thank you. >> thank you, next speaker please? >> hi, good morning, supervisors i'm hunter cutting and i am the director for communications for climate nexus and it is a non-profit based in new york and i work here in san francisco. but, if you guys know because i have talked to you before, i am also a parent in san francisco i am raising two kids, the younger kid goes to (inaudible) middle school and high older kid goes to mission high and since i think and breathe and talk climate change 24/7 i talk to my kids as well and their friends and with so many things, i actually learn a lot out of that. and i lot of things have come into focus for me out of that conversation and i want to share them with you and usually the conversation starts when we talk about what is climate change? >> and that is actually really easy to talk about.

there is no big mystery, the science is clear and cut and dried. what can you do about it? there is no big mystery, we need to stop building fossil fueled plants. what is the problem, dad? and that is actually where the conversation gets really complicated. because basically, global warming is not a technical problem it is not a science problem it is a political problem and that is why fossil fuel divestment is really perhaps the most important thing that we can do. that is why we have a global warming problem not because we don't understand the science, but because there are vested interests that are fighting to maintain the status quo, i think that this board, if it really cares about climate change and i know that you do, you can't but help to move to divestment. so, i think that you guys are

asking really great questions about what is the smart way to make that divestment happen and i hope that you pursue that so it can happen thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker? >> if you heard your name called, if you could line up along the windows but not blocking the view, that would be great. >> first i would like to express my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to speak here today, my name is ash len ruga and i am a senior here in the city. it is less than a year ago that i helped to launch the divestment fuel campaign and i made connections with students across the country. if not for this network of committed students and other allies i would not have sent that first e-mail. this is described as the cloud of apath. y, that hangs over the campus, although social

injustice is a theme, the students have not been known to fight for it at least until now, the only explanation that i could fathom about this campaign is that i have finally given them hope and there is a solution to the crisis, it has worked before and so now they have a chance to play a role in shaping the future. i attributed the lack of climate activism that the students are unaware of our reliance or they were getting a degree in we messed up and it is up to your generation to fix it and we are too discouraged to act. through this campaign we have been able to address what is holding people back. our asking for petition signatures has allowed us to look at the issue, that the climate process musting dealt with and that the out look is dire and it is not too late but we need their help as much help as we can get.

that is why it is so important to divest san francisco retirement funds on fossil fuel, not only will it send a strong message to those resisting the divestment, but it will fortify the notion that my generation can still hope. in the face of threats to our future, san francisco is show the world that business as usual which has caused so many of the problems that we face today is going to change. and with that change, change comes the preservation of the leavable future that we owe to generations to come, thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> hello. my name is katie hofmann and i am a very studying environmental science and policy at uk berkeley, this is a busy time leading up to finals for us, i feel that this is more important than class it is about my future and our future, at this very moment, the economic and environmental

future of our planet and country are far from certain and now many refuse to acknowledge the nature of the climate crisis and the industry responsible for creating students and concerned citizens across the nation are getting organized and using the tactics at our disposal to leverage our voice and our demand for climate justice and we call on you to join us by moving this bill forward. as students at one of the top research institutions in the world, we will continue to work with the board and collaborate in the effort to move the assets away from the industry into clean and just technologies and companies that will bring the bay area and sf in particular close to a vibrant sustainable future, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> next speaker please? >> my name is david seed and members of san francisco, tomorrow, citizen climate and lobby and as board members, we

are at 1000 residents community in district five in the stone throw from the chamber, i would like to see it, my community, redevelop to get green show case project with the vibrant community that we can be proud of and i, congratulate supervisor avalos by sponsoring urging the divestment of the companies from the retirement portfolio and place them with comparable technology. and the resolution is completely in accordance with san francisco being the greenest city in california and encouraging investments in clean tech within the city, the resolution shows the world that san francisco is walking the talk that bio divestment will be in the green technologies and the investment in the companies and they are represented in now and in the future. i hope that this is a start that of the other

municipalities in the bay area that will state throughout the u.s. and the world. promote to the nation that the fossil fuel companies that things cannot continue the way that it has been for the sake of our earth, our children and grandchildren, our divestment is no longer a financial and economic issue. it shows the rest of the world that san francisco is taking a moral stance that climate change is unacceptable and that it is destroying the fabric of our lives, and ruining habitats and destroy our moral fibers. we as residents of this wonderful city have a moral responsibility to prevent at the very least familiar ate the effects of climate changes by our actions. divestment is the right and moral thing to do it makes economic and environmental sense, urging the entire board *f supervisors to pass this resolution, thank you. >> thank you.

>> next speaker please? >> good morning. if you want to use the overhead you want to use the mic to your left. put the, no. actually, you know the might be here left, and over hand. >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to address you, (inaudible) the director of the city and county of san francisco task force from 2007

to 2009. what i wanted to say is that if we don't collectively reverse the course of chaos, it is a permanent problem that cannot be fixed by anyone at any time. we have a really serious problem and it is hard to evade a sense of urgency because the media is largely absent and it is complicated and this is serious, and this is important, we have got to do something here. (inaudible) effects of global warming are serious things as not enough food, not enough water, it is hard to explain just how dire the situation is. we thank you supervisor avalos to try to mitigate this, the information by mr. huish the consequences that he mentioned don't get much more dire. therefore, if behoofs us to take action, passing this

resolution is one of the few actions that the city could take, doing so, would show that city hall indeed act like a responsibility adult from time-to-time and show that san francisco can be the city that knows how, let's do it. >> thank you, and the next speaker, please? >> and good afternoon, supervisors, and i want to applaud these previous speakers, especially the wonderful writer over here on what they have said. and i have two children and i think that they would also applaud what you are trying to do here today in terms of utilizing your intellect and being able to put it into words in terms of what our society needs to do in order to take care of itself into the future. now i believe that by poking holes in the ground, and bringing up a liquid that is dirty is not a good idea.

this dirty liquid oil, if it seeps into the underground water supply will contaminate the water. clean water is essential to the life itself. when that dirty fuel has been used to prepare the economy it contaminates the air, the clean air is essential for life to exist. and when i filled out the card it asked me what organization i belonged to, i didn't fill it in, i should kind of take care of number one here. i have a small business in san francisco snoen as solar power, it is dormant, but i hope to turn it into a wonderful small business into the future. and also, i will convey a message over the phone to a great friend of mine who has influence over one of the largest mutual fund companies in this country thank you very

much. >> next speaker please? >> good morning, thank you supervisor avalos and everybody else. i am (inaudible) i am the resident (inaudible) of the theater in the tender loin and i want to give a national perspective on what we are living, i spent most of last year in new guinea which is in the south pacific and it is the most diverse place on earth and there are over 80 languages and it is tribal country. and quite a few people that i met there spoke to me about the changing weather patterns there. there was always a clear, dry season and a clear rainy season and now things are jungled and the temperatures are out of whack and the rain is coming down when it is not supposed to and when it is supposed to.

and people are live entirely off the land growing crops and it is hard with the average culture to plan when things are no longer as they have been forever, and i bring this up because these people like ingenious people and the people of poor throughout the world are the ones who most immediately would be strangely impacted by climate change and they are the people with the least resources to effect this issue and that is the country that gave birth to the auto industry, which is not the only but a huge factor in what is happening with the climate and we as americans, we have, as i said, that the people have talked about the moral duty and we have key partners and it is definitely up to us to be key partners in the solution. thank you. >> thank you. let me call a few more cards. and if you hear your name line up.

>> the first person called can come up. >> pat gerber adam (inaudible) and nick (inaudible) we already had. and michael sanbrono and gina luna and aaron stomreston and tom mcduna. >> good morning, and thank you again, mr. supervisor. my name is adam sherman and i am also a member of the san francisco state university of fossil free divestment and i am the chairman of the under graduate committee which is to put simply is to preserve the integrity in the impending graduation of the senior members and first of all i want to commend everyone for showing up and you are showing an incredible amount of support what i want to say is that a lot of the activities that happen on the san francisco state campus are often concurrent, recent report

within our environmental studies says that we are on track for within the next five to seven years, both the city and the university to achieve 0 waste, this is incredible and shows how the great minds are thinking alike and i highly, commend it and i urge that this continues, both parties are doing an incredible job. there is also a clause in the sfsu foundation policy that says that we as the university do not in any way con donor invest in the social responsible and civil right abusers and in many cases these big oil and gas are, whether subtly or not. >> i want to commend everybody for coming out here and showing the support and believing in the same thing, i highly urge that we great minds and we parties continue to think alike and continue forward. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> hello, my name is michael

sombrono and i am here from the university divestment and i want to thank those who showed up and especially those from sf state and i want to give a sigh let applause to that. >> i am here to support the fund from divestment. as mr. avalos said the climate crisis is only getting worse with the fossil fuel emissions that we are releasing. it is something that we can do locally and make the impact globally, we need to lead the way and take the strength away from the fossil fuel industry. i appreciate your time and it is inspiring for what we are doing at sf state so see that our city is also taking on this plan and we must never forget to divest and give rest to the wounded world. thank you. >> my name iser on and thank you so much for taking the time

to sponsor this our planet is at a cross roads, just last year the world bank agreed with the findings of the international payment on climate change from the united nations, and stated that we have about 3 years to enact sweeping legislation on climate change before we reached a tipping point downed which there is nothing to do. and in 2006 as a graduate student, i was on a reporting team that branched out across the planet and went in to places where the impacts of climate change were being experienced by human beings up to that point much of the reporting and climate change was reported on the science and we had not heard much from the people, i went to an island called kirabos and met a man who was a village elder and they described a number of the facts that they have been

experiencing as a result of climate change. that with the obvious ones like the sea level rise which causes the intrusion on the fresh water, where they get the fresh water from which is the corral nations. and also we saw a coastal erosion and disruptions to the patterns of migratory fish and that was in 2006 and since then we have seen so much in the united states from the super storms and fires and droughts and more. and you think that with such obvious evidence, staring our culture in the face that it would be less of a disconnect in this country, but unfortunately there still is. one piece of intrusion is there is a recent poll that showed that 73 percent of americans do believe that climate change is real. unfortunately in that same pool, the majority of people

expressed a greater concern about the cost of gasoline than the impact of carbon emissions. i think that the governments have a duty now, more than ever to lead a people that have this disconnect between knowing that the climate change is real and not value enough it do anything about it. i think that the legislation that you are sponsoring is an important step in that direction. possibly there is plenty of evidence to suggest that switching you are investment from the fossil fuels to green energy is a smart investment. wind, solar, and bio fuels, renewables are expected to rise, 8.2 percent compared to only a 2.1 percent rise in natural gas which is the fastest growing fossil fuel. new investment in the new roads to a record of 260 billion dollars in 2011. it is a smart investment and i encourage you to divest in fossil fuels and thank you.

>> i am out of speaker cards, so anybody who would like to comment, please come forward to the podium. >> thank you, i had not intended to speak today but nigh name is susan green and i am the member of business and finance development and we are a privately held company in san francisco. and i wanted to speak to the risk of not divesting and the time frame regarding that? and in the past, a number of speakers have recovered to the tobacco industry, the asbestos industry comes to mind, when the industry seems to become harmful, our society has come

up with regulation to regulate them and in particular, if we look at them now in the market capitalization is much smaller than it would have been otherwise if those political solutions were not put in place to mitigate the dangers from their products. in this case, i think that young people today really get the issue, that the science is clear, five years ago we did not, there was not much of a climate movement in existence, now we have organizations like 350.org that are leading an international movement and have chapters all over the world. a year ago, there were 1200 people, who are arrested at the white house over the keystone pipeline, now, through the activity of my company's on-line activism program and groups like 350.org, we have

60,000 people who have pledged to be involved in civil disobedience and this movement is growing rapidly and going to have a quick impact in the next few years because young people today really get the urgency of this issue and understand the implications for the future, so i would urge the retirement board to consider the risks of not divesting portfolios in the coming years. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker please? >> >> and my name is julia kitchal and i am a resident of san francisco and i was not going to speak today either but after hearing the break down of the sf retirement fund i feel like i should say something. and while acknowledging these rules of the institutions that hold the pensions, private assets, if you really interesting to me to make a moral argument for the deinvesting from the fossil

fuels but we have almost half of the fund and presumable half of the pension funds and fossil fuel assets untouched because they are privately invested. so perhaps the pension fund should also be considered deinvesting from the private holding that preclude the moral restrictions from the investors as well. >> thank you. next speaker please? >> my name is len sky and i have a couple of comments, i am a san francisco resident. we going to the 6 biggest (inaudible) and the three grievances of climate change, habitat destruction and the oposition of the hab habitats (inaudible) and we are just one

species out of a noble role and we are causing all of these... one of the biggest extinctions in the planet and (inaudible) to humans (inaudible) you know, to do everything that we can to stop the killing of species and take our place in the universe. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> hello, my name is jed holsman and thank you for this opportunity to speak and for this hearing, i am a resident of san francisco and i wanted to echo everything that has been said before me. and i want to particularly mention what we learned in this hearing about perhaps half of the fossil fuel investment of the retirement board being in private equity which would not be touched and encourage the committee and the board to look into options for policies that could complete the process.

i just wanted to point out that although we don't often think about it these days, economic activities require functioning systems and every economic transaction is traced to the foundation and begins with natural capitol. and the natural resources into products that we can use. i have wanted to point out that i want that it would be penny wise and pound foolish to worry too much about the risk of divestment in a hundreds of a basis point when the status quo of not divesting will leave the planet and the investments rs meaningless because of the pressures on the company and the position that it support and thanks very much. >> thank you very much. >> speaker in >> hi. thank you very much. >> my name is aparan and a san francisco educator and musician and the member of the troop.

and i just want to say that personally as a san francisco resident, i don't feel like it makes sense to put a lot of money into something that when we see all of the problems with it when there are plenty of wonderful things out there that there is not enough money to go towards. when we hear the arguments against giving money to fossil fuel companies and all of the harm that we know that they do and the only reason that we might do it would be because it might cost us potentially, we are not sure, we have not seen the data we might lose money by not investing in the long term that does not seem like a trade off that makes any sense to me thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> and any other member of the public who would like to comment? ? seeing none, we will close public comment. and i would like to call up mr. huish one more time.

>> thank you, for staying here. there is come a few comments about our private investments and i am wondering if we the retirement board can actually summarize by the time ha it comes to the full board what the investments are in the fossil fuel companies in the private equity side? >> you were the one that mentioned the billion dollars, our research and i don't know exactly where you got that number, however, i do not have the information that there is another half of a billion dollars on the private equity side i will be happy to get that information to you on our holdings that are restricted based on the contractual obligations that we have but i did not want anyone to leave thinking that half, i don't know the number, but it is not, i didn't want anyone to think that that was a hard number that half of the investments that the san francisco trust has would not be touched by

this policy. we will get you the real number >> if that is possible to get, i think that we are looking for the 23rd to have this to the full board. this resolution to the full board and if any time between next week to be able to provide that beforehand? >> we will do our best. >> thank you. >> okay. this item is before us. and just want to thank everyone for being here. and you're very, very thoughtful and beautiful words, protecting our planet and looking at how these kind of solutions that we can apply here at the local level. just hearing comments, i was really thinking about i go back a long way, i know that (inaudible) song that everyone is crying mersy and justice, just as long as there is business first and that is not how we want to do business here in san francisco. i think that we want to make sure that we are allowing our values and our concerns around climate change with our investment policies, that is

what this is about. and there is a growing need toward the beginning of it, but if we were to take action here in san francisco, urging our retirement board to divest, we know that other cities will follow, and we will start a steam rolling effort across the country to really work towards holding these companies accountable. and really saying, you know, definitively what we need to do and moving forward around climate change as a nation. so i wanted to thank everyone for being here, this resolution is not a sure bet, of the full board. but i hope that we can actually use about two weeks to help to get some education to members of the board, to be able to pass this. and i would love to see it unanimously, but with the strong majority moving forward. i do believe that we know that it is the right thing to do, and we know that the signs are all around us of climate change and also the signs that are with us now about how