FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT: THE BABY AND THE BATHWATER

Bill McKibben is a Vermonter, Middlebury College Professor, and major mover behind
350.org a grass-roots movement to stop climate change. As part of that work,
McKibben calls for major institutions to divest from the ownership of fossil fuel
producers. McKibben argues this will create a moral catalyst to limit, reduce, and
ultimately eliminate all fossil fuel use.
McKibben argues that the 350.org call for divestment is a moral force comparable to
the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Fossil fuel divestment in his view can
change the zeitgeist and ultimately end the use of all fossil fuels.
To force the issue, McKibben calls out the Vermont State Treasurer Beth Pearce and
Governor Peter Shumlin for not supporting his call for divestment. Is McKibben right?
Is divestment not only a necessary but also an effective climate policy?
I dont think so. Heres why: the force behind divestment is indeed primarily moral
which makes fossil fuel use wrong even evil. This subverts the real and very difficult
challenge to develop the many innovations and tech breakthroughs critical necessary
to managing and reducing CO2 emissions. Fossil fuel ahs and continues to deliver
enormous benefits to all of us but it also delivers a serious challenge. CO2 emissions
have to be managed and reduced.
This is a critical choice. One the one hand the fight is to stop fossil fuel discovery,
production, and use. Alternatively, the challenge is to find ways to continue to benefit
from fossil fuel use but to also reduce CO2 emissions and to do that we have to
engage the intellectual resources in the energy industry.
From 1988 1991 I worked in the Vermont Public Service Department for Governor
Kunin and had a front row seat at two major energy and environment breakthroughs.
In 1990 the federal Clean Air Act Amendments became law and set hard caps on
several major pollutants, sulfur and nitrogen dioxides. The caps, first in the nation,
worked much better than expected. The caps imposed a cost on emissions but also
provided a new source of revenue for any firm that could reduce capped emissions
and sell excess permits. New technologies emerged to reduce capped emissions and
also to reduce the cost of reducing those emissions.
Closely related, Vermont and several other northeastern states committed to tackling
the science and policy of controlling CO2 emissions. I still remember Carl Sagan
eloquently making the case for the science of CO2s affect on warming the planet.
The link between CO2 and global warming is simple, powerful, and irrefutable. The
policy or policies to manage and control CO2 emissions is difficult, complex, and still
a work in progress. Nearly 20 years after jumping into the climate challenge the hard
work of discovering the technologies to reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions is still in
progress.
As part of his argument for divestment, McKibben unleashes considerable scorn on
Exxon-Mobile and its CEO, Rex Tillerson. Tillerson may deserve the scorn. I dont

know. But what does worry me is the broad brush McKibben uses to tar not only
Tillerson but also the thousands of Exxon-Mobile employees. One of the great
achievements of the Obama administration was the increase in car and light truck
fuel efficiency to 53 miles per gallon. This is hugely significant and it could not have
been done without engaging the engineers and designers who create those vehicles.
We need those breakthroughs for every sector of the fossil industry from crude
production to heavy crude refining to use.
Moral campaigns can be corrosive to sound policy; they make enemies out of
potential allies. The great lifts for climate policy is to find ways to challenge and
engage intellectual capital to successfully take on the very hard work of managing
CO2 emissions. The thousands of workers in the fossil fuel industry are not the
enemies of sound, effective climate policies. And neither are the Governor and
Treasurer of Vermont. The trick is to find productive ways to engage them.
Not to be trite but lets make sure we dont throw the baby out with the bathwater.
George Sterzinger
202-255-8119