Georgetown Votes To Divest From Fossil Fuels
It’ll be interesting to see if this affects the school’s investment returns.
The Huffington Post reported.
Georgetown Becomes The Latest University To Divest From Fossil Fuels
Georgetown University’s board of directors voted last Thursday to end the university’s direct investment of endowment funds in companies whose primary business is mining coal, making it the latest university to divest from fossil fuels — although critics say the move doesn’t go far enough.
The Georgetown resolution comes amid an international movement known as Go Fossil Free, in which climate activists are urging various institutions to end their investment in coal, oil and natural gas because of the central role they play in climate change. Thirty-two colleges and universities have pulled their investments from fossil fuels since 2011. The Rhode Island School of Design announced earlier this month that it plans to divest from all fossil fuels over the next two years.
Some of those institutions have elected to divest conservatively, focusing only on coal, such as Stanford, the University of Maine, the University of Washington and now Georgetown. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution, a major cause of global warming.
Georgetown Becomes The Latest University To Divest From Fossil Fuels (The Huffington Post)
Comments
Purely symbolic. Coal stocks are tiny and irrelevant.
Wake me up when they dump the major oils that yield 3% to 6%.
I hope they do eventually cause their little moral victory dip…represents a buying opportunity for me!
Does this mean that nobody on Georgetown’s campus will drive, fly, use a computer, turn on lights, use a washing machine, drink coffee, expect automatic doors, ride the bus, ride the train, watch tv, use a cellphone, use garbage bags, drink water from bottles, flush the toilet, or do any of the things we take for granted and which are actually oil/coal powered or which have fossil fuels as their basis?
So, these places dumped some shares in the market of these firms. I’m sure it had little or no impact on stock prices and other investors simply bought up what they sold. All these places have done is to make a political statement at the cost of perhaps impairing their endowment investments. Economic decisions should not be made based on political statements, particularly when they really accomplish nothing for the stated goal. No doubt these places also pay more for alternative energy sources and the extra costs end up reflected in tuition and lower salaries. Finally, if everyone did this, where do they think they would get the power they need for light, heat, and even computers? Solar and wind can’t cut it at this time.