"But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap."

Clearly, you don't understand how stock markets work. The value of a stock is merely that of its last trade. Convince someone you have a stock that is going higher and you have a buyer. Convince them it is going lower and you have more sellers and fewer buyers. The number of shares traded don't matter, merely the last trade made.

As divestment picks up steam, not to mention all the inconvenient truths about the "other" costs of burning fossil fuels and soon you have more people expecting that the prices will fall. This is of importance in that as the price falls it exacerbates the problem of too much capacity without sufficient buyers or consumers further driving expectations. Stock value is not something that is intrinsic to a stock, it is something that is entirely created by perceptions. The perception has long been that fossil fuels are "black gold". More and more people are coming to perceive that they can also likely represent a "black future".

Yes, but the cost of pollution is practically free to those who produce it. Just look at New Jersey. It just takes a little persuading of those with potential campaign contributions to launder.

" no net difference"

This is a fallacy. There is no net difference in number of shares or the total population, but the value changes dramatically. Given the way our markets are structured, that value is based entirely on the last trade made. Stock investing is like the game of musical chairs in that its great if you have ownership of a chair and chairs are highly prized. However, if billions of people doesn't own a chair, then they tends to value chairs and the game differently, usually by going off and playing an entirely new game.

The same way one sells a bad idea, although it is always a better idea to have a good idea rather than a bad one to sell.

The inconvenient truth is that burning fossil fuels is a bad idea, which if unchecked, will put an end to all ideas, at least those made by humans.

"net assets remain the same,"

The assets remain the same, but their value does not. In a way, as the value changes, so does how people regard the assets.

It all really comes down to a question of values. Those who think something is valuable will want more, particularly if they perceive that its value will rise in the future. The reverse is also true and those who think leaving the fossil fuels in the ground so humans have a planet that still supports human life will also value fossil fuels, but in an entirely different way.

That is one of the reasons a divestment strategy in fossil fuels is a good idea. It reduces the profits for those who think they earn an easy profit by producing and burning it and that money can instead, as you suggest, be invested in developing human friendlier alternatives.

Of course it must be lie. It can't be getting hotter, which explains why all the world's glaciers are simultaneously melting faster than at any time previously recorded.

Makes one wonder, if its not getting hotter, why is all that ice melting? Why are sea levels rising? Surely those who believe that catastrophic man-made global warming is just a big lie, must have some explanation. One that has a shred of credibility to it. Of course, that would be asking too much.

The reality is global climate change is very much an energy issue and one that will fundamentally change how humans use and produce energy or it will end humanity for sure, primarily by making the environment they take for granted disappear before their eyes.

", just some lucky guy(s) will get to buy them at a discounted price."

This, of course, assumes that fossil fuels stocks will continue to rise even as competition from alternative sources intensified, and as costs of production increase.

The problem for this scenario is that it is becoming less and less likely that this will happen, so if one gets out of old energy and into new energy, one's rate of return will be far greater over time, particular as the planetary global mean temperature moves from +2 deg C, at which we are nearly at to +4 deg C over the next 100-150 years. Coal is already declining as a percentage of the total energy mix, oil will be soon to follow. That light at the end of the tunnel the coal investor may see will be that of an oncoming electric train. Better to get out now and let the suckers hold the bag.

One has to keep in mind that rate of planetary warming is accelerating with increased CO2 accumulation and the rate is exponential (its already now 36 times faster than the warming that occurred during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, that brought palm trees to Northern Wyoming). Folks in place like Phoenix will soon (next 10-25 years) start to see more than 50 days out of the year with temperatures over 110 F. In 50 years time that will jump to 100 days out of the year.

The same driving forces also will soon profoundly affect the availability of another highly sought resource, freshwater.

Not really. Rather its a question of what people value on a relative scale. The value of money is only the common denominator.

When the climate begins to become too unstable to support agriculture, people's values will shift. With California now producing a major share of the fruits and vegetables produced in the US about to go dry (both in melt and groundwater, perhaps as yearly as 1 or 2 years), people's thinking will shift dramatically a lot sooner than most people realize. Midwesterners too are likely to take note, when population pressures in Colorado, coupled with the severely decreasing snowfalls that are coming, cause them to start drying up the headwaters of many of the rivers that flow into the Mississippi and as they watch their own water tables drop further.

Sure it might not happen, but the odds are becoming smaller and smaller every year. That's the problem with those inconvenient truths that will weigh so heavily on fossil fuel profits.

"nothing kills an industry like low prices and near ubiquity."

The problem is of course, the 800 pound gorilla of carbon dioxide pollution in the room. Its the inconvenient truth around which you can try to fake it, but the reality of it is now just starting to bite.

Sure some folks in Phoenix will still be buying gasoline when the temperatures in summer routinely hit 130 F, but you can be sure not many people will be happy about it. The reality is that politics might shift the costs of fossil fuels but it won't prevent those into coastal real estate from taking a bath. All indications are a 2 ft rise in sea level before 2060, not really that far off, when you are talking about assets that aren't going anywhere.

The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners and those who are left holding fossil fuel stocks until they finally collapse the big losers, which rather than a complete collapse will be like a leaky tire, loosing its value steadily over time, while production costs continue to climb. State investment funds, universities, and trusts in progressive states are already lightening up on fossil fuels, so their shareholders will come out ahead. When things are going south, as they now are for the fossil fuels industry, its always best to be out the door before the other guy figures out what is happening. By the time the negative outflows reach about 5% it will probably be too late for most to divest.

With the price of crude set to fall, some like CITI Bank say into the $30/barrel range, as current inventories increase to maximum capacity in about 3-6 months forcing excess supply onto the open market, alternative energy stocks will also take a hit, but unlike fossil fuel stocks, it will be an excellent opportunity to buy them as they will increase at a relatively more rapid pace than fossil fuels will recover, if they ever recover. At the current rate of increases in efficiency in production and operation of solar and wind, look for 2017-2019 to be the time when it solar and wind to be be cheaper than fossil fuels, no matter how much crude is on the market.

Get out of fossil fuel stocks while you still have a profit and leave others holding the bag.

The thing I like about the new FCC rules is that if the ISP's want to give preferential high speeds to some of its customers to distinguish themselves from their competitors, they will have to do it for all of their customers. This will foster competition among ISP's to finally provide faster speeds, rather than simply pocketing all the excess fees given to promote connectivity, but little used for that purpose.

I can't wait for the first ISP to claim they are the fastest. This is the quickest way toward observing the Red Queen Hypothesis in action.

The Wyoming rule sounds attractive by the modern GOP would never let California have another 13 additional seats. However, given the nature of Wyoming, why not go all the way and require that all congressional districts be simply "at-large". This would eliminate all the gerrymandering as well. If congressional candidates can campaign state wide in Alaska, there is no reason all the rest couldn't do it as well.

Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide much guidance concerning internet regulations. Damn thoughtless of the Founding Fathers.

Sounds like you need to chow down on some that "brain fodder" my friend.

Your comment goes to show just how far the US has fallen by accepting the ISP's line that if they are not regulated, we will get better service and faster high speed roll out. Friends of my family in Japan pay about $30 per month for 100 GB/sec speeds (yes that is 100 GibaBits/second). I've heard the Koreans are putting government funds to ensure everyone in the country is up and running at 100 GB/sec for about $10/month.

Why can the US no longer compete?

What are we as consumers going to do about it?