Is Al Gore joining the Global Finance Campaign?
Al Gore keeps saying the most interesting things. I think he must read our website when surfing the internet late at night.
This week, speaking to financial leaders controlling $20 trillion in assets, Gore said “You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you — as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you — that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets.”
“Subprime carbon assets”, according to Gore, are the financial risks that investors in carbon intensive industry face when throwing billions into the fossil fuel infrastructure (ex:Citi and Bank of America). Gore compared carbon investments to the recent subprime mortgage crisis that has led to a meltdown in financial markets.
Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley just announced the “Carbon Principles.” Guidelines designed to scrutinize coal plant proposals more closely. Bank of America’s CEO is talking about treating carbon as a liability.
Maybe they are smartening up. Maybe they are getting nervous about rising tides and warming oceans. Or perhaps the shifting political winds led by global social-environmental movements.
Regardless, our pressure campaign is working, it’s even got Al Gore’s attention.
UPDATE: I just wanted to add one other thing. While the climate justice and global warming movements are building momentum and Mr. Gore is scolding Wall St. for their portfolios, we should be wary of false solutions. Carbon trading and carbon capture and storage are amongst the false solutions that they will be throwing at us in the coming years. An industry front group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices is already promoting “clean coal” and lots of other greenwashing will be coming down pike as well.
We need to start re-thinking our entire fossil fuel structure and figure out how to uproot the system and build a better world. Mr. Gore may or may not be a leader in that, but millions of us are already part of the process.
4 Responses to “Is Al Gore joining the Global Finance Campaign?”
Leave a Reply
All comments offered in the spirit of civil conversation are welcome! Commercial spam, obscenity and other rude behavior are not, and will be removed. Valid email addresses are required. (RAN respects your privacy; we will not use, lend, or sell your email address for any reason.)
February 17th, 2008 at 4:41 am
[...] The Understory brought abstract from his recent speech This week, speaking to financial leaders controlling $20 trillion in assets, Gore said “You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you — as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you — that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets.” [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
We humans really need to do something. Now. I am very honored to know that Al Gore is among us who care and are trying to help us save the planet. Thank you, Mr. Gore.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
In 1992 Senator Al Gore wrote; Earth in the Balance: “Ecology and the Human Spirit.” He wrote the book shortly before he began running for vp.
It is admirable that he spends his time fighting for a just and sustainable planet.
Maybe, just maybe this new cycle of enlightenment we seem to be entering will spawn a generation of visionaries of a similar ilk.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Al Gore is no different than a witch doctor or a snake oil salseman.
He is beneftiing financially from the global climate hysteria, and refuses to debate anyone on the issue. NASA data has shown that the planets temperature has been dropping since 1998, and the ice caps are increasing now, on both poles.