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My experience at the October meeting of Mission Responsibility Through Investment

10/14/2017

13 Comments

 
 by abby mohaupt
Moderator of FFPCUSA

I went to Houston on October 9 to meet with Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI), the denominational committee that does shareholder engagement with publicly traded companies in which the Presbyterian Church (USA) holds stock.

As a committee, they have repeatedly resisted categorical divestment from the fossil fuel industry for several reasons, even as they believe that climate change is real. In broad strokes, there is a sense on MRTI that they must be careful to follow their mandate from General Assembly. Some members of the committee think we can’t lump the worst actors in the industry in the same category as companies who are “better.” If we divest categorically from the fossil fuel industry, some members of MRTI say, we will be shaming members of the PCUSA who work for the industry, and other members and friends of MRTI have said we might push wealthy congregations in Texas (only Texas?) out of the denomination. 

This was my fourth or fifth time attending an MRTI meeting, and I was prepared for at least a deep and complicated conversation that could pit us against each other—and I was exhausted just thinking about it. In the cab to the airport after my early morning flight, I could already feel my need for more coffee growing. I said a prayer to be open-hearted.

But then I stuck my head into the room at the church where the committee was meeting, and my heart leapt. I saw the faces of the people gathered around the table, and I remembered that we each had come to the table with a deep faith in Jesus, a deep hope in the church, and a deep call to respond to climate change.

Members of Faithful Action and I joined members of MRTI at the table. A member of MRTI asked me to talk more about FFPCUSA’s recent joining with Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and I talked about our commitment to working in solidarity with people on the front lines of climate change. A member of MRTI wondered if categorical divestment from the fossil fuel industry would cause another painful schism in the denomination in which wealthy donors (and faithful Presbyterians) would leave, and I wondered if we could serve both God and money. We talked about the metrics for engaging with companies in the 2017-2018 engagement year, and I said I love them and that I wished they meant MRTI would recommend at least a few companies for divestment at the 2018 General Assembly. (Instead, MRTI believes they need to give companies a chance to see the metrics and respond to them.) We talked a little bit about why individual action to respond to climate change isn’t enough, and that we need to raise our collective voices in addition to doing all the things that the denomination already promotes for caring for creation. (If you want to see why your own personal actions aren’t enough, go fill out a carbon footprint calculator like this one, put in all the most eco-friendly options, and see how many earths you still use.) I talked about who we’re accountable to as a church—that we must be accountable to the lives of people who are already suffering because of climate change.
​
After the roundtable, we heard from staff at Conoco Philips (including about their climate change policy)… and I wondered aloud just how little time we have left to respond to climate change. A member of MRTI wondered aloud how long it would take us to wake up and realize that we belong to each other.

It is urgent that we remember that we belong to each other—that we are called by God to love each other and to speak out on behalf of people who suffer. We have so little time to respond, so little time to wait for the fossil fuel industry to change their policies and business model.

As I hugged members of MRTI and Faithful Action goodbye, I said a prayer of gratitude for our shared commitment to work to respond to climate change. And then I said a prayer for courage for our denomination—that we would divest from an industry that has supplied our addiction to fossil fuels.

The time is now. 
13 Comments
Pam McVety
10/15/2017 12:44:15 pm

I am in tears. MRTI continues to he disconnected from the reality of what is happening to our planet and their ongoing complicity with it. Was there any discussion of what is going on in Puerto Rico????

Conclusion: The church doesn't care about me, a minor victim so far of climate change or the millions suffering in Puerto Rico or those dying and losing their homes out west from the wildfires.

I am incensed that their concerns appear to remain primarily with the fossil fuel industry.

If this group isn't going to make decisions based on facts it should be abolished. We should expect nothing less of people who are working on justice issues for the church.

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Janet Cox
10/15/2017 02:11:08 pm

I am incensed. As my friends’ homes, livelihoods, and in some cases lives’ go up on smoke as a consequence of high winds amplified by climate change, I don’t have time for MRTI members’ mealy-mouthed prevarications and overriding concern for Presbyterians from Texas.

Presbyterians who care about our children’s futures and our beloved planet need to figure out how to marginalize these so-called Christians and move forward together to change the status quo. As Abby says, it’s time. Now.

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Barbara Rothkrug
10/16/2017 09:09:36 am

I admire the good people in fossil free PCUSA. I don't understand the others. On a dead planet none of their objections will matter

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Gwin Pratt
10/16/2017 09:25:59 am

I am deeply appreciative for Abby's courage and prophetic witness. Speaking truth to power has to happen even within our beloved denomination.

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Laurie Fisher
10/16/2017 10:01:02 pm

Thanks, abby! Thank you for trying. MRTI and FA folks mean well but they don't "see". I wonder how they reconcile the fossil fuel industry's debunking of the climate science that their own scientists discovered decades ago (in the 70s) with the desperate situation the planet is now facing. Lives and livelihoods around the world are now at risk. Some are already lost.

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abby
10/21/2017 11:29:08 am

indeed. some are already lost.

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Dan Terpstra
10/17/2017 01:46:42 pm

Abby -
My deepest thanks and admiration for your perseverance and passion in continuing to engage MRTI. I can say unambiguously that I know the effort involved. Maybe next year's the year...
- dan

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Alan D Jenkins
10/17/2017 08:49:35 pm

Thank you so much, Abby, and thank you for being more open-hearted towards MRTI than i find myself able to be. in short, I resonate with those incensed with the MRTI response. This is unacceptable. MRTI, the way i see it, is putting a legitimizing face on PCUSA's weddedness to neo-liberal / free market investments.
We love our fair trade coffee, but when it comes to the big boys and the big money, we're all in. :)

It's time to call out MRTI at GA. ...and yet so many people want to side with MRTI because they're "responsible" investors.

I was on the august peacemaking trip to Guatemala, where we found that we actually have investments in some of the most agregious mining companies. I wanted to throw up.

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Rick MacArthur
10/18/2017 03:11:08 pm

I was excited in September 2014 when I joined a whole crowd of good folks from PCUSA at the Peoples Climate March in NYC. It was there I learned about a call to become fossil free. What a joy to participate with all those deeply engaged friends and strangers. Hope was the key word I brought back home with me that evening to the western Rockies.

I am less hopeful today about my PCUSA in light of the protracted decisions currently made by MRTI. Their arguments for delay and caution are disingenuous at best. Spiritually devastating at worst.

I wonder if the future of my beloved denomination is as bleak as the current resistance is to caring for our precious air, land, and water. And all those who dwell therein.

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Pam McVety
10/28/2017 08:15:06 am

Rick, your description of MRTI’s arguments against divestment as spiritually devastating is perfect. This is the first description of how I feel after years of asking MRTI to divest. Their position is irrational and undermines our faith.

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Kate Miller
10/19/2017 07:25:50 am

Thank you, Abby! I appreciate your work trying to encourage divestment and not wanting to lose valuable investment in the church! Tricky.
The founders of Exxon (Roosevelt) Reuters: March 23, 2016
"The Rockefeller Family Fund ...just announced that it’s divesting from fossil fuels, saying “we must keep most of the already discovered reserves in the ground if there is any hope for human and natural ecosystems to survive and thrive in the decades ahead.”
According to 350.org Exxon is being investigated due to reports from their files which read that back in the 1970s Exxon knew that continued drilling for oil would hurt the planet.
Perhaps these oil families will begin to question.....?

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Neddy Astudillo
10/20/2017 11:32:26 am

At a time when we celebrate 500 years of Reformation, it should be easier to talk about continuing to reform in those areas where we must, to be serious about God's calling to be servants of God's creation? Another schism is not my fear. My fear is that we don't have any more time to loose, and so many in our denomination think we do. I pray for PCUSA to move towards the right side of history!. Thanks for your witness and calling us to be part of this conversation. Dios te Bendiga, Abby.

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abby
10/21/2017 11:44:01 am

I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of comments on this report. MRTI staff and leadership have seen both this report and your responses.

MRTI has to respond to the mandates they're given from General Assembly, and so I hope we'll work to get General Assembly to ask MRTI to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Can you organize in your presbytery to concur with the overture to divest?

We need MRTI to continue their shareholder engagement strategy (which I believe is critical to our denomination) in other industries. We need to help MRTI see that the fossil fuel industry needs to join the ranks of other "sin stocks," not because if we divest from sin stocks we are sinless, but because by divesting we acknowledge that we have been complicit in and profited from an industry and system that has created so much suffering.

We need to do that with as much love as possible, because love helps us act faithfully and work for justice... especially when it is hard, and especially when we ultimately are asking each of us to break our addiction to fossil fuels.

In the words of the member from MRTI, "how long will it take us to wake up and remember that we belong to each other?" We do belong to each other, even as all creation groans.

I'm mulling over responses to each of your comments, and today I'm committed to praying for each part of creation that cries out.

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