A spirited group of local students and climate activists marched across Tower Bridge Friday to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System offices to compel the teachers pension fund to divest the $15 billion it has invested in fossil fuel companies. These local students join hundreds of thousands of people striking worldwide Sept. 20 as a part of Fridays for Future, a global climate movement started by famed youth climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2018.
A 10-foot sculpture of Thunberg towered over the parade of students as they chanted for climate justice to the rhythm of a drum line composed of Oakland Unified School District sixth-graders. “We’re growing up in an unconventional time when skipping school has become necessary to advocate for a fossil free future, even though we’ve always been taught that going to school is meant to secure that future,” teen organizer Anushka Kalyan said in a speech. “We strike today because we’re showing our education system a powerful message.
” Kalyan worked with the Fresno chapter of Fridays for Future, sixth-grade musicians from Oakland and local climate organizations like Fossil Free California to organize the rally to pressure CalSTRS to divest. The Granite Bay High School senior previously advocated for a bill that would have required CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuels by 2031. The bill has since stalled in the Legislature, and Kalyan was motivated to put the pressure directly on the pension fund to stop investing in the fossil fuel industry.
“I’ve been a public school system student for all my life, so my teachers are CalSTRS beneficiaries, and it’s really not okay with me that once they retire, they’re getting money from a source that directly funds fossil fuels, and that’s really why we’re focusing on divestment today,” Kalyan said. CalSTRS has responded to criticism of their investment in companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobile by saying that it is the most fiscally responsible route for their pensioners. They have argued further that divesting from fossil fuels would not effectively address climate change and that long-term, large investors like CalSTRS can lobby fossil fuel companies and their related industries to transition their business models to cleaner forms of energy and minimize the environmental impacts of their operations.
“CalSTRS has the responsibility to continue to take a holistic approach to addressing climate-related risks across our entire portfolio,” an FAQ on their website reads. “Divestment from fossil fuel companies fails to address the myriad issues that contribute to climate change.” Fossil Free CA disputes the state agency’s claim, citing studies that show diminishing returns on investment in fossil fuel companies and the neutral impact that divesting from these companies has had on other investment funds.
Instead, they say that renewable energy sources are the future of the economy that CalSTRS should embrace to be fiscally and environmentally responsible. Part of Fossil Free’s strategy is to get teachers unions to publicly call on CalSTRS to divest. Large chapters of the California Teachers Association, including the Oakland Educators Association and United Teachers of Los Angeles, have taken a pro-divestment stance.
No unions in the Sacramento or Fresno areas have publicly endorsed divestment. “It takes every leader in the union, every member on the CalSTRS board, every legislator standing and saying, ‘this is what I want, and standing with the students that we see here today,’ ..
. . So that’s why we’re asking every local, in addition to statewide, to stand with us on divestment,” Miriam Eide said.
“One of the beauties of this particular fight is that it’s in their financial interest as well as it being morally and ethically, the right thing to do, fossil fuels are not the future of the economy.” CalSTRS has not returned a request for comment on the strike..
