the new tactic in the Global Warming war: Divestment - aimed at Oil & other fossil fuel companies

[Bill USA]

Since the Oil industry in particular 'owns' the Government on this issue, in desperation, some are advocating a direct attack on the main culprits in obstructing real action on AGW: Calling on Universities to divest themselves of stock of energy companies fighting action on Global Warming held in Endowment funds.

Certainly, there will be those who will say it won't work. but should we reject the idea without even trying?

http://billmoyers.com/episode/putting-the-freeze-on-global-warming/
(emphasis my own)

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. For growing numbers of people, the reality of global warming is so urgent they’ve given up waiting for governments to act, and they’ve decided it’s folly to expect the coal, oil, and gas companies ever to admit their products are burning up the earth. So these aroused citizens are going for the jugular – they’re directing their efforts directly at the one place held sacred by the industry -- the bottom line.

It’s called divestment. A campaign to persuade investors to take their money out of fossil fuel companies. Foundations, faith groups, pension funds, cities and universities are being urged to take the lead, to sell their shares in polluting industries and go “fossil free.”

On more than 300 college campuses, from Middlebury in Vermont to Berkeley in California, students are calling on their schools to divest. Sometimes they are rebuffed, as happened recently at Harvard, which at over $32 billion dollars has the largest university endowment in the country. Last fall, the school’s president said divestiture was neither, “warranted or wise.” But this month, nearly 100 faculty members sided with the students. They said, “Our University invests in the fossil fuel industry […] We now know that fossil fuels cause climate change of unprecedented destructive potential.”

Divestment has worked once before – and in a big way. Three decades ago, students, religious communities, and unions sustained a campaign against U.S. companies doing business with South Africa and helped put an end to apartheid. Only four months after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela came to California to say “thank you” to Americans who kept up the economic pressure.
(more)

watch the video-taped interview on Bill Moyers and Company

[merrily]

1. Thanks. That was a good show.