{"id":6482,"date":"2014-10-28T19:26:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T19:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/the-350moco-divestment-campaign-responds-to-what-you-wished-you-had-known\/"},"modified":"2014-10-28T20:23:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T20:23:29","slug":"the-350moco-divestment-campaign-responds-to-what-you-wished-you-had-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/the-350moco-divestment-campaign-responds-to-what-you-wished-you-had-known\/","title":{"rendered":"The 350MoCo Divestment Campaign Responds to &#8220;What You Wished You Had Known&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Body\"><em>Community Organizer Peter Murtha has worked with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.350moco.org\/\">Montgomery County, MD divestment campaign since 2013<\/a>, a campaign that has successfully taken off during the last year.We asked him one question: \u00a0&#8220;What had you wished you had known when you were first starting your campaign?&#8221;\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><em>What follows in this post is Peter&#8217;s response:<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I started working on the fossil fuel divestment campaign in Montgomery County in April 2013.\u00a0 The idea was to have the trustees for the Montgomery County public employees<span lang=\"FR\">\u2019 <\/span>pension fund sell off their investments in the top 200 (by carbon reserves) publicly traded companies.\u00a0 The idea seemed to be a \u201cno brainer\u201d \u2013 the fossil fuel industry was only too happy to spend billions continuing to explore for ever more harmful sources of fossil fuels, knowing full well that their burning would ensure dangerous climate change.\u00a0 So why would any decent person want to \u201cdo business\u201d with them?\u00a0 I expected to post our petition on my Facebook page and watch the signatures come streaming in \u2013 maybe it would even go \u201cviral.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The reality was entirely different.<\/strong> \u00a0Many of even my greenest friends were not ready to sign the petition.\u00a0Instead of a signature,\u00a0they would ask the following types of questions (and I would offer the subsequent replies).<\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<li><b>Isn\u2019t it hypocritical for you to call for divestment when you drive a car?\u00a0<\/b>Well no, not when the fossil fuel industry has rigged the game so that clean energy and efficient mass transit are discouraged<b>.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>How do you expect divesting from fossil fuels to hurt the companies when they are so big and have so many people willing to buy their stock?<\/b>\u00a0Actually, we are not seeking to hurt their stock prices, but rather to stigmatize them so that their corrupting political influence is weakened and Congress can begin to pass real and meaningful climate legislation.<\/li>\n<li><b>Wouldn<\/b><b><span lang=\"FR\">\u2019<\/span>t you be better able to influence the fossil fuel companies to seek lower carbon alternatives if you didn<\/b><b><span lang=\"FR\">\u2019<\/span>t sell off their stock?<\/b>\u00a0No, shareholder activists have had no success in getting fossil fuel companies to alter their basic business plan of unceasing exploration and development of new fossil fuel sources.<\/li>\n<li><b>What good does signing a petition do? Isn<\/b><b><span lang=\"FR\">\u2019<\/span>t divestment unlikely to work?<\/b>\u00a0In fact, divestment has registered major victories against deeply entrenched interests, including apartheid in South Africa and tobacco \u2013 and, by the way, what<span lang=\"FR\">\u2019<\/span>s your better alternative to a gridlocked U.S. Congress that shows no shame in doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and no current interest in passing necessary climate legislation?<\/li>\n<li><b>How can you expect to stop using fossil fuels overnight when it will be years before there is enough clean energy?<\/b>\u00a0We are not na<span lang=\"NL\">\u00ef<\/span>ve; we don<span lang=\"FR\">\u2019<\/span>t expect to stop using fossil fuels in the near future \u2013 but it is imperative that we start the transition to clean, renewable energy as soon as possible, and for that to occur with the necessary scale and speed we need greater governmental action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Rallying support for the petition has required far more labor and a higher level of advocacy than I would have imagined.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the reasons we decided to start 350MoCo. As a result of establishing a formal local campaign, we now have an increasing number of determined climate activists, which has allowed us to set a goal of\u00a0 2,000 Montgomery County signatures \u00a0(including several hundred \u201cink\u201d signatures) \u2013 becoming <a href=\"http:\/\/campaigns.gofossilfree.org\/petitions\/montgomery-county-fossil-fuel-divestment-campaign\">one of the\u00a0most successful signature campaigns in the country. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Additionally, eight leading local environmental and progressive groups have joined our divestment coalition. \u00a0Now, we are aiming to present the Montgomery County Council with 5,000 signatures near the beginning of 2015. \u00a0If you know of any Montgomery County residents or are a resident yourself, could you help us out\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/campaigns.gofossilfree.org\/petitions\/montgomery-county-fossil-fuel-divestment-campaign\">by sharing and\/or signing this petition<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We are also looking to add to our ranks and very possibly initiate a statewide divestment campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.350moco.org\/\">We would love you to join us!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><em>What had you wished you had known when you were first starting your campaign? Would you like to start a local divestment campaign in your community? Email hello(at)350.org, and thank you Peter for contributing your story.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/montco.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6280 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/montco.jpg\" alt=\"montco\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Community Organizer Peter Murtha has worked with the Montgomery County, MD divestment campaign since 2013, a campaign that has successfully<span class=\"text-cutoff\">&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":6483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}