Vermonters are already paying for climate change. We’re paying recovery funds to repair the state from Irene’s destruction, losing revenue when Lake Champlain floods or when the ski season shrinks, and suffering impacts to farmers and the agricultural industry. Meanwhile, many of Vermont’s retirement funds are invested in fossil fuel companies that are making the problem worse.
That’s why CREDO activist Maeve McBride started a campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start their own petitions. Maeve’s petition, which is to the Vermont State Legislature, asks the following:
We call on the Vermont State Legislature to divest the assets of the Vermont State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Vermont State Employees’ Retirement System, and the Vermont Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of interests in any company which has as a principal business the extraction, production, or manufacture of fossil fuels, and not to invest in any such company in the future. We urge the Vermont State Legislature to pass legislation to create a divestment plan to phase out these investments within five years.
Tell the Vermont State Legislature: Immediately divest from fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas emit the greenhouse gases that are polluting our air, increasing the frequency of devastating storms, baking our croplands, and flooding coasts. This extreme weather is driven by fossil fuel companies that profit from the destruction of our planet.
Recent research shows that to stop runaway climate change, 80 percent of the fossil fuels that companies consider “assets” must be left in the ground. But to make that happen, states, cities, universities and other institutions need to immediately divest from fossil fuel companies.
As 350.org‘s Bill McKibben likes to say, “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”
Thank you for your support.
Josh Nelson, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
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