Apropos of Drew and Greg’s recent Green Harvard items . . .
Max Schulz — whose “Obama: Mystery Man on Energy“ is about to go live on the NRO homepage — had an item on MindingTheCampus this week called “College Green? Bah Humbug.” A sliver:
There’s nothing wrong with concern for the environment, of course, but is the sustainability movement on college campuses a sign of genuine regard for nature? The evidence suggests that the green movement on college campuses is being spearheaded by the same professional environmental organizations, peddling a distinctly left-wing political agenda, that have helped poison and distort energy and environmental policies in the United States for the last four decades.
Take the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Under this program, more than 500 top collegiate presidents and chancellors have pledged the resources of their institutions to fight global warming. It also is the impetus for establishing sustainability offices on many campuses.
The ACUPCC mission statement declares, “Reversing global warming is the defining challenge of the 21st century.” But is it really? What about fighting global poverty? AIDS? Or bringing electricity to the one billion people on earth, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, who have never flipped a light switch?
The idea that climate change is the world’s greatest problem is unarguable in the fevered swamps of the left. But it doesn’t carry so much weight in other quarters. The Copenhagen Consensus, for instance, brought together many of the world’s leading economists, including several Nobel laureates, to assess the world’s most pressing problems and to list the best opportunities for addressing them. It considered challenges that varied from terrorism to air pollution to malnutrition to global warming (along with several others).
Asked the best ways to improve global welfare, these experts came up with a list of solutions based on the scope of the challenges, costs, and benefits. Their rankings are instructive, and should give pause to those shouting loudest about the need to counter global warming before–as we’re so often told — it’s “too late.” Addressing global warming through developing low-carbon energy technologies was 14th, less critical than things like providing vitamins and medicine for children, treating malaria, and expanding trade.
The science is settled in Al Gore’s view, and in declaring global warming Public Enemy Number One, the nation’s college presidents seem to agree. But is that the role of the university?
Not according to former Education Secretary William Bennett. “It’s interesting that the university theoretically dedicated to the marketplace of ideas has been bulldozed into shutting down the marketplace on the environmental debate, saying that this question is already settled,” he says. “‘We’re All of One Mind Here,’ shouldn’t be the motto on the university seal.”