However, not so much about giving up their own fossil fuels or energy usage
(USA Today) If energy consumption continues to grow at its current rate, that’s when the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cause permanent climate change, according to a new U.N. report.
That year stuck out to Daniel Sherrell, a senior at Brown University. He will be 49 then.
“Before then, members of Congress and the international community will have to swallow their hubris and make difficult decisions,” says Sherrell, a leader of the Brown Divest Coal Campaign, which advocates that Brown stop investing in the coal industry.
Strange, Sherrell and his group want Brown to give up a major revenue stream, but no mention of giving up their own cars. I wonder if all these folks would be willing to give up all their electricity sucking tech?
Ophir Bruck, a senior at the University of California-Berkeley and Fossil Free Campaign coordinator, hopes students can get the University of California system to commit to divestment by the end of the year.
However, he sees the Fossil Free campaign’s goals extending beyond divestment.
“A huge part of the campaign is to educate students and to just spread awareness among students, faculty, staff, alumni of climate change and the urgency with which we need to act,” Bruck says.
Here’s where it gets good, since Bruck, like so many other Leftists, is going to Power Shift 2013. In Pittsburgh. How will he and the roughly 10k other climahypocrites get there?
Also, notice the “spreading awareness” idiocy. Warmists still refuse to practice what they preach.
I’ve been active in the student-led fossil fuel divestment movement for about a year now, and I can safely say that as far as well though-out arguments critiquing divestment go, yours is bottom of the barrel, weak sauce, and better kept to yourself or to private conversations with your short-sighted, profit-over-brains, neoliberal status-quo loving conservative buddies; no need to make yourself look worse than this crap “news” site already does. I digress. Why is your argument moot, you ask? Because it obfuscates the fact that divestment is about undermining the political power of the fossil fuel industry. Energy is a market driven not by consumers but by political influence, yet you latch on to the worn out old argument that the consumers of fossil fuels don’t have a right to object to the crimes against humanity committed by an industry that uses political leverage to prevent alternatives (read: $400K plus per day lobbying congress). Trust me, Mr. Good, the people leading this campaign don’t want to rely on fossil fuels, and we are doing our darndest to shift the status-quo and create a clean and just energy future. What are you doing?
Simple question for you: have you and all your comrades given up all use of fossil fuels? Don’t bother answering, we know the answer is a resounding “no”. You talk a good game with your far left fascistic ideals, but you won’t walk the talk.
Let me ask you a few qustions:
Was I born into a world dependent on fossil fuels for everyday needs? YES.
Did I choose it? NO
Am I grateful for all the privileged luxury that fossil fuels have enabled in my life? OF COURSE
Would I be kicking up a fuss with my “leftist fascist comrades” if fossil fuels were clean burning and not changing the Earth’s ecology in ways that compromise my (and your) children and grandchildren’s ability to live? OF COURSE NOT
Do I understand that that is not the case and that in fact burning fossil fuels is doing just that, compromising future generations’ ability to enjoy life I (and you) do? YES
If me and my “fascist comrades” went and lived off the grid and reduced our carbon footprint, would that change the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on our energy paradigm? NOPE
So is the most effective course of action to take right now to work within the current energy paradigm to change it for the good of future generations? YES
Is it my fault that flying to Pittsburgh on a fossil-fuel powered airplane is the only available mode of transportation? NO
Am I working to change that with my fascist comrades? YOU BET
Again I ask, what the hell are you doing other than trying to deflate young people fighting for OUR future?
So, in other words, you refuse to give up your own fossil fueled lifestyle, and instead want to drag Everyone Else into your scheme.
Deflate? You bet. You write passionately, but with the hindsight of getting older you might realize the truth, rather than the idealism of youth. I’m not a big fan of fossil fuels because they pollute, and I’m not referring to CO2. But, we do not have viable alternatives at this time. One day we will. Till then, it is what we have.
Even Harvard says they won’t divest. Fossil fuels make the world run. Why not spend your time working towards creation of viable alternatives? Or dealing with real environmental issues?
But, until you’re willing to practice what you preach, your complaints are simply noise.
The whole divestment scheme is a feel good effort for student activists. If they succeed they can feel good about forcing a university to change but they have no skin in the game. Emotions without commitment.
For me, I don’t mind if harvard or any other institution divests itself of good profitable stock. It allows my pension fund the opportunity to pick up some good profitable stock to enhance my retirement fund. The university loses some income and some opportunity costs. The energy company probably doesn’t lose anything in stock value and nobody quits buying energy. So life goes on with no change but somebody gets to feel good. Its a win-win all the way around.
I like that, “emotions without commitment”.
And along with the stock they do way with the endowments and such, which go to so many disciplines. Not just business, but science.
And then future youths will wonder why their costs for school have skyrocketed. And employees will see their pensions suck.
And these divest folks will drive fossil fueled vehicles.
Energy is market driven by politics? Ummm… if this is the signal level of intellect our universities and schools are producing,.. we are so screwed. The ONLY reason that we have a market in oil at all, is because it fills a need for consumers who want millions of products produced from petroleum. And the millions of products produced through the consumption of petroleum.
Petroleum is our society. Petroleum is the foundation and basis of our economy and society. Without petroleum, our economy collapses and dies. And we are reverted back to the 12th century.
True Blick, they have no skin in the game and will always refuse to.
Monday morning links…
After Told He’s Racist, UW-M Student Rejects Further Diversity ‘Training’ An oldie: Bourgeois is the new transgressive Killed over a movie ticket: How law enforcement hurts people with disabilities Good M…
Please. First dear young ones, the proper way to change the world is to invent a new system, one that will by its inherent attributes draw the world to use it and drop the old like a bad transmission.
If it does not work better, save money, AND achieve environmental goals it is just another shiny toy.
All your talk until then is just posturing.