In the 1980s, student-led protests to force universities to divest from companies doing business in South Africa helped bring about the end of an immoral apartheid regime. The recent articles about student protests at UMass, Harvard and elsewhere to divest endowments from fossil fuel bring up another issue worth supporting.
Efforts are under way to get our state legislature to divest Massachusetts’ pension fund from fossil fuels, and instead invest in renewable energy. For moral and environmental reasons, the state pension fund should not be invested in a product that promotes a non-sustainable future.
Fossil fuel emissions contribute to rising sea levels and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather. The transportation and extraction of fossil fuels lead to earthquakes, pipeline explosions, oil spills and contaminated soil, water and air. Whatever financial returns we gain from these investments cannot make up for the harm we do to others, and ourselves, by promoting fossil fuel production through these means.
Beyond this moral imperative, however, it appears increasingly clear that investing in and promoting more fossil fuel production is no longer a good financial investment. In just the last year, Massachusetts’ pension fund lost a half billion dollars on its fossil fuel investments, and the financial news predicts more losses ahead.
I urge readers to contact their state legislators and ask them to support divestment of the state pension fund from fossil fuels and to invest in renewable energy. H.2372, which would create a divestment commission to report on the advisability of divesting by the end of this year, is the only remaining bill that provides a path to divestment. Let’s get coal divestment started and ensure that the composition of the commission has a balanced makeup.
Elaine Fronhofer
Amherst