. The student government didn’t vote to support SAVE’s request, but many senators said they didn’t understand the subject and the student government asked to get educated about fossil fuels and divestment.

Jordan Barela and Von Kennedy wrote for The Spectator 24 October 2013, Solar panels bring green energy to Odum,

VSU is moving in a greener direction.

A solar canopy was recently built behind Odum Library.

“We cannot address climate change without decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels and solar is one way we could change that.”
—Danielle Jordan

The canopy is a 10 kilowatt solar array. The canopy produces energy that goes directly to Odum Library, and does not go to the Georgia Power grid.

Construction of the solar canopy began in September, and was finished earlier this month.

“It is exciting,” Danielle Jordan, president of Students Against Violating the Environment, said. “We cannot address climate change without decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels and solar is one way we could change that.”

The solar panels were manufactured by Continue reading →

Solar and wind cheaper than fossil fuels –more evidence

The most cost-effective power sources are solar and wind, re-affirms a study that includes social costs, such as the environmental costs of the climate change caused by CO₂ from fossil fuels (the social cost of carbon, or SCC), and the health damage caused by sulfur dioxide pollution. It’s time to stop paying for utility executive profits with our health and dollars. No fracking, no pipeline.

M Caulfield wrote for Exposing the Truth 24 September 2013, Renewable Energy Now Cheaper Than Fossil Fuel,

Renewable energy is becoming more and more competitive. Alternative and renewable energy sources are increasingly becoming more affordable. According to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, it is now less costly in America to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels, than it is to get it from coal-fired power plants. The study shows, when climate change costs and other health impacts were factored in, that it is even more cost effective to convert an existing coal-fired power plant with a wind turbine, than it is to keep the old fossil fuel-burning plant.

Unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than electricity from coal and gas power stations in Australia as well. Wind farms in Australia can produce energy at AU$80/MWh. Meanwhile, coal plants are producing energy at AU$143/MWh and gas at AU$116/MWh. And the myth that alternative energy sources were enormously more costly than the typical fossil fuels, is proving to be untrue. And after initial investment costs are waged, making them now ameliorated, and the raw materials for solar and wind power are free, besides costs of upkeep, and the harvesting of those sources doesn’t cause mayhem to the environment. Making it an ever-more appealing alternative energy source.

“The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date… The fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn the economics of power systems on its head,” – Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In lead author Laurie Johnson’s Blog 17 September 2013, New Study: Clean Energy Least Costly to Power America’s Electricity Needs, Continue reading →

France unfracked

No fracking France, affirms France’s highest court. No, silly utilities, fracking is not like geothermal power. Yes, utilities, you’ll have to write off a lot of fossils in the ground. But there’s far more money to be made in clean energy, so get on with it!

Mat McDermott wrote for Motherboard yesterday, You Can’t Frack France

After a constitutional court review, France's ban on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil has become "absolute," in the words of Environment Minister Phillipe Martin. In its decision, the court found Continue reading →

Fossil Free Valdosta

Fossil Free Valdosta, a facebook page just launched by members of S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violating the Environment), under VSU’s new solar canopy:

A student campaign calling on Valdosta State University to freeze any new investments in the fossil fuel industry immediately and divest within the next five years.

You can help divestment by signing their petition. That will help VSU stop wasting investments on fossil fuels while solar stocks skyrocket. And that will help undermine the political power of the fossil fuel industry. After all, all our investments are political, and there’s nothing neutral about investing in climate wreckage.

-jsq

Solar vs. fossil fuel stocks

Should Harvard President Drew Faust worry that “Significantly constraining investment options risks significantly constraining investment returns”? Actually, if Harvard has been wasting investments in oil and gas for the past year, its endowment has lost a bundle. Ditto VSU.

Let’s compare stock performance of Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSE:TAN) which invests in solar stocks with the PowerShares DB Energy Fund (NYSEARCA:DBE), which invests in oil and natural gas companies. Yep, that’s 120% for TAN and 0% for DBE:

Sure, if you go back farther, solar stocks continued to drop after 2009 until this year: Continue reading →

Our investments are political –Divest Harvard to Drew Faust

Divest Harvard summed it up:

Our investments ARE political.

And that’s just as true at VSU.

Not even Tim DeChristopher put it more pithily than that. Samantha Caravello wrote in the Harvard Law Record 7 October 2013, Pres. Faust, There’s Nothing Neutral About Investing in Climate Wreckage, noting that Pres. Faust’s excuses were actually in response to “an invitation from undergraduates to participate in an open forum on divesting Harvard’s $32 billion endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies.”

President Faust warned against using the endowment in ways that would position the university as a political actor, claiming Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange