Team Marine: Making a Difference Through Fossil Fuel Divestment
Sydney Roker, Staff Writer
During a time when the burning of fossil fuels is at a historic high, the Samo Team Marine Club is contributing to solving the global climate crisis through a fossil fuel divestment project.
Team Marine’s goal is to get CalSTRS, or the California State Teachers Retirement System, to divest from fossil fuels. CalSTRS is an extremely powerful investment corporation, but there has been a growing movement of students and teachers, including from Samo’s Team Marine, to encourage CalSTRS to sell its fossil fuel related holdings, which are worth over 6 billion dollars. The divestment of CalSTRs would help reduce carbon emissions, as it would put economic pressure on the polluting fossil fuel companies that CalSTRS is investing in.
Benjamin Kay is an Environmental and Marine Biology teacher at Samo and is the advisor for Team Marine. Kay stresses the importance of divestment, especially with the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels.
“To continue burning fossil fuels is environmentally irresponsible because it sacrifices the livelihoods of future generations and the current generations,” Kay said.
Daniel Thurmond (’22), has been a member of Team Marine for four years, and has been the co-captain of the club for two years. Thurmond also noted the detrimental effects that fossil fuels are having on our planet.
“Fossil fuels are destroying our future. Not only are they a huge contributor to the climate crisis, they are a terrible investment, and they continue a narrative of exploitation and injustice,” Thurmond said.
Understanding how the detrimental effects of fossil fuels and how the divestment of CALSTRS was contributing to this, Team Marine gave a presentation to the SMMCTA (the Santa Monica Malibu Classroom Teachers Association) and was able to convince the branch to adopt a resolution to divest teacher pension money from fossil fuels. The club also organized a protest and sent countless letters to Harry Keily, the chair of the CalSTRS Investment Committee, who recently agreed to set up a meeting with Team Marine.
Team Marine’s advocacy doesn’t end here as they continue talking with many other teachers and environmental advocacy groups and students from all around the state to strategize the formation of a youth coalition for climate justice. Currently, the youth coalition has several active schools and environmental clubs and has partnered with Extinction Rebellion and Youth vs Apocalypse.
