The argument for divesting from fossil fuels

Dear friends,

Why yet another thread about climate change? Good question.

The climate change threads I posted on over the last couple of years on IN became bogged down in discussing climate science such as: Are we getting warmer? or colder? Why is ice disappearing at the North Pole and actually thickening at the South Pole? So much discourse and denial and blame shifting and fear and indecision about what to do and perhaps an attitude that - it’s not really a problem that affects me this week and nobody has proven that treating the Earth as a hotel room we rent for one day is part of the problem.

Huh?

Such threads do not serve anymore- they got stuck in the muck of denial. The Earth's climate is changing and we collectively (as of yet) are not adapting. This trumps ANY topic whatsoever in Politics and Society.

Today you will have the opportunity to learn how finance will ultimately win over physics. We simply cannot burn all the fossil fuel we dig up. The business model of Big Oil is, in the long term, doomed. Yet Big Oil companies keep spending on exploration for more reserves that will eventually be worthless because they can’t be an asset on a balance sheet- the livability of the planet says they can’t. Period.

More and more, foundations and pension funds, mutual fund, hedge fund managers controlling billions of dollars will someday have to face that day of reckoning. Fossil fuels are today’s energy but the model can’t and won’t last.

Money goes where it is well treated.

And dirty energy ain’t it long term. Now how close is long-term? That’s a good question, and according to The Guardian article and video that inspired this thread, “long-term” is getting uncomfortably close, too close for these money men to ignore the climate bubble.

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(article from The Guardian)

Do you know the 3 critical numbers for this discussion? If not take a look at the 3 minute video in the article
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(video –“Keep it in the ground”)

The Canadian tar sands economic model is a disaster- the falling price of oil ( partly due fracking technology) made the Canadian tar sands operation unprofitable just a few years after billions were invested that can never be recovered, yeah bankruptcy looms. But the damage to the Earth in the Canadian tar sands is just a good example of how The Earth never seems to be a financial partner in these deals or appear on balance sheets – yet.

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This Changes Everything – Naomi Klein | Guardian Docs
(10 minutes)

Fondly,
Jim