By Oliver Bok

“If it’s wrong to destroy the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the destruction of the planet,” Eric Fields said.

Fields is a Tufts graduate student and an organizer of Fossil Free Somerville, a campaign to divest the city’s pension fund from oil companies. To him, divestment is the only moral choice.

“Fossil fuel divestment is about taking a stand on what’s right and saying we’re not going to put our money in these companies that are doing things that are fundamentally at odds with our values as a city and our goals as a city in reducing climate change,” he said.

Fossil fuel divestment campaigns have sprung up in cities, states and campuses all over the country, including Tufts University and Massachusetts. Few of these campaigns have attracted the level of political support that Somerville’s has. The Board of Aldermen passed a unanimous resolution in support of fossil fuel divestment in June 2014, and Mayor Curtatone has repeatedly stated his support for the divestment campaign.

However, the mayor and the Board of Aldermen don’t actually control Somerville’s investments. Instead, the city’s pension fund is managed by the Somerville Retirement Board, a group of five who are partially selected by the mayor and partially elected by the pensioners themselves.

The Board is legally required to get the best return on its investments, and any attempt to hire fund managers who would carry out fossil fuel divestment has to be approved by the State Oversight Board.

But to Fields and Fossil Free Somerville, divestment isn’t just the moral choice: it’s the financially responsible choice.

“Fossil free funds have done better than traditional funds over the last three, five, seven, and fifteen years,” Fields said. “As governments increasingly do things to deal with climate change in the future, fossil fuel investments will continue to be a worse investment, and eventually there may actually be a large market bubble caused by fossil fuel companies being overvalued because they can’t realize the full value of all of the deposits they have.”

For now, Fossil Fuel Somerville is working with the Retirement Board, giving them information about divestment and building public support in the community.

On Wednesday July 15, Fossil Free Somerville is sponsoring a public gathering of climate activists at the Aeronaut Brewery. Anyone interested in climate change activism is welcome, and members of Somerville Climate Action and Mothers Out Front plan to attend. For more information about Fossil Free Somerville or to sign their petition, visit www.fossilfreesomerville.org.