NoFrakkingConsensus:
On February 24, the student association at Vassar College made an important decision. By a margin of 23-1, these young people passed a resolution urging their school to withdraw investment funds from fossil fuel companies.
According to a news report, a member of the Vassar Greens later declared that the vote
means we have the student body’s support behind us…We’re presenting this as something Vassar students want. [ellipsis in the original]
So what arguments were advanced by campus activists before this decision got made? A December 2012 opinion piece published in the student newspaper is a good place to start. Titled Vassar must take lead in fossil fuel divestment, it was written by three individuals – two co-presidents of the Vassar Greens as well as the person who appears to be the primary author of the divestment resolution itself.
Early on, the students tell us they’ve partnered with climate crusader Bill McKibben’s 350.org activist group. They explain that that group’s name
is derived from the safe amount of carbon, in parts per million, that can be in the atmosphere. [bold added, article backed up here]
But this is not an accurate statement. Concern over global warming is all about carbon dioxide. On the Periodic Table of Elements, carbon is represented by a C. Two-thirds of carbon dioxide is composed of another element altogether – oxygen – which is represented by an O.
C is not the same as CO2. Since the periodic table is taught in high school, it isn’t unreasonable to expect college students to understand this difference.
An additional difficulty is that 350 is merely the number on which McKibben has personally fixated. Other people have alternative opinions. For example, the 2006Stern Review – a much-criticized-for-its-alarmism report written by economists employed by the British government (see here and here) – suggests that a considerably higher number, 500-550 parts per million of carbon dioxide, is equally safe.
But those are minor points compared to what comes next. In an article intended to rally the student population to the divestment cause, we find venom and vitriol, but little persuasive argument.
Energy companies are described as “corporations that have recklessly endangered our health and put our future in jeopardy” (bolding here and below added). The fossil fuel industry, we are told,
One of the counter-arguments presented is:
that reminded me of the way the working French take their 1 month vacations in summer and leave for cool islands and Venice, Italy, etc.
BUT, they left their elderly parents at home.
And French homes mainly have metal roofs.
So, in 2003, a total of 14,802 died during the height of the heat wave, which brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 degrees in a country where air conditioning is rare.
Do the Greenies of Vassar want to live like that?
I bet not.
Let’s wait til it really gets hot (or cold) and then do a bed-check on them, like was done on all those ”anti-capitalists,” who wore the name brand T-shirts, jackets, shoes and carried all those name-brand tech-y things.
If the young greens really want to do without energy then they should spend this summer in the hot city with the A/C turned off, no vehicles to drive them around, and without their precious media devices. be afraid of what you ask for!
It is curious to me, just how lacking in common sense these people are- they really don’t know just how reliant on fossil fuels they truly are- if the fossil fuels stopped dead today, they would starve, because their refrigerators and those of EVERY grocery store would quit, their air conditioners would quit- hell, ALL power would quit- for us that is, China and India and every other nation in the world BUT us would go on releasing carbon into the air just as blithely as they now do.