The message comes in a language they certainly know well, and that is dollars. The divestment movement is asking institutions whose profits are derived from oil, gas, and coal to simply divest that money into renewable energy sources and climate solutions. This time last year the world’s largest private bank, UBS, was urging investors to join the clean, renewable energy movement. Analysts at the bank said that power plants in Europe might be extinct within the next 10 to 20 years. According to an economicanalysis report done by Arabella Advisors, factors contributing to people becoming more aware about our planet and how we are impacting it are apparent. Here are highlights of the report and what some of the numbers show.

Big Corps Are Pledging

Traditionally, it has been faith-based communities, NGOs, universities, and mission lead initiatives that have jumped on board for climate change solutions and other social issues. Now, huge pension funds, municipalities, and private-sector players like insurance companies and some entertainment houses have signed on. With these large backers, which hold 95% of the total amount being committed to divestment, there is no telling where else this movement can spread.

Risky Business

The climate risk to investment portfolios is one that investors cannot ignore, in fact it’s what is exponentially driving the divestment from corportaions and individuals. Reports by Citigroup analysts, HSBC, Mercer, the International Energy Agency, Bank of England, Carbon Tracker Initiative, and others have offered evidence of a significant, quantifiable risk to portfolios exposed to fossil fuel assets in a carbon constrained world. The leaders of several of the largest institutions to divest in the past year have cited climate risk to investment portfolios as a key factor in their decisions.

Spreading Out

While historically focused in the United States, the divestment movement now spans the globe. In 2014, 78 percent of divesting institutions were US-based. Today, 57 percent are US-based. Institutions that have chosen to divest represent more than 646 million individuals around the world.

Invest in Solutions

Internationally, investment in clean energy reached $310 billion in 2014. Among those pledging to divest, many are also committing to invest in climate solutions (this ranges from: renewable energy, climate justice initiatives, resilient infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, water projects, and more). Those institutions and individuals that have pledged to both divest and invest in clean energy collectively hold $785 billion in assets.

From an economic point of view, if the market is changing then so should your investments. Thomas Van Dyck, managing director of the SRI Wealth Management Group, said the new level of consciousness among individuals and institutional investors is palpable. According to Van Dyck, the findings of the Arabella report “underscore[] what I see every day as a financial advisor—that the demand for fossil-free investment products is increasing.” But this shift is not just reflective of a desire to save the world, it is also logical for those concerned about paying attention to what the scientific and economic studies are saying about the future of the fossil fuel market. “More and more investors are reducing their carbon risk today and diversifying their portfolios with the goal to harness the upside in the sustainable clean growth industries of the future,” Van Dyck added.

Sources:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/23/global-divestment-movement-catches-fire-funds-worth-26-trillion-shifting-assets

http://www.arabellaadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Measuring-the-Growth-of-the-Divestment-Movement.pdf

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/22/us-climatechange-energy-divestment-idUSKCN0RM2PZ20150922

A terrible shake, then roar as Guatemala slide kills 30

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Hundreds of rescue workers using shovels and pickaxes early Saturday recovered four more bodies after a hillside collapsed above a group of homes on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. The death toll rose to 30 amid fears that hundreds more could still be buried in the rubble.

Family members have reported at least 100 people missing after the Thursday evening mudslide. The number of missing could be as high as 600 based on at least 100 homes in the area, said Alejandro Maldonado, executive secretary of Conred, Guatemala's emergency disaster agency.

At least 36 other people have been reported injured.

After suspending work Friday evening, search efforts resumed at dawn on Saturday, said Julio Sanchez, spokesman for Guatemala's volunteer firefighters.

Rescue workers labored all day Friday in a frantic bid to reach survivors, pulling one man alive from the rubble of his collapsed home more than 15 hours after the landslide hit.

Sanchez said Friday that the dead, including two babies, were carried to an improvised morgue where weeping relatives identified the bodies. The dead included Quani Bonilla, 18, who played on the national squash team, he said.

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Rescue workers search for survivors after a landslide hit Cambray, a neighborhood in the suburb of S …

Also among the bodies, rescuers found a mother embracing her two girls, said Carlos Turcios, a doctor who saw them when he came to help the rescue.

The hill that towers over Cambray, a neighborhood in the suburb of Santa Catarina Pinula, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) east of Guatemala City, partly collapsed onto a 200-foot (60-meter) stretch of the hamlet just before midnight, burying an estimated 68 homes. Raul Rodas, an assistant village mayor, said about 150 families had lived in the area where the mudslide occurred.

Some of the untouched homes in Cambray, which sits on the edge of a small river, were abandoned by their owners for fear of further mudslides.

Homemaker Dulce del Carmen Lavarenzo Pu said she had just returned from church Thursday evening when the ground shook and she heard a terrible noise. A wave of mud slid from the nearby mountainside and buried everything just 150 feet (50 meters) from her house.

"Everything went black, because the lights went out," the 28-year-old said. "Ash and dust were falling, so we left the house. You couldn't see anything."

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Rescue workers and firemen search for survivors at the the site of a landslide in Cambray, a neighbo …

The rain-sodden hillside about 300 feet (100 meters) high had collapsed onto her neighborhood, killing at least 30 people, including her cousin. She burst into tears upon seeing her cousin's body brought into the morgue on Friday.

Marleni Pu, 25, stood Friday at the edge of the mudslide, her face swollen with weeping.

"My uncles, my cousins, my nieces and nephews are all there," she said, looking across the field of debris where about two dozen relatives had lived. "Six houses where my relatives lived are all under the hillside now."

Searchers dug out her relative, Rony Ramos, 23, who was rescued from a home near the edge of mudflow. But at its center, the landslide buried houses under a layer of rocks and earth as much as 50 feet (15 meters) deep. He had apparently been trapped in an air pocket, face down and unable to move.

"When our personnel were searching through the rubble, they heard a voice," said rescue worker Cecilio Chacaj. "They located the man, who was buried about two meters (six feet) under rubble." He said rescuers worked frantically for five hours with jackhammers and saws to free Ramos.

All day Friday, restaurants brought pizza, hamburgers, coffee and bottle water for the workers, who took 30-minute shifts searching through the mud with the help of generators and overhead lights. By afternoon, some were so tired they were seen taking naps on the floor.

The municipal government said it would provide coffins for the victims.

THE KREMLIN SAYS SYRIAN RAIDS WILL LAST THREE TO FOUR MONTHS AND INCREASE IN INTENSITY

Russia’s defence ministry said it struck an ISIS training camp near the village of Maadan Jadid, 45 miles east of Raqqa city and ‘a camouflaged command post at Kasrat Faraj’ southwest of the city. It came as ISIS militants posted a tweet warning ‘Death to Putin: We are coming #soon’ with a picture of Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral in flames, according to the SITE intelligence group.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived for talks with his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Paris as questions mount over who Moscow was targeting in Syria. The two leaders smiled as they shook hands outside the Elysee palace where they will discuss the conflict in Syria before a four-way summit with Germany on the crisis in Ukraine.

Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral and all of Russia will be in flames said ISIS today. #soon.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the latest strikes had killed at least a dozen ISIS fighters late on Thursday. ‘Last night, Russian strikes on the western edges of Raqqa city, and near the Tabqa military airport, killed 12 ISIS jihadists,’ Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said on Friday.

HE SAID THEIR BODIES WERE TRANSPORTED TO A HOSPITAL IN THE PROVINCE.

Moscow’s defence ministry said Friday claimed its war planes had ‘conducted 18 sorties on 12 positions held by the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria’ since Thursday, although some of these were disputed by civilians and the Syrian opposition.

The statement said Russian raids also destroyed ‘a command post and communications centre’ held by ISIS in Daret Ezza in northern Aleppo province, as well as bunkers and weapons depots in Maaret al-Numan and Habeet in northwest Idlib province.

Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament said more than 2,500 air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria had failed to inflict significant damage on ISIS jihadists, but Russia’s campaign would be more intensive.

‘I think it’s the intensity that is important. The US-led coalition has pretended to bomb Daesh (another name for Islamic State) for a year, without results. ‘If you do it in a more efficient way, I think you’ll see results,’ he said.

Earlier, the SOHR claimed two children were the latest victims of Russia’s airstrikes in Syria that have so far killed up to 36 civilians. Reports of the deaths came as a U.S. general accused Moscow of using indiscriminate cluster bombs that can obliterate areas the size of football fields in its attacks on rebel groups.

THE LATEST AIR STRIKES HIT THE DISTRICT OF JABAL AL-ZAWIYA, IN AN AREA UNDER THE CONTROL OF AL-QAEDA’S AFFILIATE IN SYRIA AND OTHER ISLAMIST REBEL GROUPS, ACCORDING TO A BRITISH-BASED MONITORING GROUP.

‘Four civilians, including a child and a woman, were killed in raids conducted by Russian military aircraft,’ said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

‘Three other civilians, including a girl and a woman, were killed in bombing by these planes of the village of Habeet,’ in the same province that borders Turkey, said the group, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its information.

Russian air strikes on Syria have killed 28 people since they were launched on Wednesday, says the Observatory. source

(NTEB)