I am a millennial and when you’re in this generation your relationship with long-term security, in the form of things such as pension funds, is tenuous at the best of times. This, the Covid-19 pandemic — is the second economic depression of our short working lives.
And so much of the lucrative part of the market comes in the form of fossil fuel companies. Royal Dutch Shell has increased its dividend every year since World War II. This allowed people to profit from their investments and retire. Much of our growth in the past two centuries has been powered by burning fossil fuels — from cotton mills in England to the fuel in the warships that drive global American commercial dominance.
The divestment movement, asking investors to put their money in less polluting industries, had started to change this. Covid-19 is dramatically driving this change. Right now this is devastating. Losses on investments hurt people and hurt economies. But the unquestioned logic of return on investment, whatever the cost, has been upended. Chaos allows for change.