Dear Editor:

In a week when President Trump misguidedly withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement — a road map to climate change mitigation supported by more than 190 nations — the good news is that the Maine Public Employees Retirement System (MainePERS) joined 62 percent of ExxonMobil shareholders in supporting a resolution calling on the corporation to be more transparent about the impact of climate change on its business future. Thank you, MainePERS, for your vote!

The surprising shareholder decision, called "historic" by many, comes at a time when growing numbers of businesses and their leaders, states, municipalities, and the general public are alarmed at the evidence of accelerating climate change and are taking actions to move away from and even divest their money from dirty fossil fuels. While MainePERS has yet to divest its portfolio from fossil fuels —  many of its members support divestment — I am hopeful that this first step of supporting the shareholder resolution will lead MainePERS' investment advisers to reconsider divestment from oil and other fossil fuel corporations and reinvest our public employees' pension funds in a clean and renewable energy future.

I encourage MainePERS members to send a letter of gratitude to MainePERS for its recent shareholder vote. Letters may be addressed to Sandra Matheson and mailed to P.O. Box 349, Augusta, ME  04332-0349 or emailed to Investments@mainepers.org. Thanks can mean a lot!

Anne D. (Andy) Burt

Edgecomb