Tell Our State Pension Fund To Stop Betting Against Us!
by Anthony Aalto, Chair of our O‘ahu Group
The people of Hawai‘i voted to be fossil-fuel free by 2045. It’s a mandate written in law and backed by tens of thousands of families who have invested more than three quarters of a billion dollars of their hard-earned cash in rooftop solar systems. Yet that publicly expressed will of the people of Hawaii and that huge investment have been virtually wiped out by our state Employee Retirement System, which has invested over $600 million of our tax dollars in dirty fossil fuel companies.Will you please help us convince the Legislature to tell the ERS to get rid of its fossil fuel investments?Here is an article published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that explains our thinking. But here’s the basic point:
If the top 200 fossil fuel companies burn all the reserves they currently hold, they would pump five times as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as we have in the last 200 years. This would create what experts call an “existential threat to humanity.” In other words planet earth won’t be fit to live on.
We believe governments around the world are already moving fast to prevent that scenario – ratcheting up controls on fossil fuels. That means oil, coal and gas reserves are in a carbon bubble: over-priced and unusable. It is wrong to gamble our public worker pensions on such risky stocks. But even if fossil fuel stocks were a good investment, we believe it is immoral to profit from practices that will leave the earth in ruins.Senate bill SB2155 would require the ERS to divest all fossil fuel stocks by 2021. We need the Senate Ways And Means committee to pass this bill.The bill has to be scheduled for a hearing now. It’s our last chance.Please call or email the Chairwoman of the Ways & Means Committee, Senator Jill Tokuda and politely ask her to schedule SB2155 for a hearing: Email Sen. Tokuda: sentokuda@capitol.hawaii.govCall Sen. Tokuda's office: 808-587-7215Thanks for all you do.[emailpetition id="4"]