I'm proud to share the news that starting this summer, the California Academy of Sciences has begun the process of divesting from fossil fuel industries. Our executive director Jon Foley announced on August 21 his plan to ensure that our institution's investment portfolio does not include any companies that extract non-renewable fossil fuels from the earth. From his statement:
To me, it seems difficult to reconcile the mission of a public science museum focused on ecology, evolution, and sustainability and the practice of investing in fossil fuels. So many institutions, including universities, NGOs, foundations, churches, and so on, are facing the same issue right now. Should they divest from fossil fuels or not? And, if so, how should they do it?
Well, I believe that we should.
This comes in response to an activist campaign to get natural history museums to divest from fossil fuels, including the California Academy of Sciences, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, and the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Read Jon's statement here. More coverage on hyperallergic.com and SFGate.