Divestment protest.
“Fossil fuels have done great things for humanity.”
That’s according to Mark Tercek, CEO of the liberal Nature Conservancy, who recently participated on a panel hosted by the Wall Street Journal to discuss environmental issues.
Tercek’s comments were in response to a question specifically addressing the recent divestment protest, which drew a sad, little crowd of about 30 people at CU in Boulder.
“I admire the efforts of Bill McKibben and others to make this a hot topic on campuses. Because I think it’s a good thing for students to engage here. Think about climate. Think about the role of business. Think about the role of policy. At any one moment in time I might not agree with what’s going on in the conversation. But I think all that engagement is good.
“I think the divestment guys go too far when they liken it to apartheid. I don’t think the fossil-fuel sector in any way is immoral. Fossil fuels have done great things for humanity. We still need fossil fuels. We’re not ready to move on. The question isn’t fossil fuels, evil versus good. It’s how do we now as a society globally move to less reliance on fossil fuel.”
Global Divestment Day was such a colossal flop in Colorado and across the nation that even climate change champions tried to separate themselves from the protests, intended to force colleges and universities to sell off fossil-fuel stocks.
Paul Hamill, with the left-leaning American Security Project called it a “glib PR stunt.”
University of Colorado President Bruce Benson essentially told the kids to go pound sand.
“I’m not going to do that,” said Benson, who noted he got his start working in the oil business in 1957. “It’s a great industry.”
We were surprised, yet thrilled to see a major greenie on the same page as the rest of us who enjoy living in civilization.
Fossil fuels have done great things for humanity — We’d like that on a bumper sticker, please, so we can slap it on the back of our big old honking SUV and drive it around the CU campus in Boulder.