An Open Letter to Bank of America - PSR: Physicians for Social Responsibility

Join us in asking the Bank of America to phase out loans to the coal industry and fossil fuel-burning utilities, and greatly increase their loans to clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources. Banks contribute to climate change through their financed emissions -- the emissions induced by a bank’s loans to and investments in companies that emit greenhouse gases. Bank of America is one of the largest financiers of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and dirty coal-fired power plants. We’re working with a wide coalition of organizations to ask Bank of America to “clean up” their loan portfolio by phasing out those loans and investing instead in clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources. Add your name to our letter to Bank of America. I’ll be delivering it next week at their shareholder meeting in Charlotte, NC. I’d love to have your signature on it.

An Open Letter to Bank of America

We, the undersigned physicians, health professionals, and members of Physicians for Social Responsibility, urge the Bank of America to phase out its portfolio of loans to companies engaged in extracting, processing, or burning fossil fuels.  The carbon dioxide from those activities is the single biggest factor causing climate change and the associated severe health risks to the world’s population.

As the earth warms, the delicate balance of climate, weather events and life is being disrupted.  Consequences are already emerging that threaten human health and, ultimately, survival. 

• Heat waves contribute to heat stroke, which can lead to delirium, convulsions, coma, and death.  More than 70,000 people died due to the European heat wave of 2003.
• Drought is causing large-scale crop loss, driving up world food prices and worsening malnutrition and famine. 
• Wildfires increase dangerous particulate air pollution.
• High summer temperatures increase ground-level ozone, provoking asthma attacks and aggravating diseases like bronchitis and emphysema. Repeated exposure may cause asthma in previously healthy people and permanently scar lung tissue.
• Changes in climate are increasing the range of infectious diseases carried by insects, including malaria, West Nile virus, dengue and Lyme disease.
• Severe storms now threaten communities on a far more frequent basis than seen before.
• Rising sea levels will create millions of environmental refugees.

Bank of America, as a top financier of companies whose industries contribute disproportionately to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions – such industries such as coal mining, oil and gas production, and fossil fuel-based electric power generation –facilitates these climate-induced threats to health and survival. 

Yet as a top financier, you are also in a position to do great good.  We ask you to phase out your loans to fossil fuel industries and greatly increase your portfolio of loans to clean, safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free renewable energy sources.

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