Environmental activist Bill McKibben was pleasantly surprised two weeks ago when Gov. Peter Shumlin appeared to change his tune on whether the state’s retirement funds should invest in coal, oil and gas companies.
Though the governor had previously resisted entreaties to divest the $4 billion pension funds of carbon-heavy assets, he appeared to embrace the notion in an interview with journalist David Goodman on WDEV’s “The Vermont Conversation.”
“It’s going to take some time to make the transformation, but I think it’s a good idea,” Shumlin said on the radio program, which is paid for by Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
But less than a week later, the governor retreated to his previous position when asked about his evolution during a gubernatorial debate on Vermont Public Radio.
“There’s been a discussion in Vermont about divestiture, and what I have said, in concert with [state Treasurer] Beth Pearce, is that we believe that having a seat at the table — owning the stocks and having a seat at the table with the oil companies — is a good place to be,” Shumlin said, adding that he was “willing to look at any suggestions” to combat climate change.
“So what I said about divestiture is I’m willing to take a look at it. I didn’t say I would call for it,” the governor clarified. “Because I think we should look at everything that we can do to advance the ball more quickly. I don’t think that’s the sharpest knife of all the things that we could do, but I certainly am always willing to look at it.”
McKibben, a Middlebury College scholar-in-residence and founder of 350.org, didn’t think much of the governor’s explanation.
“I think it’s sad,” he said. “As you point out in [last week’s Fair Game], he’s been ‘taking a look at it’ for a year. After that, he told David Goodman ‘It’s going to take some time to make the transformation, but I think it’s a good idea.’ This is not the same as ‘taking a look at it.'”
McKibben, who led hundreds of thousands of activists at the People’s Climate March eight days ago, said, “People are very tired of slippery politicians — and a couple of thousand Vermonters who went all the way to New York to join in the largest political gathering about anything in some years will, I think, hold him accountable to his statements.”
According to McKibben, “it’s fine to take some time” to sell off coal, oil and gas stocks.
“Our campaign all along has said that schools, churches, states should all take up to five years to actually divest, to avoid having to sell at the wrong moment and lose money,” he said. “It’s the announcement of intention we need now, and there’s no reason [Shumlin] and Treasurer Pearce shouldn’t give it immediately.”
“As I said,” he continued, “slipperiness is unbecoming in a politician. Familiar, but unbecoming.”
Provided with a copy of McKibben’s assessment last week, Shumlin’s office did not respond.
Reached last week, Pearce defended her own opposition to divestment, arguing that the state could do more to reduce carbon emissions through what she calls “constructive engagement.” Working with the Boston-based, sustainable investment advisory group Ceres, Vermont’s pension funds have used their proxy power to encourage energy companies to adopt more environmentally conscious practices, she said.
“When you give up your seat at the table, you don’t have access to that strategy,” Pearce argued.
Vermont’s $4 billion pension funds include nearly $110 million worth of investments in energy stocks — excluding utilities and commingled investments — Pearce’s office said. According to a 2013 analysis conducted by NEPC, a Boston-based investment consulting firm, divestment would cost Vermont $1.9 million in one-time transaction fees and then $8.8 million a year in increased management fees and reduced returns.
Given Vermont’s small size, Pearce argued, divestment wouldn’t do much.
“I don’t think we would see a measurable impact. Folks from [350.org] have talked about the symbolism and stigmatization of companies, but I think you can get that same thing through internal pressure,” she said. “I don’t think divestment is a workable strategy to get us where we want to be.”
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In the podcast linked above, David Goodman asked Gov. Shumlin about renewables and he listed solar, wind, and natural gas. Pretty clever slipping a fossil fuel that Gov. Shumlin supports in with renewables. A less slippery politician might have stopped him and said, “no, natural gas is not renewable.”
Meanwhile, Vermont, and its “green” colleges, including Middlebury where McKibben hails from, continue to defend and implement burning of trees for energy, which is even worse than fossil fuels for carbon impacts according to the science, and common sense for that matter.
But it is “local” they like to say. Well yes, coal is local to West Virginians also, but it is still a carbon mess, just like burning Vermont’s trees for energy.
This is NOT a defense of fossil fuels, just a reminder of the hypocrisy gong on in the “greenwash” mountain state when it comes to tree-fueled biomass energy and carbon impacts.
Waste hardwood being recycled (and stocks being simultaneously replanted) is far from equal to burning coal and far from heating 1M+ square feet with dirty #6 heating fuel, which would be the alternative, so let’s pump the breaks.
I’ve had many conversations with friends who work in ‘socially-responsible investing’ in Boston and heard a lot of talk about ‘investor engagement’ as the alternative to divestment. Investors who acknowledge that ‘keeping a seat at the table’ is the only way to influence fossil fuel polluters but who can’t credibly threaten to pull investments. Weird that strategy isn’t working, right? Divestment is literally putting your money where your mouth is, and there aren’t too many evangelists really willing to do that.
The real substantive question is whether divestment is ethically responsible for a state managing thousands of employee pensions. While you’d like to see someone draw a line, I’d rather see it happen first with a private college with 9 figure endowment than with the social security funds for the men and women plowing the roads and keeping the administrative parts of our state government (websites not withstanding) running.
By their own admission, they are logging green trees for biomass fuel in Vermont, not using “waste” wood, and the carbon footprint of burning trees is worse than burning fossil fuels, no matter how inconvenient that may be for ones personal beliefs.
To continue to believe otherwise, in face of the overwhelming science, and common sense, is to be as militantly ignorant as global warming deniers.
A letter from 90 respected scientists asks congress not to “cook the books’ when accounting for CO2 from bio-energy stating “clearing or cutting forests for energy, either to burn trees directly in power plants or to replace forests with bio-energy crops, has the net effect of releasing otherwise sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, just like the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. That creates a carbon debt, may reduce ongoing carbon uptake by the forest, and as a result may increase net greenhouse gas emissions for an extended time period and thereby undercut greenhouse gas reductions needed over the next several decades.”
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/…
This “critical accounting error” identified by Princeton University scientists, of ignoring carbon emissions from tree burning is leading to a false reduction of carbon levels on paper but an actual increase in atmospheric carbon levels (http://www.maforests.org/SCIENCE.pdf) and igniting a “carbon time bomb” according to European scientists. (http://www.birdlife.org/eu/pdfs/carbon_bom…)
The European Environment Agency identified the same accounting error, stating, “It is widely assumed that biomass combustion would be inherently “carbon neutral” because it only releases carbon taken from the atmosphere during plant growth. This assumption is not correct… If bio-energy production replaces forests, reduces forest stocks or reduces forest growth, which would otherwise sequester more carbon, it can increase the atmospheric carbon concentration. The potential consequences of this bio-energy accounting error are immense.”
http://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/governan…
The “Manomet” study, which used overtly biomass friendly forest cutting assumptions and the results still demonstrated that life cycle carbon dioxide emissions of tree burning biomass electric facilities are worse than coal for 45-75 years, and are worse than natural gas for more than a century. Manomet also demonstrated that tree burning biomass heat facilities are worse than oil for 15-30 years and worse than natural gas for 60-90 years.
See slide 13: http://www.maforests.org/SUMMARY%20mass_bi…
National Public Radio reported the Manomet study results, “A new study has found that wood-burning power plants using trees and other “biomass” from New England forests releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than coal over time.”
http://www.wbur.org/2010/06/11/wood-power-…
Again, I am not speaking in favor of fossil fuels, but just pointing out the dangerous outcomes of continuing and pursuing self-serving hypocritical false solutions.
McKinnon May be wrong about man-made climate change, but he’s correct about slippery Governor Shumlin.
Bill McKibben is former editor of the Harvard Crimson, & does not hold a science degree. He is an environmental activist. His 350.org is funded by the tax exempt Rockefeller Brothers Fund & the Rockefeller Family Trust. We are indeed at the heart of the Agenda here in Chittenden Co, VT with Eileen Rockefeller Growald’s Shelburne Farms, Steven Rockefeller at Middlebury College, & Bill McKibben’s close ties to both. Eileen Growald is considered to be a “very important donor” by one of our senators. She hosted the 2010 VT Democrat Campaign fundraiser at her Shelburne Farms home. She is the Queen Bee of anti-coal, carbon sequestration, & the Carbon Disclosure Project ($56 Trillion dollars). She is the youngest daughter of David Rockefeller.
It would be nice to see Mr. McKibben get so worked up about Middlebury College’s greenwashing. While a horizontal drilling rig pushes “natural” gas pipeline to the College energy plant, and construction surges ahead on the enormous, unneeded new field house, accountants are busily working on how all these toys for rich girls and boys are in fact “carbon neutral.”
None of it is renewable lets face the facts all of those solar arrays sitting in VT fields will need to be replaced they lose the ability over time to generate electricity they are sealed units with silver wafers and silicon. We as humans have not made supernatural materials with which to build
These contraptions wind, weather, rain and snow will rot them like a car left in a field it becomes a hunk of junk. Wind turbines which have their very own environmental hell or solar panels.
Organizations like Mr Mckibbens 350 .org are a henny penny sell the fear type of hype with little to no real solutions or tangible results. His anti pipeline claptrap has just enriched the Rockefeller and Warren Buffets train companies.
I doubt very much that the silver wont go black and the seals wont break before we out live the carbon foot print of the solar arrays they claim are carbon neutral it takes a heck of a lot of mining of aluminum and silver copper , rare earth metals and the Chinese burn coal to make them so 20 years to reach carbon neutral. Same thing with wind turbines. There is more religion than real science in Mckibbens claims. Vt should be spending on the built environment and saving energy and burning natty gas is much cleaner source of fuel than burning hardwood and softwood and oil . pipelines are the most carbon neutral way of moving it from point A to point B.
The real solutions will come from Thorium as a nuke fuel plant its safe rand cant be used in bombs and will prove to be the greenest source of electricity. If we move to electric cars which is doubtful we would need to increase our current grid exponentially 60 times what we have today at minimum to fuel electric vehicles. wee would have to litter VT with hundreds of thousands of acres of miles upon miles of solar arrays or blow the top off every every ridge-line covering it in swinging blades of death with miles upon miles of transmission lines killing all the trees with clear cutting under neath what a horror Henny Penny the sky is falling.
Seems everybody’s got an opinion about McKibben. “Scientist” or not, nearly every credible climate researcher in the world agrees with him on the one most important fact: human beings are destroying this beautiful planet.