In
progressives, ignorance is often married with arrogance and hypocrisy, a
particularly repulsive mix. Such is the case with the students at Binghamton
University in New York who recently held a “die-in” to protest the
use of fossil fuels. The protest was “hosted” by a group called DIVEST BING,
one of whose members, Elizabeth Nutbag Nutig spoke to the Pipe Dream,
the campus newspaper. Nutjob Nutig told the Pipe Dream: “We’re
protesting against the lack of transparency with the endowment of this school.
The Binghamton University Foundation refuses to tell us where our money is
going, and historically money that universities and other big organizations or
corporations invest in is fossil fuels, war machines and prison labor, which is
stuff that literally kills people.” Say what?
The
Executive Director of the Binghamton University Foundation, Sheila Doyle,
flatly refuted the lack of transparency charge, telling the Pipe Dream:
“I met with this group and discussed how the Binghamton University Foundation
distributes nearly $14 million back to campus every year based on the donor’s
intentions. I listened to their concerns and informed them I would pass them on
to our Foundation Board. The Foundation and its affiliates are audited annually
by an independent public accountant and in support of our commitment to
transparency, we have IRS Form 990 and annual financial statements available to
the public online.”
Unions
and government bodies typically aren’t transparent and don’t spell out where
the money they take from others goes. Setting aside the BU Foundation
for a moment, do the students know what BU does with their tuition money
and the other fees it collects from them?
More
importantly, the student’s belief that fossil fuels “literally kill people” is
so preposterous and antithetical to reality that it boggles the mind.
Ambulances are powered by fossil fuels. And all the vehicles that doctors,
nurses, E.M.T.s, and other medical professionals use to get to their hospitals. As
are the hospitals themselves…and all their high-- and low-- tech medical
equipment.
How do
the students think new medicines are created? Does this process typically occur
in a remote cave or wireless field? What of clean and abundant food stores? Their
laptops, televisions, smart-phones, video games? And, how do those students arrive on campus? Do
any of them frequent Starbucks or Caribou Coffee outlets? Hmm. How do those companies
generate their products? Trucks, planes, trains and ships transport virtually
everything needed to make things, grow things, sell things and purchase things
in addition to transporting people.
Do
eco-no-minds think the Earth will be better off without humans utilizing fossil
fuels? Do they think humans will be better off? Do they really think they’d want
to live in that world? They’d go running for their safe spaces, their warm milk
and cookies, and their Play-Doh. Except that none of those would exist. And, do
they really think the Earth was better off in the days before extensive fossil
fuel use? Whales were slaughtered for lamp oil. Forests were clear-cut for
firewood and building materials. Horses were the main method of transport,
their manure coating streets and public spaces.
Fossil fuels literally save
the lives of billions of people. And make those lives worth living.
But,
hey, who am I to kick these coddled college kids when they’re down…on the
ground…wallowing in their own idiocy? Well,
someone needs to tell them: “Grow a pair. Get out of your safe spaces. Get
a job.”
And
drill baby, drill.
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