It is time to help move our world away from pollution and climate change. One practical solution is divestment from big oil and big plastic.
SB-185 (2015) and SB-964 (2018) require public retirement systems to divest from thermal coal companies and climate-related financial risk. The City of Berkeley divested from publicly traded fossil fuel companies and banks that finance pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure.
I propose that California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)—the largest pension fund in the country which has $30 billion invested in fossil fuels (do you know the fossil fuel industry has been aggressively expanding in plastics?) sell those assets post haste.
All public entities, like city pension funds, should do the same.
Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris and Sen. David Min, we’re counting on you to introduce a divestment bill. We cannot afford another oil spill, not financially, not emotionally.
Jonathan Lukoff, Laguna Beach
