Sean Mitsui of the Young Americans for Liberty joined Joe Kent at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii to talk about fossil fuel investment, and how it affects our economy. The interview was recorded as part of the Grassroot Institute with Dr. Keli’i Akina, a radio show on KAOI 1110AM, 96.7FM, Mondays on Maui at 7am.
The movement to divest from fossil fuels is strong on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, but Sean Mitsui says that these good intentions may be short-sighted.
“A couple of the students were telling the student body organization that I’m in to divest from fossil fuels from the endowment fund that we have, which is currently valued at $8 million. Back at the time I was the Vice Chairperson for Investments and Long Range Planning Committee. And we thought this would be detrimental to the funds that we have.”
Sean continued, “People want us to divest mainly for sustainability reasons. They think that investing in these so called ‘fossil fuel companies’ is hurting the planet.” However, Sean noted that fossil fuel companies are some of the biggest investor in alternative energies. “They actually invest the most,” said Sean.
Sean also mentioned that divestment takes away options from an investment portfolio, and puts the investor at more risk. “Our endowment fund is already pretty limited,” said Sean, “to further limit what we could invest with would be detrimental.”
Listen to the full interview here:
