College students in Colorado and nationwide this weekend are on a campaign to save the world from the evils of fossil fuels — electricity that powers cell phones, televisions, and computers, the malicious fuel required to operate cars including the hybrids, that transport food, medicine and the latest version of iPhones to the masses.
These courageous, clueless college kids are braving the frigid winter temperatures –except when it gets too cold — to stand outside, hold signs and shout slogans, in their eternal quest to abolish what humans living on planet Earth these days rely on for survival.
Vincent Caroll at the Denver Post says the Fossil Fuel Campaign hopes to pressure colleges and universities into divesting their portfolio of all things energy by stigmatizing corporations “as pariahs engaged in morally offensive activity.”
Any institution facing a decision on divestment should do exactly what University of Colorado regents and the Fort Lewis College Foundation board did last year: Welcome students and faculty urging divestment, and then respond with a forceful “no.”
A scathing editorial in The Harvard Crimson went so far as to call it “a sorry sit-in” using despicable tactics that only “prevent open discussion and impede Harvard’s important educational and social mission. They sideline the debate and distract from the real goal of combating global warming.”
Tactics like the sit-in or blockade are merely self-promotion, not reasonable attempts to change minds on this critical issue. In fact, they seem far more likely to alienate potential supporters than to draw them in.
And as Caroll pointed out, “were you to banish fossil fuels today with a wave of a wand, millions would likely freeze and starve to death as civilization as we know it essentially imploded.”
So don’t be hypocrites, kids. If you truly want to get rid of fossil fuels and all of its creations, take off your clothes, throw down your backpacks and electronic devices, boycott buildings and move into a cave.
We would offer you some coal to burn to keep you warm, but that would be against your principles.
Even in Boulder, Colorado the #divest events can’t attract many students! #copolitics #GlobalDivestmentDay @350 pic.twitter.com/NGcGi1tKjb
— Divestment Facts (@DivestmentFacts) February 13, 2015