93 Harvard Faculty Members Call On the University To Divest From Fossil Fuels

Daniel_Stuckey writes: "One hundred faculty members at one of the nation's most renowned university have signed an open letter calling on Harvard to divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies. Harvard's is the largest university endowment in the world. For the last few years, a national movement has called on on universities, foundations, and municipalities to divest from fossil fuels. Led by students, as well as organized groups like 350.org, it has seen a number of significant victories — at least nine colleges and over a dozen cities have pulled their investments in companies that extract or burn fossil fuels like coal and oil."

Comments

So how many of them are actually qualified

[Sangui5]

Not to be cynical..

OK, that's a lie. Cynical mode is *on*.

How many of these 100 faculty (or is it 93?) are actually qualified to have an opinion about this? How many are involved in hard science (physics, chemistry, engineering)? And how many are in fields that deal in arguments and sophistry above all else?

How many of the signers are in fields that would have been duped by the Sokal Affair and how many have done a good job of curating their facts? How many of those 100 are proprietors of horse-caca? You tell me 100 Harvard faculty want to get out of coal/petroleum... which of them do I care about more than if you told me 100 ballet dancers wanted the same?

Re:So how many of them are actually qualified

[riverat1]

Why should you care? This is the faculty of Harvard to the school's administration. It just means more shares on the open market for you to invest in.

Re:So how many of them are actually qualified

[pitchpipe]

How many of these 100 faculty (or is it 93?) are actually qualified to have an opinion about this?

Conservatives sure are a funny (insane?) bunch nowadays. If you're an actual scientist who is an expert in climate research, and say that climate change is real, that man is causing it, and that it will probably be a bad thing overall then you're just shilling for more of that lucrative research money (and want to destroy America). If you're not a scientist who is an expert in the field, but defer your judgement to those who are experts (of which 97% are in agreement) as most educated people do, then you're not qualified to speak on the matter, so you should just shut up (because you want to destroy America).

Honestly, four or five (or ten?) years ago I might have just thought that you didn't have the facts, but in the year 2014 I just find it weird. Why is reducing how much oil we burn such a bad thing? I don't fucking get it.

Re:So how many of them are actually qualified

[thegarbz]

I don't understand why it needed to be related to climate change at all.

Cities smell. We have nothing but garbage and exhaust fumes everywhere. In places where a lot of diesel is used un-burnt particulates coat the houses leaving black soot everywhere.

Even if you don't care about climate change, or don't care about exhausting resources, why shouldn't we reduce the amount of oil we are burning? Pollution is still pollution.

Re:So how many of them are actually qualified

[Rich0]

renewables don't do it because they always come combined with natural gas power plants

Care to explain why you think that solar, tide, hydro, wind would necessarily need to be combined with natural gas plants?

Hydro doesn't need to be, but just about every major river that can be dammed already is, and environmentalists aren't really happy about that. Like it or not, hydro isn't really going to replace much more of our fossil-fuel-based power generation.

The rest tend to be inconsistent so unless you have a way to store power (variations on hydro usually), you end up needing fossil-fuels in order to take up the slack. Diversity of sources will probably help, but only so far. You still end up with a ton of idle fossil-fuel plants even in the best case just so that if you get a week of cloudy non-windy weather you don't have blackouts. Nobody likes paying for idle plants, so the pressure is always there to run them and build fewer renewable plants.

The main problem with renewables is that for the most part they're just not ready yet unless you want a significant increase in energy costs. In some situations they're becoming competitive, but I've yet to hear about anybody who has a plan for having them handle baseline load for any significant area.

The big advantage of nuclear is that it works just like coal/etc - you fuel it up and you run it as much as you want to day or night, and you can build one right now. The main downside is that people have a lot of irrational fear about them. There are also what I'd consider legitimate concerns - from an engineering standpoint they certainly can be built/operated safely, but in practice there can be motivation to cut corners.

Re:Were the typos intentional

[93 Escort Wagon]

No, they weren't intentional; but, given the submitter was a Harvard graduate, any spelling errors were understandable.

Re:I assume they dont want to make money

[Travis Mansbridge]

Yeah, then they could just buy another planet after this one craps out

my church (and the national organization) are also

[Anonymous Coward]

We in the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara have a small endowment, but still, as a matter of principle, are looking to divest. The Unitarian Universalist Association has also adopted a policy of divestment. I find it amusing that some comments are anti-divestment based on questioning the scientific street cred of those in charge, or asking for, divestment. This is why we have climate scientists. Not everyone is a climate scientist. When 99.8% of the scientists are in agreement on a particular issue... 'nuff said.

Re:What does it mean to divest?

[Anonymous Coward]

The timeframe for university endowments and the goals of a university is much longer than for an individual retiring in 30 years and dying in 50. You investing in something which will do serious harm in two generations is immoral but won't actually hurt you. A university will still be around.

Re:What does it mean to divest?

[Sir Holo]

Mark commenter up!

The decisions of established institutions are indeed made based upon time-scales longer than the individual participants' life-spans.

A faculty community willing to back a position that will ultimately bear its fruit after they are dead is to be respected, or at least soberly considered.