Forget picketing. If you really want to make companies change their ways, you’ll turn to stock divestment.

How big of an impact are fossil fuels having on climate change? Big enough for Stanford University to divest close to $19 billion worth of stock in coal-mining companies. The announcement came just after the White House released an 840-page report on climate change earlier this week. It makes Stanford the first major university to divest its fossil fuel funds. But not the only one.

According to the New York Times, the university said that the stock divestment move was in accordance with its guidelines that allow the school’s trustees to consider “whether ‘corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury’ when choosing investments.” The university has removed companies “whose principal business is coal” from their investment portfolio.

The move involves close to 100 companies around the world that depend on coal extraction as their core source of revenue. “Not all of those companies are in the university’s investment portfolio, whose structure is private,” Stanford’s associate vice president for communications, Lisa Lapin, told the Times. And over all, the university’s coal holdings represent “a small fraction of its endowment.”

“But a small percentage is still a substantial amount of money,” Ms. Lapin added.

Stanford’s decision now leads the way in a stock divestment movement actively happening on approximately 300 university campuses, reports the Times. “At least 11 small universities have elected to remove fossil-fuel stocks from their endowments, but none approaches Stanford’s prestige or national influence.  Tuesday’s decision seems likely to increase the pressure on other major universities to follow suit.”

Stanford “knows the havoc that climate change creates around our planet,” Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement. “Other forward-looking and internationally minded institutions will follow, I’m sure.”

The anti-GMO movement is utilizing stock divestment as well. A recent video released by the faceless organization, Organic Spies, calls for consumers to petition mutual funds managers to drop Monsanto from their portfolios. “Who owns Monsanto stock?” The video asks. “You do. The time is now for Fidelity, Vanguard and State Street, who each own billions of dollars in Monsanto stock, to dump it.”

Friday May 9^th is being dubbed the “National Day of Action” to divest Monsanto stocks. Groups including the Cornucopia Institute, Food Democracy Now! and the Institute for Responsible Technology are all supporting the campaign. Protests will be held at Fidelity locations across the country.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Related on EcoSalon

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The Dirt on Clean Coal: Looking Beyond the Alternative Fuel Hype

Monsanto News Roundup: A Bad Seed

Image: paisteline581

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Sustainable style news from EcoSalon’s West Coast Fashion Editor.

En Plein Air – This fall’s CAPSULE Urban Air Market takes place on Sunday, September 18^th and previews the fashion shopping of the future. You’ll find locally produced, artisanally made clothing and accessories close to the source – free of corporate retail mentality and overhead markup – in a farmers market like setting. The bi-annual, free event spanning 4 city blocks will feature over 130 independent designers of men’s, women’s, and kid’s clothing, accessories, jewelry, paper goods, glassware, and unique home décor. The designers are selected based on their quality, originality and sustainability of design. Some EcoSalon fav’s representing are Earthlust, Mission Thread Clothing and LINQUIST jewelry. We’re liking the forward thinking vision so much, we’re sponsoring it. Come down, check out some cutting-edge sustainable style and don’t forget to say hi when you see us at the scene.

Cause Connect – According to Etsy‘s new European Director, Matthew Stinchcomb, “the prevalent corporate mentality has left us ever more disconnected from nature, our communities, and the people and processes behind the objects in our lives.” The first step in his plan to create a more sustainable future is to create healthy micro-economies by supporting small businesses. Taking place in Berlin, Germany, and partner locations across the world this weekend is “Hello Etsy: A Summit on Small Business and Sustainability” a hands-on gathering for entrepreneurs, which will include training, a talk by Environmentalist Bill McKibben (350.org) and the chance to win five small business grants. West Coast hosts include GOOD in Los Angeles, CA; California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA; and the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Each of these locations will feature their own live speakers, panels, and workshops.

Seattle Strut – Sashay on down to Seattle’s Showbox Sodo for Fashion First’s 8th annual fashion show this Thursday, the 15^th of September. Sponsored by Seattle Magazine, the long-running charitable event will showcase leading-edge local designers and retailers, featuring the latest looks from La Ree Boutique, Baby & Co., Lizzie Parker, REPORT footwear, The Finerie, Sway and Cake, Ragamoffyn’s, Chez Chic, Mercer, the Art Institute of Seattle and Seattle magazine’s own 2011 Seamless in Seattle winners. Proceeds from the event will benefit Rise n’ Shine, a local nonprofit providing advocacy, mentors, summer camps and more to children and teens affected by HIV/AIDS.

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ExclusiveAn interview with Bill McKibben on the eve of an environmental protest.

Led by venerated climate change activist, author and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, citizens from all over the country will converge on the White House on Saturday, August 20th, 2011 at 11 o’clock Eastern Standard Time to protest a proposed tar sand oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas. Their goal? Pressure President Barack Obama to stop a project called Keystone XL, a pipeline running through America’s heartland. Indications are that Obama is likely to sign off on the project (the chief lobbyist for the project is Hillary Clinton’s deputy campaign manager). As McKibben tells EcoSalon, “This is the singular test of Obama’s environmental administration. It’s clean cut; congress isn’t in the middle, it’s Obama’s call.” McKibben plans to be arrested in the first wave of protesters Saturday morning and plans to be wearing his Obama ’08 t-shirt and button in the support of the “Obama we worked to get elected.”

(Image above: An aerial view of toxic sludge left in the wake of Tar Sand mining in Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace.)

Tar Sands: A Modern Eco-Disaster

Regardless if it’s crude or tar as sand sludge being transported, the fact is, pipelines rupture. Last year, 819,000 gallons spewed into the Kalamazoo River and 21,000 gallons leaked in Romeville, Illinois. In July of this year, between 23,000 and 31,000 gallons of crude spilled into the Yellowstone River. As sweet crude sources become scarcer and scarcer, the process of extracting oil stratified in sand, water and clay is becoming more cost-effective. The problem is that the process is incredibly destructive environmentally and extremely energy-intensive. Tar sand refinement takes 40% more greenhouse gas emissions to develop into usable crude, and the “mining” of it leaves unprecedented environmental destruction in its wake.

As NASA climate scientist, Jim Hansen, says about Keystone XL pipeline if approved: “It’s essentially a game-over for the climate.” The United States is the largest importer of tar sand oil in the world, sourcing it from Canada. The massive pipeline would most likely double the extraction from Alberta’s boreal forest, an area already decimated by extraction activities.

McKibben tells us, “You have three scenarios here. One: the toxic sauce spills into some of America’s most important farmlands and wilderness areas. Two: it spills into the Ogallala aquafier (the world’s largest, located in the midwestern United States), and three, if it makes it all the way to Texas, it’s guaranteed to spill into the atmosphere during refinement.”

Tar sands projects are the fastest-growing cause of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and it’s estimated that by 2015, tar sands will account for more emissions than the entire country of Denmark. Extraction requires a tremendous amount of water (2-4.5 barrels per barrel of oil produced), which winds up in toxic tailing lagoons that have never been successfully reclaimed. An analysis using industry data shows that the lagoons leak over a billion gallons of polluted water into the environment each year. And because refining what’s called bitumen (a mixture of sand, water, oil and clay) into usable crude takes at least 40% more energy than regular crude refinement, the amount refined will skyrocket and so will the emissions.

Anatomy of a Protest

Protest organizers confirm that 2,100 people from all over the country are coming to Washington D.C. to be arrested over the next two weeks.  The protestors will receive a training before converging on the White House, where morning and afternoon, for the next two weeks, waves of mass arrests will take place. Reports from protest headquarters state that citizens are busing in, and as many as 1,000 so far have stated exactly when they’ll be arriving for their arrest. According to McKibben, “This will be the single largest act of civil disobedience in American history.”

Sources and further reading:

Tar Sands Action

The Guardian

Oil Sands Fact Sheet

On Earth: NRDC Says Wild Lands Under Attack

Kalamazoo Oil Spill Highlights Pipeline Risks

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These days, I see how optimistic and positive disaster and apocalypse movies were. Remember how, when those giant asteroids or alien space ships headed directly for Earth, everyone rallied and acted as one while our leaders led? We’re in a movie like that now, except that there’s not a lot of rallying or much leading above the grassroots level.

The movie is called “Climate Change,” and you can tell its plot in a number of ways. In one, the alien monsters taking over the planet are called corporations, while the leaders who should be protecting us from their depredations are already subjugated and doing their bidding.

For the rest of this article, head on over to Grist.

Editor’s note: Article by Rebecca Solnit. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

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