Apr 11, 2025

Can we invest our way out of the climate crisis?

This is a copy of Marketplace’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In this week's issue:

by Ellen Rolfes

This is a copy of Marketplace’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In this week's issue:

The religious roots of climate-conscious investing
How New Mexico made child care free for most families
The latest on President Trump’s trade war
The cost of measles outbreaks
Advice on how to find the right internship

The religious roots of climate-conscious investing

We’re exploring the origin story of ESG on the latest season of our podcast "How We Survive."

“Environmental, social and governance” investing is a wonky term with a simple premise: Companies that manage the risks and opportunities posed by societal issues will perform better, especially in the long term.

In recent years, ESG has become a buzzword for Wall Street and members of the Washington elite to rave about or revile. But it was religiously motivated investors who innovated and refined the strategy for more than a century.

“Going back 100 years, some religious organizations felt that their faith and values had to be reflected in their investments too,” said Tim Smith, a senior policy adviser for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. For example, he said, the “United Methodists wouldn't have invested in tobacco and alcohol.”

Faith-based ESG action gained notoriety during the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. Smith said the Episcopal Church spoke out against institutionalized racial segregation but realized its money told a different story, with investments in companies and banks doing business as usual in South Africa.

So church leaders began pressuring U.S. companies to pull out of South Africa in the early 1970s. One of their first targets was General Motors.

“The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church went to the General Motors stockholders meeting and spoke, dressed in his Episcopal finery, and challenged General Motors on the moral justification for staying there,” Smith said.

It took 15 years of fighting and growing public pressure, but in 1986, General Motors relented, citing moral and financial reasons. It was a pivotal moment for the Episcopal Church and business history, Smith said, “because that kind of appeal to a company through the shareholder resolution process, especially by a church group, had not been happening.”

In the decades that followed, faith-based investors started pressing companies in their portfolios on other social issues, including labor rights, the environment and discrimination based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

By the early 2000s, Wall Street was also paying attention to ESG, but for a very different reason: the bottom line. In 2020, when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink announced that climate change would be a focus for the firm’s portfolios, it seemed like the interests of Wall Street were converging with the goals of faith-based investors.

For more, check out the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

How New Mexico's subsidized child care helps families and the economy

American child care is a classic example of a failing market, in which the forces of supply and demand don’t produce good outcomes for businesses, workers or consumers.

At Christina Kent Early Childhood Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the kids guide the curriculum. On this day, the 2- and 3-year-olds in the bunny classroom were guiding it in a “Jurassic Park” kind of direction.

“Do you know the names of any of these dinosaurs?” asked teacher Danielle Reinertsen as the “bunnies” dug through a basket of toy triceratops and brachiosaurus and made their best dino sounds.

Some possibilities jotted down on the classroom white board included salad, people and croissants from the coffee shop down the street.

Reinertsen and two other teachers lead this classroom of 18 toddlers. That’s a pretty low grownup-to-kid ratio, and one reason that Christina Kent earns a five-star quality rating from the state of New Mexico. High payroll costs compared to tuition also make running the center expensive.

“Our margins are fairly narrow,” said Executive Director Sondra Carpenter. “I can tell you that consistently, for a number of years in a row, this center was running in the red.”

Carpenter said the center was barely charging enough to keep the lights on, yet lots of families struggled to make tuition payments.

But in 2021, New Mexico made big investments that changed that dynamic. It dramatically expanded eligibility for child care assistance from 200% to 400% of the federal poverty line. It also boosted the reimbursement rates that centers receive for accepting child care vouchers to a level the state says actually covers the cost of providing high-quality care.

“It’s allowed child care programs to really focus where we want to focus, which is on the kids,” Carpenter said.

In 2022, New Mexicans voted to make the expansion permanent using money from two state investment funds fed mostly by the state’s surplus oil and gas revenue.

“You can make choices about what’s important, and New Mexico has really decided to go big on early childhood,” said Hailey Heinz, deputy director of the University of New Mexico’s Cradle to Career Policy Institute.

Heinz said a New Mexican family of four making up to $124,000 a year can now send their kids to day care for free. That’s twice the state’s median household income.

“New Mexico is a pretty low-income place, so when you move something up to 400% of federal poverty, you get something that starts to almost look and feel like a universal system,” Heinz said.

Read more

Let’s do the numbers on the measles outbreak

It's been 25 years since the U.S. eliminated measles, thanks to widespread vaccination. But a new outbreak of the virus is spreading in several states. Let's do the numbers.

2 hours

That's how long viral measles particles can linger in the air, which is why it's one of the most contagious diseases in the world. Up to 90% of people who aren't immune and come into contact with a contaminated surface or air will get sick. Once ill, measles patients will be contagious for about eight days, including several days before they present symptoms.

505

The number of reported measles cases in Texas as of Tuesday. The Lone Star State has been the epicenter of the latest outbreaks, with a reported 57 hospitalizations and the deaths of two school-age children. Nearly all who were severely sickened or died were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.

At least 21 states have reported measles cases. Check this map of where the respiratory virus has spread.

95%

Herd immunity will protect most people from measles when at least 95% of a given community has been vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recommends children get two doses of the vaccine before age 6. About 93% of kids in the U.S. had both doses by the time they reached kindergarten in the 2023-24 school year, according to the agency. However, health care data and analytics company Truveta found the vaccination rate may be far lower, around 80%.

$11.4 billion

The Donald Trump administration cut $11.4 billion in local and state health department funding in late March. Some counties told NPR they've had to cancel vaccine clinics targeting measles and other preventable diseases.

$26.35

That's what a single pediatric dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine costs the CDC. The agency reports the current private-sector price for the same vaccine is $95.20. Most insurance plans cover vaccines at no cost.

$47,479

The last major outbreak of measles occurred in 2019, with a reported 1,249 cases across the U.S. Researchers in Washington state estimated a single case of measles in 2019 in Clark County, home to Seattle, cost the economy $47,479 when factoring in the public health response, productivity losses and direct medical care.

Our most popular newsletter links this week

Our most popular links from Marketplace’s Daily Wrap newsletter this week. Sign up to get the latest news and numbers in your inbox every weekday evening.

With tariffs unveiled, businesses and consumers count the costs (Marketplace)
What’s a dead cat bounce? Six terms to know for the trade war (Associated Press)
Why are oil prices plummeting? Hint: It's not just tariffs. (Marketplace)
Why some U.S. brands find it tough to shift manufacturing outside of China (Marketplace)
Mapped: The U.S. states that export the most to China (Axios)

Song of the week: “I’m Goin’ Down” by Mary J. Blige

As Trump yo-yos on tariffs and markets swing in response, we all may be feeling a bit like our "whole wide world is upside down" — just like Mary J. Blige sang on her second album, "My Life."

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