{"id":9431,"date":"2015-01-23T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=9431"},"modified":"2016-04-22T19:09:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T02:09:51","slug":"fossil-free-umc-commends-gbophb-decision-to-screen-coal-from-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/fossil-free-umc-commends-gbophb-decision-to-screen-coal-from-investments\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil Free UMC Commends GBOPHB Decision to Screen Coal from Investments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fossil Free UMC commends the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gbophb.org\/climatechange\/\">General Board of Pension and Health Benefits\u2019 decision to screen coal from its investments.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cCreating a coal investment screen is more than an act of fiduciary duty. It\u2019s a bold expression of The United Methodist Church\u2019s values,\u201d says Rev. Jenny Phillips, coordinator of Fossil Free UMC. \u201cAs a denomination, we can\u2019t continue to say we\u2019re against climate change while saying we\u2019re for fossil fuel profits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe General Board of Pension and Health Benefits is taking the first step in acknowledging that investing in fossil fuels undermines The United Methodist Church\u2019s ministries with the most vulnerable among us,\u201d says Rev. Phillips. \u201cOur denomination is on the front lines of climate change mitigation and recovery efforts worldwide. It doesn\u2019t make sense for our pensions and ministries to depend on the flourishing of the companies that are wreaking this havoc.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fossil Free UMC is a movement of United Methodists who want to add coal, petroleum and natural gas to the list of United Methodist socially responsible investment screens in the\u00a0<em>Book of Discipline\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>Book of Resolutions<\/em>. In 2014, Fossil Free UMC supported successful legislation calling for the study of fossil fuel divestment in the Baltimore-Washington, California-Nevada, Pacific Northwest, and Virginia annual conferences. Now Fossil Free UMC is working with and seeking leaders in other annual conferences and central conferences to ask their 2015 conferences to endorse legislation for General Conference 2016 adding coal, petroleum and natural gas to the denomination\u2019s investment screens.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more, contact Rev. Jenny Phillips at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:fossilfreeumc@gmail.com\">fossilfreeumc@gmail.com<\/a>,\u00a0and visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fossilfreeumc.org\/\">http:\/\/www.fossilfreeumc.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fossil Free UMC commends the\u00a0General Board of Pension and Health Benefits\u2019 decision to screen coal from its investments.\u00a0\u201cCreating a coal investment screen is more than an act of fiduciary duty. It\u2019s a bold expression of The United Methodist Church\u2019s values,\u201d says Rev. Jenny Phillips, coordinator of Fossil Free UMC. \u201cAs a denomination, we can\u2019t continue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":9432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[438],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-press-release"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ffumc.png?fit=700%2C357&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-2s7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9433,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions\/9433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}