Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU)

[Crusen]

Guess what? Coal use is decreasing, and it is going to disappear fast. The world is tired of coal killing people, climate science is real. The threat is existential, and the coal industry provides no reasons for people to throw good money after bad.

Besides the California funds, many others also have divested from coal. Including the world's largest, the $7 trillion BlackRock, the country of Norway, even the Rockefeller Family Fund.

Beyond its weak financials, the coal industry has been utterly unwilling to engage in a meaningful dialogue on how it could rebound – and why investors should believe they aren’t dumping good money after bad. Instead, the industry has insisted that its many woes are someone else’s fault.

Indeed, the industry seems to have dug its heels in against new energy market forces that are gaining global and unstoppable momentum. Executives will not discuss the likelihood of carbon regulation, they deny flaws in their business models and they selfishly battle public-health policy that would curb pollution and address climate change.

There’s no sound investment rationale for staying with coal, and any investor with any fiduciary responsibility to its clients or members should step back from it. The sooner they do so the better.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article28042543.html