Divest in Fossil Fuel Companies? Reader pushback.

Clear message: burn the ships

Some readers disagree with yesterday's post.

"This is hilariously illogical."

Herb Rothschild writes a guest post today. He disagrees with me. He is in good company.

Progressive Facebook groups piled onto me, explaining that I was dead wrong in saying it was morally inconsistent to condemn fossil fuel producers if one in fact uses--and is dependent upon--fossil fuels. The argument they made was that a transition to renewables was underway and should be encouraged politically, which one did with symbolic messages like divestment and refusal to take fossil fuel campaign contributions.

Body language messages--big unmistakable symbols--is what this blog is all about. They raise a good point. You point the direction you want to go by bold gestures of denial. The example every schoolchild knows is that of Hernan Cortes. He scuttled his ships in front of his men. Cortez wasn't anti-ship. He was making an unmistakable body-language gesture: no turning back. 

I acknowledge this. 

The point in my blog post yesterday was to say that there are multiple messages sent by the gesture of stigmatizing fossil fuel companies, and not only the intended one. Accepting campaign funds from an organization acknowledges a connection to that industry. The politician, the donor, and the public all agree: take their money means you find the industry legitimate. Not taking it means you don't.

However, there is simultaneously the accidental message of hypocrisy, since AOC and the Democratic candidates for president use the products they shame, and opponents will point that out, loudly and repeatedly. The hypocrisy message may be more politically salient than the green energy message.

Social media critic

And the second is the "who has my back" message. Food, energy, lumber, fiber, minerals, are produced in rural areas. Democrats are intentionally showing disrespect for fossil fuels. Rural voters see the boats burning, too. They don't read this a concern for people like themselves in the "rustbelt." Nor as empathy for an industry in decline. Nor commitment to retraining and re-industrialization. They read it as disrespect, and vote accordingly.

The unintended message inside the intended message--that, too, is what this blog is all about.

But today I give voice to my critics, and the most articulate of them is Herb Rothschild. He is a retired English professor, and current peace activist, living in southern Oregon.  

Guest Post, by Herb Rothschild:

"I wouldn’t dare dispute your prediction that Democratic presidential hopefuls will find it a mistake politically to reject contributions from fossil fuel industries. You are far more insightful about electoral politics than I. But I do feel confident that I can usefully challenge your position that it is hypocritical for anyone who uses fossil fuels to advocate divestment from the corporations that produce and sell them.

Herb Rothschild (photo by Allen Hallmark)

I personally divested from such corporations a good while ago. My largest investment currently is in a corporation that supplies wind- and solar-generated electricity to utilities. But I’m keenly aware that, thanks to an inheritance of which I cannot divest myself, I derive some income from oil and gas production. 

So, I don’t think of myself “pure.” Even without that special circumstance, like all of us (as you said) I’m complicit in global warming. But do I think myself hypocritical? It’s a strange notion of hypocrisy that holds it hypocritical to reduce our contributions to global warming even as we acknowledge that we contribute to it. I really don’t understand your thinking here, Peter.

To speak most broadly, we all live at the expense of each other. Material goods are finite. But that doesn’t license us to engross as much of the world’s wealth as we can and to use it with maximum self-indulgence and waste. Surely we don’t have to choose absolute poverty to avoid a charge of hypocrisy when we practice temperance and generosity.

To speak specifically about divestment from the fossil fuel corporations, they don’t simply provide what we need. They actively promote our consumption. They have been the major force behind the effort to persuade people that global warming is a hoax, and they lobby hard to prevent adoption of public policies that will facilitate the transition to green energy. Additionally, they are gross environmental polluters, cleaning up their messes only when they are forced to.

Thanks to technology, the transition to a green economy is moving more rapidly than people know and in spite of the political clout of the great fossil fuel corporations. In 2017, the price of wind and solar power in India dropped 50% to $35-$40 a megawatt hour. Power from a new coal-fired plant using Indian coal is about $60 a megawatt hour and $70 using imported coal. Around the world, more coal-fired plants have shut down in the first two years of Trump’s presidency, despite his best efforts to promote coal, than in the eight years of Obama’s presidency. Planned natural gas plants are being cancelled because banks and utilities are tumbling to the fact that, long before their 40-year expected life is over, they will have become stranded assets.

It didn’t take divestment from General Electric to bring about its fall. It simply cannot sell many turbines for new coal- and gas-fired power plants. As for oil, the growth in electric vehicles spells the end of its dominance. By the early 2020s they will account for all the growth in sales globally. Frankly, money managers would do well to divest from such corporations for financial reasons alone."