A Board of Aldermen public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. this Thursday (March 13) at City Hall to discuss a resolution for the city’s retirement board to divest from any investments tied to the fossil-fuel industry.

The hearing was held after 129 registered voters submitted a petition asking for the hearing to take place. Based on comments from aldermen while discussing the petition at the board’s Feb. 27 meeting, during which there was some difficulty scheduling the hearing because a number of them made a point saying they wanted to be present, the resolution should be a slam dunk for Fossil Free Somerville, which organized the petition effort and describes itself in a press release as “a grassroots organization dedicated to locally oriented action designed to combat climate change and challenge the companies that drive it.”

The group would like to see the city, again from the release, “immediately cease any new investments in fossil fuel companies, and fully divest from direct holdings and commingled funds within five years.”

The “comingled” part of the proposal will be the most interesting part should the resolution turn into action. Who exactly will be responsible for delving into the six degrees of investment separation is not clear, and nor is the issue of how future “comingled” investment will be detected and kept away from the city’s pension portfolio. Of course, all of this rests on the assumption that the city even has investments tied to the industry.

And how effective will such a measure be? After all, Exxon Mobil was listed by Fortune magazine this past July as the world’s most profitable company, with sales of $44.9 billion in 2012. Where there is profit, there will be people (investors) who will want a piece of it. Nature abhors a vacuum; so does Wall Street.

The main way to tackle the fossil-fuel industry is still good old capitalism. If a company can make and market vehicles, for example, that are affordable, serviceable and attractive to consumers, that would wean people off of fossil-fuel dependence. That would lower profits and dividends, so divestment would then be both ecologically and fiscally responsible.

Still, the city and its residents will be able to pat themselves on their backs for making a symbolic gesture, even if it’s complicated in its actual execution, towards the environment and the need to discuss and act on climate change as a matter of scientific fact and not political, partisan debate.

To everyone who bikes or walks to the meeting, with your cloth shopping bag in your backpack and your (paper, not Styrofoam) cup of fair-trade coffee in your hand, your conscience is clean, even if fossil fuels aren’t.

While doing something instead of nothing is still something. it will be interesting to see just how many hybrids there will (or won’t) be in the City Hall parking lot Thursday.

It’s kind of like a smoker who is adamant that no portion of his 401k be in any way tied to the tobacco industry.

Just sayin’.