{"id":10461,"date":"2015-07-28T07:39:06","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T12:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10461"},"modified":"2015-07-28T07:39:06","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T12:39:06","slug":"why-the-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement-may-ultimately-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10461","title":{"rendered":"Why the Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement May Ultimately Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/feature\/why_the_fossil_fuel_divestment_movement_may_ultimately_win\/2898\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why the Fossil Fuel Divestment\u00a0Movement May Ultimately Win<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"dek\"><strong><em>The fossil fuel divestment campaign has so far persuaded only a handful of universities and investment funds to change their policies. But if the movement can help shift public opinion about climate change, its organizers say, it will have achieved its primary goal.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Nestled in Vermont\u2019s bucolic Champlain valley, Middlebury College is a seedbed of environmental activism. Middlebury students started\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/350.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">350.org<\/a>, the environmental organization that is fighting climate change and coordinating the global campaign for fossil-fuel divestment.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billmckibben.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bill McKibben<\/a>, the writer and environmentalist who is spearheading the campaign, has taught there since 2001. Yet Middlebury has declined to sell the oil, gas, and coal company holdings in its $1 billion endowment.<\/p>\n<p>McKibben\u2019s alma mater, Harvard University \u2014 which has a $36 billion endowment, the largest of any university \u2014 also has decided not to divest\u00a0its holdings in fossil fuel companies. Indeed, virtually all of the United States\u2019 wealthiest universities, foundations, and public pension funds have resisted pressures to sell their stakes in fossil fuel companies. And while a handful of big institutional investors \u2014 Norway\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, Stanford University, and AXA, a French insurance company \u2014 have pledged to sell some of their coal investments, coal companies account for less than 1 percent of the value of publicly traded stocks and an even smaller sliver of endowments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"imageleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/images\/features\/UC-regents-divestment-rally-250.jpg\" alt=\"UC Regents meeting divestment rally\" width=\"250px\" height=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"credit\">Mauricio D. Castillo via 350.org<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption\">University of California students rallied for divestment at the UC Board of Regents meeting.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Put simply, the divestment movement is not even a blip on the world\u2019s capital markets.<\/p>\n<p>Yet McKibben says the campaign is succeeding \u201cbeyond our wildest possible dreams.\u201d By email, he tells\u00a0<em>Yale Environment 360<\/em>:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why the Fossil Fuel Divestment\u00a0Movement May Ultimately Win The fossil fuel divestment campaign has so far persuaded only a handful of universities and investment funds to change their policies. But if the movement can help shift public opinion about climate change, its organizers say, it will have achieved its primary goal. Nestled in Vermont\u2019s bucolic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[7013,6345,328,4190,7163],"class_list":["post-10461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-bill-mckibben","tag-fossil-fuel-divestment","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-investing","tag-yale-environment-360"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10462,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10461\/revisions\/10462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}