As of July 2014, over 12,500 people from New York State have signed petitions calling upon Comptroller DiNapoli to divest the NYS Common Retirement Fund from all fossil fuel holdings. Over the past 5 years, diverse NYS citizens and stakeholders have expressed strong, informed opposition to hydro-fracking. Hydro-fracking is a form of extreme energy production which causes significant, irreversible harm. Simultaneously, citizens and stakeholders have called for rapid, full investment in and transition to truly green, renewable energy sources. We are extremely concerned about climate disruption (which is already negatively impacting NYS) and the future of all species on this fragile planet. The NYS Comptroller is responsible for administering the New York State and Local Retirement System (the Common Retirement Fund) for public employees. This System has more than one million members, retirees and beneficiaries and more than 3,000 employers; The NYS Comptroller acts as the sole trustee of the $164 billion Common Retirement Fund. NYS is one of the largest institutional investors in the world. "The State Comptroller is responsible for ensuring that the taxpayers’ money is being used effectively and efficiently to promote the common good." We formally request that no tax dollars held within the Comptroller's Office promote climate disruption, environmental degradation and suffering. We request that our tax dollars directly "promote the common good." We applaud the Comptroller for the Green Strategic Investment Program which invested $500 million over 3 years in clean technology and green energy. We ask for complete, rapid divestment from all fossil fuels. Divesting now, will immediately bring positive change.

Climate change is upon us, and Somerville, along with many surrounding communities, is now having to deal with the problems associated with it. As storms become more frequent and severe, it does not make sense for us to continue to fund corporations who are contributing directly to this problem. Somerville has already taken steps to fight climate change. By divesting from the fossil fuel industry, we can get to the root of the problem, and take a firm stance against fossil fuel extraction. The top 200 publicly-traded companies hold the vast majority of the world’s proven coal, oil and gas reserves. Our demands to these companies are simple, because they reflect the stark truth of climate science: They need immediately to stop exploring for new hydrocarbons. They need to stop lobbying in Washington and state capitols across the country to preserve their special breaks. Most importantly, they need to pledge to keep 80% of their current reserves underground forever, since they currently have 5 times the reserves that we know is safe to burn.

As a city on the San Francisco Bay, rising sea levels will endanger property, transportation, and community. As a diverse city, our citizens have family and friends around the world, and they will be impacted, too. No one is immune from the impacts of climate change. It's wrong to wreck the climate. It's wrong to profit from wrecking the climate. Fremont should divest from the number one industry that is wrecking climates world-wide: the fossil fuel industry. Divestment from fossil fuel companies will: a) drive public awareness of the incalculable damage being done by the fossil fuel industry as it generates huge immediate profits in exchange for an uninhabitable future; b) build public recognition of the urgent need to drastically and rapidly reduce humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels; c) call widespread attention to the consequences of continuing a “business as usual” approach to extracting, marketing and burning fossil fuel; d) lead to inspiring an urgent, accelerated and popular commitment to leave untapped 80% of the known carbon reserves,while developing renewable energy resources capable of meeting humanity’s needs – thus making it possible that life as we have known it might continue on earth. You can read the Carbon Tracker list at http://www.carbontracker.org/

Newton was the first community in the Commonwealth to adopt the Stretch Code for building efficiency, and now it is time for Newton to lead again by divesting the city from companies producing fossil fuels. Divesting puts a stop to the status quo - promoting new fossil fuel exploration. Doing nothing equals promotion of fossil fuel infrastructure, like the Keystone XL pipeline, and the new pipelines delivering Fracking gas to Massachusetts. Divesting will not lead to a collapse of our fossil-fueled society, because we still pay at the pump, in our grocery stores, and for our home utilities, providing plenty of profits for fossil fuel companies while we move our investments toward truly clean, non-fossil energy.

Today, March 22, 2013, Mayor Villagrossa is announcing that the City of Los Angeles will not receive any of its electrical power from coal by the year 2025. That is good news, but it alone is not a significant enough step to avoid the worsening climate catastrophe. From the acidization of the seas, to the recent droughts in the midwest, to super storms such as Sandy, to the streak of 336th consecutive months that global temperatures have risen above 20th century averages, our civilization is in peril and we must act, now! There is a movement, spearheaded by gofossilfree.org, on over 300 college and university campuses across the nation calling for fossil fuel divestment. Four schools have already commited to divest and more are sure to soon follow suit. Yet students cannot be the only ones leading the fight for a just and sustainable future, our local governments must join the phalanx confronting our would be destroyers, the fossil fuel corporations such as Exxon-Mobil, British Petrolium, and Shell. Our governments must recognize them as the most abhorrent villans in the ongoing tragedy of the commons. The City of Los Angeles must not profit from the devastation of its citizens, currently enduring ailments from cancer and asthma. The City of Los Angeles must divest its holdings from the 200 companies listed in the Carbon Tracker report "Unburnable Carbon." Divestment in Los Angeles is not without precedent. The boards of our public pension plans have addressed divestment from South African securities, tobacco stock, and the securities of firms conducting business in Sudan and Iran. The boards adopted a Sudan policy in March of 2007, a policy addressing social, political and human rights issues in May of 2007, and and Iran policy in April 2010. They are currently considering a divestment from firearms related securities. The suffering to human health and well-being caused by fossil fuel companies is in no way less noxious than the crimes of the entities from which Los Angeles has previously divested. Additionally, the divestment from fossil fuel stock is in accord with stated fiduciary duties and applies a "costlessness" standard. The bottom line is this: divestment is the only moral choice for governments that care about their citizens. Solving the climate crisis is the only practical choice for governments that care about their solvency. It's time to divest from fossil fuels now!

The global climate crisis is harming individuals, families and communities around the world -- and that includes Vancouver. The crisis was created by, and is perpetuated by, the extraction of carbon deposits and their use as fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry is literally destroying our planet. And it is wrong for civic institutions to profit from this destruction. Vancouver has long been a leader in municipal climate action, but the Greenest City needs to include our investments too.

Fossil fuel companies have demonstrated their commitment to exploring, drilling, mining, and fracking far more carbon than our planet can ever recover from. These fossil fuel companies are the most powerful the world has ever seen. They can buy political influence, favorable laws, and propaganda. But they can't buy their reputation. By divesting Wellesley from the dirty energy of the past we are sending a message that company business plans cannot include the destruction of our planet, country, State, and Town.

There's a new movement of individuals, colleges, religious institutions, companies, and cities divesting from -- taking their money out of -- fossil fuel stocks, bonds and other investments. Investing in oil and coal companies was once a safe bet -- and an accepted part of most American's investment portfolios and retirement funds. But with the immense threat of climate change and a range of new, cost-competitive energy options available, investing in oil, natural gas, and coal is not only financially risky -- it's unethical. Washington, DC is a national leader in a larger sustainable city movement. In 2011, under the leadership of Mayor Vincent Gray, city agencies organized the Sustainable DC initiative, crowdsourcing a plan to make DC "the healthiest, greenest, and most livable city in the United States." And in March 2013, the DC government -- already a leading national consumer of green energy -- signed a contract to use wind power for 100 percent of its electricity needs. In short, it's safe to say DC gets it. They just need support and guidance to take this next step. The time for a renewable energy transformation is now. Climate scientists say that carbon emissions need to level off by 2016 and decline thereafter to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change (not even bad the ones, which most experts expect). Washington DC, a green city leader, "capital of the free world," and a likely victim sea-level rise, has every reason to lead the country and the world by withdrawing its investments from the companies that are heating the Earth, causing increasing extreme weather and flooding. The fossil fuel lobbyists have made it clear they're not leaving willingly. If the federal government won't turn off the tap of fossil fuel subsidies that fuel more and more extreme weather, cities can and need to take their investments out of fossil fuels -- perhaps giving the White House and Congress the courage they need to do the right thing for Americans, present and future. I love this city. Let's give the Mayor and City Council the support they need to divest DC's investments from fossil fuels.

Our local government has a responsibility to divest from an industry that’s destroying the future of our children and city, and reinvest in solutions to climate change. Chicago has many vacant lots that can be used for Alternative Energy and Buildings that can be used for Verticle Healthy Farming. Invest in Chicago's future and not the Fossil Fuel Industry. We can not count on the federal government, even as extreme weather events like the Extreme weather last Spring and Summer take over local budgets. We have the solutions, but we won’t see any political progress on the issue until we can weaken the power of the fossil fuel industry. Divestment is the only moral choice for Chicago, it's children and the well being of us all as we sleep at night.

We need our city to stop subsidizing the climate crisis. This summer, St. Louis experienced exactly what continued carbon emissions will feel like for our region – triple-digit heat waves and extreme drought. We cannot continue to subsidize the fossil fuel corporations responsible for this crisis. Right now, the City of St. Louis gives massive tax breaks to giant corporations downtown under the premise that these companies will create jobs, but these corporations usually fail to create what they promise. We’re left with consistent unemployment rates and millions of dollars stolen by these corporations away from the St. Louis Public Schools. These corporations do not need our money. Instead, we need to shift those taxpayer development dollars into renewable energy sources and sustainability initiatives that will create green jobs in a new local, sustainable economy. www.takebackstlouis.com

Our children and their children will not be able to reverse global warming unless we stop investing in fossil fuel companies. Until we divest from fossil fuel companies they will continue exploring for new oil and coal and gas, even though we have more than enough now to cook the planet 5 times over. We can't safely burn more than a few years worth of fossil fuels at the rate we are going, and once enough people understand the science and connect the dots with droughts, fires, heat waves, storms, sea level rise, poverty and disease, water shortages, economic instability, war and famine, these companies won't make sense as a long-term financial investment anyway, much less as a moral one. We are investing in our own destruction. Our seniors will not want to retire on money held in fossil fuel companies when we see the growing impacts and suffering that we have caused through those companies.

Hurricane Sandy decimated the New York City area, causing $65 billion in damage, causing power outages, destroying homes and leaving a path of wreckage from the Rockaways to Riverside Park. It's time for NYC to stop investing our pension funds in oil, gas and coal, and go fossil free! We know that Sandy was fueled in part by Atlantic waters that were 5 degrees warmer than average, a result of human-induced climate change. Our city government is taking steps to make our city an example of low-carbon urban living, from painting bike lanes to mandating energy retrofits -- and much much more must be done. And yet, New York City's pension funds for city employees, teachers, police, firemen and school employees are all invested in coal, oil and gas companies that dump carbon into the atmosphere for free, and rig the political system so that they can continue to do so. If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage. After Hurricane Sandy, New York City should be a shining light in the fight to combat climate change -- to do that, it's pension funds must divest from fossil fuels. A report from the Carbon Tracker Initiative has claimed that the world can only burn 800 more gigatonnes of carbon equivalent and stay under the two degree Celsius limit. A recent analysis of the world's current fossil fuel reserves, drawing on research by Oil Change International, has shown that if the world were to burn all current fossil fuel resources, then it would burn 982 gigatonnes of carbon equivalent. This means that we can no longer develop and build fossil fuel infrastructure; the age of fossil fuels must end immediately, if we have any hope of staying under two degrees Celsius. Our pension funds must follow suit and knowing that there can be no world in which the fossil fuel companies persist, we call upon New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer to commit to immediately freeze all investments in fossil fuel companies and divest the pension funds from these companies within five years. Read more about the need to divest and end all fossil fuel infrastructure here https://newrepublic.com/article/136987/recalculating-climate-math Over 3000 people from New York City have signed petitions calling upon Comptroller Stringer to divest the New York City pension funds from all fossil fuel holdings. To get involved in the campaign, go to 350nyc.org