▶️ Listen Now: Where you bank can (indirectly) lead to climate change - WBEZ Chicago
Where you bank can (indirectly) lead to climate change | WBEZ Chicago
Where you bank can (indirectly) lead to climate change
Banks can use the money in your accounts to lend to carbon-intensive industries. But there are ways to say “no.”
The $1,000 you have in a savings account with a major bank like Wells Fargo, Bank of America or Chase is equal to the direct emissions of flying from New York to Seattle. That’s according to an analysis from Project Drawdown, which looked into the effects of having personal checking and savings accounts in the largest banks.
Reset discusses the cost of indirect emissions, how you can engage your bank around questions of climate and the impact you can have by moving your money out of a carbon-intensive bank and into a community or climate-responsible bank.
GUEST: Todd Reubold, director of communications at Project Drawdown
Karen Weigert, director of Loyola University Chicago’s Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise and Responsibility
Kimberly Jones, Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, Midwest division
Where you bank can (indirectly) lead to climate change
Banks can use the money in your accounts to lend to carbon-intensive industries. But there are ways to say “no.”
The $1,000 you have in a savings account with a major bank like Wells Fargo, Bank of America or Chase is equal to the direct emissions of flying from New York to Seattle. That’s according to an analysis from Project Drawdown, which looked into the effects of having personal checking and savings accounts in the largest banks.
Reset discusses the cost of indirect emissions, how you can engage your bank around questions of climate and the impact you can have by moving your money out of a carbon-intensive bank and into a community or climate-responsible bank.
GUEST: Todd Reubold, director of communications at Project Drawdown
Karen Weigert, director of Loyola University Chicago’s Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise and Responsibility
Kimberly Jones, Director of Partnerships & Community Engagement, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, Midwest division
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”