State-held funds should divest from companies involved in fossil fuels

What do actor Mark Ruffalo, 17 colleges and universities, 32 cities, the Rocke- fellers, 51 religious institutions and 67 foundations all have in common?

All are divesting from fossil-fuel companies. Divestment counters the enormous lobbying power of fossil-fuel companies.

Divestment paves the way for legislation limiting the carbon pollution that causes global warming.

Given what divestment can do, and given Hawaii’s renewable energy goals, it is reasonable to expect the University of Hawaii and state-held funds also to demonstrate leadership in divesting from fossil fuels.

We are surrounded by examples of such leadership from many different sectors.

Religious organizations feel an unprecedented moral imperative.Union Theological Seminary in New York notes how rising shorelines, water shortages and violent weather are literally killing hundreds of thousands of people.

Union is mindful that it depends on its endowment to support its educational mission, scholarships and faculty positions. But the seminary’s data show that divestment done correctly is fiscally responsible.

"Over the past two decades, a portfolio that had left out fossil-fuel companies would have returned, on average, only six-tenths of 1 percent less,"said the seminary’s president, Serene Jones.

Weigh that against the high cost of global warming. Rising waters threaten whole communities, particularly Pacific island nations, with annihilation. It is already costing lives and tens of billions of dollars. And we know it will only get worse.

Cities are divesting to protect themselves and to do their part in saving the planet.Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has asked his retirement board to divest, not only because the city stands to suffer greatly from climate change, but because scientists agree that only 20 percent of fossil-fuel corporations’ reserves can be extracted and burned before catastrophic climate change becomes irreversible.

The sooner we all act, the better off we will all be.

Visionary foundations also understand that healthy endowments are not at odds with doing social good.The Rockefeller Brothers Fund sees "a moral case, but also, increasingly, an economic case," said fund president Stephen Heintz.

Pointing out that business cannot continue as usual, the fund exhorts us to embrace the business of the future. This urgency applies to everyone who is avoiding the inevitable change to a society free of fossil fuels.

Pension funds have divested. Hesta Australia, a $29 billion health and community services fund, is leaving coal.The fund sees a dim future for fossil-fuel investments, and a high risk that assets like coal, oil and natural gas will become stranded before they can be used.

On a more personal level, love is driving individual investors out of fossil fuels.Actor Mark Ruffalo compares a dying reef to someone breaking into his house to hurt his children. He sees no difference between protecting his kids from a home invasion and protecting the Earth they will inherit.

Schools have divested. Donald P. Gould, chairman of Pitzer College’s investment committee, observes that carbon dioxide has no political leanings. He sees divestment as an educational statement, not a political one, and cites the academy’s duty to educate both its students and society at large.

It is an economic and policy statement as well.

UH and the state of Hawaii have all of these incentives to divest, and more. Of the 50 states, ours is the most vulnerable. We will likely suffer more frequent, stronger hurricanes, severe damage to tourism, beach loss, water shortages, far hotter days, endangered fisheries and a dozen other ills.

Until late 2014, the state and UH still had one defensible excuse not to divest: financial risk.

But between June and December the price of oil fell 47 percent.

The time to divest is now.