There's Henry Ford and automobiles. Andrew Carnegie and steel. And then there were the Rockefeller Brothers and oil.
They founded Standard Oil Company, the world's largest oil refiner at the time. They turned much of their fortune to philanthropic work, including helping to establish the University of Chicago.
Along with 49 other groups, they announced yesterday that the family charitable foundation will divest itself of investments in fossil fuels, including major oil and gas companies, coal mining, and tar-sands mining.
Further, they will then re-invest in the development of renewable energy sources. And we're talking in the high hundreds of billions of dollars.
This is hugely significant, coming a day after the 400,000+ People's Climate March through New York and the day before the opening of a major summit with world leaders to address climate change. The president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund told USA Today that the fuel divestment movement is snowballing.
Good. This is what's been needed.
Ralph
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