Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Stanford University to divest from coal

Big news for the climate divestment movement:  Stanford is getting out of coal. While getting out of oil and maybe even natural gas would be good, this is a great start and will put enormous pressure on other universities. And as the article says, the action is just the start and not the end of their process for handling the issue.

Left unmentioned in the article is the tanking of coal stocks, down 70% over the last few years - why not get out of coal?

I'm sure the email I sent to the university president and my piddling status as a donor made a huge difference.

Now it's time to get some more water districts to do the same thing. I talked to one today and another yesterday, so I'm working on it....

Stanfords press release is here, and from the students who made it happen here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Left unmentioned in the article is the tanking of coal stocks, down 70% over the last few years - why not get out of coal?"

Hee-hee - sounds like they're a little late.

Brian said...

I agree with comments elsewhere - they probably mostly got out years ago. Doesn't make it meaningless though, it means they're not going back in.

I suppose someone could try arguing the carbon bubble has already burst for coal, but I think they're still overvalued compared to how much coal we will actually be able to burn.

Para a Posteridade e mais Além said...

they're not going back in....so final ...so drastic, so greek

they never never go back on coal

lets see 7 billion tons of coal burned this year

they make a significative change