by Lennox Yearwood Jr. and Bill McKibben, NY Times
Highlights:
- JPMorgan Chase is among the worst companies to aid the rapid warming of the earth by lending billions to gas and oil companies.
- “Wells Fargo lent over $151 billion, Citibank lent over $129 billion and Bank of America lent over $106 billion” and “JPMorgan Chase lent over $195 billion to gas and oil companies”.
- Getting people to shift their money away from banks that invest in fossil fuels could be a very powerful lever for reversing the climate crisis
If you asked us why a dozen people sat on the floor next to the A.T.M. in a Chase Bank branch on Friday, waiting for the police to arrest us for this small act of civil disobedience, we would come up with the same answer as the famous robber Willie Sutton: “Because that’s where the money is.”
We don’t want to empty the vaults. Instead, we want people to understand that the money inside the vaults of banks like Chase is driving the climate crisis. Cutting off that flow of cash may be the single quickest step we can take to rein in the fossil fuel industry and slow the rapid warming of the earth.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/opinion/climate-change-bank-investment.html
Maddie Maffia
Madelyn is a graduate of Oregon State University, with a degree in environmental science with specializations in aquatic biology and environmental water resources.
