Guest “Ron White impression” by David Middleton
Published on Monday, September 09, 2019 by Common Dreams
‘People Power Is Winning’: Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement Celebrates $11 Trillion Milestone
“We would not have smashed our divestment targets without the thousands of local groups who have pressured their representatives to pull out of fossil fuels.”by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
Ahead of an historic summit in Cape Town this week and the global climate strike planned for Sept. 20, the environmental group 350.org announced Monday that the international movement demanding divestment from fossil fuels and investment in clean energy had secured commitments from more than 1,110 institutions with over $11 trillion in assets.
[…]
Common Dreams
Are these people so stupid that they actually think they’ve eliminated $11 trillion worth of fossil fuel assets? Even if all of the “1,110 institutions with over $11 trillion in assets” actually divested a significant volume of fossil fuel companies’ stock, they could only do so if there were investors willing to purchase that stock.
Why would they even think that “1,110 institutions with over $11 trillion in assets” is significant? That’s an average of about $10 billion per institution. As of August 2018, just the two largest institutions, BlackRock and Vanguard, had $11.4 trillion worth of assets under management (AUM). The top nine investment firms had $28.34 trillion worth of AUM, averaging over $3 trillion each. None of these firms have even expressed an interest in joining the “Fossil-Free” movement. Yes, these idiots are so fracking stupid that they call it “fossil-free.”
“We’re divesting because fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas, are toxic to our planet and everyone who shares this common home.” ✊
— 350 dot org (@350) September 9, 2019
The #FossilFree movement blasted through another big milestone this week. Find out more: https://t.co/WLYOrxTKW3 #FinancingTheFuture pic.twitter.com/X7ot35N024
350 dot org and the #FossilFree movement are clearly in Ron White country.
While you really can’t fix stupid, you can edit it out…
The world’s richest institutions invest in fossil fuels. […Really futile and stupid gesture snipped…].
Divestment is one of the fastest-growing movements in the fight against climate change. It’s only getting started.By Umair Irfan Updated May 15, 2019
[…Really futile and stupid gesture snipped…]
There’s still money to be made in fossil fuels
[…Really futile and stupid gesture snipped…]
Clearly, there remains a large and growing market for fossil fuels. They remain vital for the global economy and a critical raw material for products like plastics. Much of the technological progress humanity has made to date can be traced to cheap, abundant resources like coal, oil, and natural gas. Our current trajectory has us consuming even more.
“The day after, if we were to divest, we’re still going to turn on the lights,” said Harvard President Lawrence Bacow at a forum on fossil fuel divestment. “We would still be dependent on fossil fuels.”But Harvard and similar institutions have argued that it’s not about the money. Rather, they argue that divesting from fossil fuels would politicize their portfolios, and they have better ways to fight climate change.
“The University’s position, as it has stated previously, is that it should not use the endowment to achieve political ends, or particular policy ends,” wrote a Harvard spokesman in an email. “Harvard is committed to influencing public policy on climate change through scholarship and research.”
[…Really futile and stupid gesture snipped…]
Yale University, which sits on a mountain of money $29.4 billion tall, didn’t respond to a request for comment. However, David Swensen, the school’s chief investment officer, said last year he doesn’t support fully divesting from fossil fuels on moral grounds.
“If we stopped producing fossil fuels today we would all die. We wouldn’t have food. We wouldn’t have transportation. We wouldn’t have heat. We wouldn’t have air conditioning. We wouldn’t have clothes,” he said. “It’s very nice to protest the fact that we have fossil fuel producers in the portfolio, but the real problem is the consumption, and every one of us in the room is a consumer. I guess it’s a little bit harder to look in the mirror and say ‘I’m part of the problem’ as opposed to pointing the finger.”
[…Really futile and stupid gesture snipped…]
Divestment isn’t moving the needle — yet — but it’s changing the conversation
Despite gains in divestment, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Some fossil fuel companies are indeed struggling, particularly coal mining firms. But others are still making tons of money. Exxon Mobil generated $279 billion in revenue in 2018. Shell made $388.4 billion. BP made $303.7 billion. Aramco made $355.9 billion.Analysts agree that the $8 trillion that’s been divested or pledged to withdraw to date from fossil fuels is still a small slice of the overall share of the $100 trillion-plus global capital market. “At present, [divestment] has had a pretty minimal impact on the industry,” said Richard Taylor, an oil and gas industry analyst at Fitch Solutions.
[…Really futile and stupid gesture…]
Still, the overall market impacts are minimal because the amount of money floating around right now is so vast and the inertia is immense. “They aren’t changing their behavior, that’s for sure,” said John Thieroff at Moody’s Investors Service. “Like it or not, we’re going to continue to consume oil and gas for while. There’s no switch that’s going to get flipped in the next year or two that’s going to let us walk away from oil.”
[…Wailing and teeth gnashing snipped…]
Vox
Really, the only passages of the Vox article that made any sense at all were these two quotes…
“The day after, if we were to divest, we’re still going to turn on the lights. We would still be dependent on fossil fuels.”
Harvard President Lawrence Bacow
“If we stopped producing fossil fuels today we would all die. We wouldn’t have food. We wouldn’t have transportation. We wouldn’t have heat. We wouldn’t have air conditioning. We wouldn’t have clothes,” he said. “It’s very nice to protest the fact that we have fossil fuel producers in the portfolio, but the real problem is the consumption, and every one of us in the room is a consumer.”
David Swensen, Yale University chief investment office
It is a fossil fueled world…
And fossil fuel divestment is “a really futile and stupid gesture”…
Bluto (John Belushi): What the **** happened to the Greentards I used to know? Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re gonna let it be the worst! “Ooh, we’re afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble.” Well, just kiss my @$$ from now on! Not me! I’m not gonna take this! ExxonMobil, dead! Chevron, dead! Shell—
Paraphrased from National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Otter (Tim Matheson): Dead! Bluto’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.
Bluto: And we’re just the guys to do it.
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If “they” understood how things work, they wouldn’t be “greenies”. They don’t understand that you aren’t going to melt the ice of the continent of Antarctica where the Average Daily Temperature is 59 degrees BELOW ZERO F with a few degrees of warming. DUH.
There is a way to stop this collective madness now being exhibited by the Green Socialist movement.
Each and every one of them, should be asked as a condition of continuing to supply them energy, to confirm, they accept their energy is coming from primarily fossil fuel sources and will continue to do so.
Any one not willing to accept this statement of fact, would be disconnected from the supply.
This would be an echo of the cookies acceptance request we now get on every site we visit.
If you wish to continue receiving our service please confirm you are happy to do so with fossil fuel being an integral and essential part of this energy service.
Click here, or disconnection will be initiated.
“Trump administration revokes California’s authority to set auto mileage standards”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-revokes-californias-authority-to-set-auto-mileage-standards”
About time…
Divesting for a day and then reinvesting or re-balancing the portfolio in a another reporting period amounts to churning or day trading. This too works fine in a virtue signaling context.
10 year US treasury note, 1.75%.
Exxon dividend 4.79%; BP, 6.3%; Shell, 5.49%…..
Of course, their next complaint will be that the rich get richer while they get poorer, with the accusation being that the rich are stealing from them. Their p poor decisions have nothing to do with it (sarc).
Oil isn’t about to disappear. Oil companies make billions and pay out good dividends. There are plenty of investors and funds who add to their oil company shares whenever the stock price dips.
LONDON, Sept. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Royal Dutch Shell plc (the ‘Company’) (NYSE: RDS.A) (NYSE: RDS.B) announces that on September 16, 2019 it purchased the following number of “A” Shares for cancellation.
Story at:
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/RIStocksUI/RIStocksNewsFullStory.aspx?stryKey=2508-201909161303PR_NEWS_USPR_____LN73729-1&symbol=RDS.A
Total of shares bought (from the itemization); 1,294,500.
They did a similar transactiongroup on Sept. 10 to buy back 1,608,104 shares.
Total buyback for the 2 days: 2,902,604 shares.
And the P/E ratios are very attractive.
Oil stocks have been beaten down for about 5 years, since the late 2014 price crash. A lot of equity was destroyed in 2015-2016.
The result is a very over-sold market. Our market cap is less than the PV10 of our proved reserves. Many oil company stock prices reflect $30-40/bbl oil prices, rather than $50-60/bbl. The #FossilFree loons actually think they caused this; when they aren’t even gnats on the flies on an elephant’s posterior.
At some point, the sentiment will swing back… In the meantime, it’s a buyers’ market.
How Capitalism works:
College A: Let’s divest our pension funds from fossil fuels and invest in solar panels and windmills!
College B: We like our pension funds the way they are, thank you!
(5 years later)
College A Professor: I quit to join College B–they have better pensions!