California calls on pension funds to divest from coal in climate change push

California calls on pension funds to divest from coal in climate change push

Senate bill to force two state pensions funds – largest in US – to ditch coal is part of effort to generate 50% of power from wind and solar and halve gasoline use

Trucks and cars pass non-polluting windmills along the freeway on near Banning, California. The state aims to promote renewables and decrease reliance on fossil fuels. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

America’s biggest state pension funds came under rising pressure on Tuesday to dump coal companies from their combined $500bn portfolio, in a major escalation of the fossil fuel divestment campaign.

The California senate leader, Kevin de Leon, said he was introducing a bill on Tuesday calling on the two state funds – CalPERS, the public employees’ pension fund, and CalSTRS, the teachers’ pension funds, drop all coal holdings.

The bill is part of a larger package of climate measures – endorsed by Governor Jerry Brown – aimed at gearing up California’s efforts to fight climate change.

The former US vice-president and climate champion Al Gore spoke to the CalSTRS board in Sacramento last Friday. Gore has long argued that fossil fuels are a risky proposition as a long-term investment.

“Our state’s largest pension funds also need to keep their eyes on the future,” De Leon, a Democrat, said in an email. “With coal power in retreat, and the value of coal dropping, we should be moving our massive state portfolios to lower carbon investments and focus on the growing clean-energy economy.”

The two state funds are the biggest targets so far of a divestment movement that has moved from college campuses towards mainstream financial conversation.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Iconic ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Recalled By Ann Druyan On Anniversary

VideoFromSpace

Published on Feb 14, 2015

On Feb. 14th, 1990, the Voyager 1 probe snapped an image of Earth. The probe was more than 4 billion miles away from Earth at the time. Druyan, Carl Sagan’s co-author and widow, talks about how impactful the image is on humanity. Read more about the iconic image: http://goo.gl/nt5qso

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Fossil Free – Global Divestment Day

We are demanding institutions do what is necessary to avert the climate crisis by divesting from fossil fuels.
Together, we are making fossil fuels history.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Fossil Free UK

Fossil Free UK

Happy Global Divestment Day from the UK. Let’s Make Fossil Fuels History Nottingham have gt a gift to you. But are you going to divest it?

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Fossil Free UK – Global Divestment Day One – Students take action!

Global Divestment Day One – Students take action!
miriamw miriamw February 13, 2015

Students across the UK today took part in Global Divestment Day, protesting university’s investment in the fossil fuel industry.

UK universities invest an estimated £5.2 billion in fossil fuels. It’s time to ditch this technology of the past and start re-investing in a liveable future. In just a year and a half the divestment movement has spread to nearly 60 campuses across the UK, engaged over 25,000 students, and looks set to gain even more victories over the coming months.

Today and tomorrow, rallies and protests are taking place at at least 22 UK universities, including Edinburgh, Warwick, Leeds and Manchester, joining a global movement in 48 countries spanning 6 continents!

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

A Simple Love Poem #showthelove

The Climate Coalition
Published on Feb 10, 2015

http://fortheloveof.org.uk This year, world leaders could make decisions to protect all we hold dear. We need them to feel our love for things we could lose to climate change. Please watch and share #showthelove

We’ve joined forces with Ridley Scott Associates and a cast of familiar faces to show the love for all that could be lost to climate change. David Harewood, Meera Syal, Stephen Fry, Dermot O’Leary, Jarvis Cocker, Deborah Meaden, Emilia Fox, Alison Steadman and Raymond Blanc bring Shakespeare’s Sonnet number 18 to life in a beautiful 100-second film that’s a celebration of the world around us.

Everyone loves something that could be affected by climate change. Our families, our beaches, the food we eat, woods and forests… but we have a chance to protect them. This year the Climate Coalition is campaigning for leaders to take strong climate action, and you can be part of it. Speak up for what you love. Send the most important Valentine ever and #showthelove: http://tiny.cc/giveyourheart

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Arundhati Roy: The Doctor and the Saint

WeAreManyMedia

Published on Oct 16, 2014

The Doctor and The Saint: The Ambedkar—Gandhi debate: Race, Caste and Colonialism
with Arundhati Roy

Sponsored by Verso Books, Ambedkar International Mission, Haymarket Books

An event to celebrate The Annihilation of Caste, by by B.R. Ambedkar, with an extensive introduction by Arundhati Roy, published by Verso Books.

“Reading Ambedkar bridged the gap between what most Indians are schooled to believe and the reality we experience every day of our lives.” —Arundhati Roy

The Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important – and still most controversial – works of Indian political writing. Completed in 1936, the book is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and the caste system that infuriated Gandhi yet has remained a rallying cry for 60 years. In her lengthy introduction Roy looks at how caste has continued through modern Indian history, and why the words of Ambedkar are necessary today more than ever. In startling and urgent writing she shows that caste is the most urgent question if India is to become a world-leading nation.

“Has to be read … Dr Ambedkar is a challenge to Hinduism.”
– M.K. Gandhi

“What the Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to India.”
– Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste

* * *

Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives. She has worked as a film designer and screenplay writer in India. Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. The novel has been translated into dozens of languages worldwide.

She has written several non-fiction books, including The Cost of Living, Power Politics, War Talk, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, and Public Power in the Age of Empire, and Walking with the Comrades. Roy was featured in the BBC television documentary Dam/age, which is about the struggle against big dams in India. A collection of interviews with Arundhati Roy by David Barsamian was published as The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile. She is a contributor to the Verso anthology Kashmir: The Case for Freedom.

Her newest books are Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers and Capitalism: A Ghost Story, published by Haymarket Books. Roy is the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize.

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Germany Returns Antique Books Stolen in Italy

VOAvideo

Published on Feb 14, 2015

Germany is returning to Italy more than 500 valuable antique books stolen from Italian libraries about three years ago. An Italian librarian has been convicted in the theft of the collection that includes such priceless texts such as the first editions of scientific manuals by Galileo and Copernicus. Zlatica Hoke reports the books were found at an auction house in Munich.]]

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Breaking up with Fossil Fuels on Valentines

TheRealNews

Published on Feb 14, 2015

Jenny Marienau of 350.org says the launch of a Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign is to end the strangle hold that the fossil fuel industry has over global politics and economy

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice

Migrants reach Lampedusa after rescue operation saves 700

euronews (in English)

Published on Feb 14, 2015

Thousands have died crossing the sea from North Africa.

Early on Saturday morning, one group of migrants made it to shore in Europe and the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa – but only after being plucked from their overcrowded boats with hundreds of others seeking safety and a better life.

Two commercial ships and an Italian coastguard vessel rescued all 700 migrants
near the Libyan coast on Friday.

“All of those rescued appear to be in good shape and the sea conditions are good and gettin…
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/14/mi…

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice