Take what we learned with apartheid: Divesting is the answer
The article “State pension fund joins climate fight: Votes to pressure companies to act” (Metro, Feb. 18) reminded us of the 1980s campaign to divest from companies operating in apartheid South Africa. At the time, the Rev. Leon Sullivan proposed principles for shareholder action that urged US companies operating in South Africa to require equal treatment for all workers instead of their divesting from South Africa. They did not question the legitimacy of the apartheid system. Responding to this, Archbishop Desmond Tutu asserted that Black South Africans did not want their shackles polished, they wanted them removed. The Massachusetts Legislature agreed with Tutu and, with broad community support, passed a law requiring the state pension fund to divest from these companies.
The recent vote by the state Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, which calls for using shareholder power to alter company behavior, is similar to the Sullivan Principles in that it “is an alternative to fossil fuel divestment.” Global fossil fuel divestment commitments are now approaching $40 trillion, of which nearly 12 percent is pension funds. We hope that the state pension fund joins the global effort to divest from fossil fuel companies and does not settle for more incremental approaches.
Suzette Abbott
Brookline
Richard Clapp
Jamaica Plain
Abbott was born in South Africa. Clapp is a professor emeritus at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Merely prodding companies to change is not enough
The article “State pension fund joins climate fight” overlooks the failed history of shareholder action as a forceful measure against climate change. While it has resulted in some minimal gains, none were on a scale commensurate to the climate catastrophe we are facing.
Divestment, on the other hand, represents a powerful statement that our money should be helping to find solutions to the climate crisis, not prolonging it. Divestment on a great scale ($40 trillion so far) deals a blow to the plans of the fossil fuel industry to keep expanding in the face of an existential crisis.
Further, why would we even want our money in an industry whose products we are legally bound to stop using in the next 30 years? Our pensioners want a habitable planet for their children and grandchildren.
For reasons practical, moral, and financial, the state Pension Reserves Investment Management Board should be divested from the fossil fuel industry as soon as practically possible.
David Klafter
Brookline
