Divesting from fossil fuels
CGCAN support the divestment from fossil fuels. We believe that divestment provides strong pressure to keep the known reserves of fossil fuels in the ground.
Because we are the first generation to foresee, and the final generation with an opportunity to forestall the devastating effects of climate change, we need to deepen a sense of moral disgust with the extraction, transport and burning of fossil fuels. Divestment campaigns remind us of what we approve of, even if unwittingly at times. Divestment seeks to morally delegitimize and garner disgust for the fossil fuel industry by speaking the truth about its earth devouring business-plan.
Background
Political leaders at all levels around the world have repeatedly failed to demonstrate the will to act on behalf of the common good when it comes to climate change. The free market – on its own (without regulatory or activist intervention) – is incapable of addressing the larger social and environmental costs associated with burning fossil fuels in a way that is sufficiently urgent . History has shown that divestment campaigns can achieve profound results.
Our work shows that while financial divestment is an imprecise process whose initial economic impacts are neither cleanly measurable nor predictable, divestment is having an increasing role. It is awakens people to climate movement issues as moral issues!
- To use fossil fuel divestment campaigns to educate about the forces behind the politics of global warming.
- To provide tools for people to divest their personal and family financial resources from fossil fuels.
- To provide tools and models for extending fossil fuel divestment campaigns in institutions in which they are involved — educational, faith based, community and public.
- To synthesize and identify resources about the fossil fuel divestment campaigns throughout the Pacific Northwest, the United States, and around the world.