Bill McKibben gives shout out to TIAA-Divest! in New Yorker Article.
Thank You Bill, for all your support for our campaign to keep educator's money from being used to fund climate destruction! If you haven't seen Bill McKibben's latest article On Climate Change, We’re Entirely Out of Margin in The New Yorker magazine, we highly recommend it as a reminder that we need to maintain a laser focus on keeping CO2 and other greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere:
"For academics: a big new drive is under way to convince the pension giant T.I.A.A. to divest from fossil fuels. Why would one fund one’s retirement by investing in companies that guarantee that there won’t be a planet worth retiring on?"
Exactly the point we've been trying to explain to TIAA.
Call-In Month: We need 500 calls before Thanksgiving
TIAA has not divested from its fossil fuel investments, including two dirty fracked gas power plants, nor has it even placed a moratorium on new fossil fuel investments. So, please help us heat up the pressure on TIAA with a CALL-IN MONTH, until Thanksgiving. If you are a TIAA participant, please call! If not, please write CEO Roger Ferguson. Ferguson is aware of our campaign, but he hasn't felt the direct pressure of our powerful movement yet.
- Call 800-842-2252, enter the required info., then keep pressing 0 til you get an operator.
- Say you want to lodge a complaint. Then state, "I want TIAA to divest from fracked gas power plants and all other fossil fuel investments, and from deforestation-risk lands. Can you please pass on my complaint to CEO Roger Ferguson?"
- To increase your impact, you can also ask to speak with a supervisor, and follow up with a letter to Ferguson.
Please please use our tiny report-back form to let us know how your call went! This helps inform our organizing.
More detailed instructions, a more complete script, sample letters, and our adorable 4 minute tutorial with a role-played call to TIAA on video :) are here: https://tiaa-divest.org/take-action/
Note to activists: If you are not a TIAA client you cannot use that 800 number, but you can help drive our campaign by persuading one person who is a TIAA client to actually make this call; and you can write a letter to Ferguson -- we offer this sample letter.
Don't forget to distribute our online petition far and wide! We need 125 more signatures this month!
TIAA's Cricket Valley Power Plant. How low can you go?
If you've attended any of our webinars, you've heard about Cricket Valley Energy. TIAA financed construction of this fracked gas fueled power plant in a rural New York state community and still owns a substantial interest. As if dumping 6 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere each year isn't bad enough, we've recently learned that Cricket Valley has filed multiple interventions to block expansion of New York's clean energy grid and is trying to block subsidies for renewable energy that might interfere with their profitability
We've had it with hypocrisy. Fiduciary responsibility does not require TIAA to keep burning up the planet. Quite the opposite. Thanks for taking action, for giving voice, and for all that you do!
--The TIAA-Divest! team
Want to learn more about the growing educational divestment movement? Our allies at Divest NY Teachers have scheduled a webinar on Thursday November 12th focused on how fossil fuel investments are bad for our planet's future and are bad for the financial future of the pension that thousands of teachers depend on. Click here to register.
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