It looks like Claremont McKenna has now been hijacked, too. We knew that this was coming with no tray day, with Emily Meinhardt's enviro-evangelizing, and biased panels on climate change.
President Gan promises that we're going to be more sustainable. It would appear that we're going to be sustainable to every fad, but our mission.
Already, CMC tracks environmental impacts as reported by The Roberts Environmental Center, and takes steps to reduce its environmental footprints. Sustainability Guidelines have been adopted to encourage leadership opportunities in such areas as power use, building construction, waste management practices, and purchasing.Gann also wants to build green.
The effects of compiling and considering the College’s environmental impact have already been seen: in 2007, the Buildings and Grounds Committee pledged to certify all new on campus buildings LEED silver. This commitment, described later in the report, means all new buildings will be high performance green buildings.She would do well to study the example of Oberlin College, which built green, costly, and inefficient. You can read about that disaster here.
Who pays for all these things? Why, we do.
Tuition will go up yet again because our college, dependent as it is on federal money, has no incentive to cut costs. This in turn will force more students into precarious positions as respect to their finances.
I suspect, though that the green activists won't be pleased with even these "reforms." Like the black activists who burned down Story House, they'll only be pleased when their every fantasy is catered, irrespective of cost.
I just have one question for all the environmentalists out there: Why can't you save the world on your own time with your own money?
9 comments:
...or CMC will save money on energy costs...
but this is the claremont conservative, where everything with the potential to save energy or help the environment should be abandoned, questioned, and invariably attacked. if it's green, don't trust it!
charles' response:
i'm not against saving energy, but money money oberlin money waahhh.
judah response:
who said this is going to cost you or the college more, you irish bastard? just because oberlin screwed up doesn't mean we will or must do the same.
charles' response:
i'm not irish! wahh...
Judah,
If you want to save energy, charge for it. Of course you do not, but let's assume you did. Set a price based upon what a market will bear and I shall pay it -- or go without. My tuition reflects the cost of that room and board.
Ah yes, Judah assumes, like all who profess the knowledge of the self-appointed do-gooders, that he knows what's best and that we should incur a cost so that we might save more money in the future. Of course he leaves out how spending millions on new dorms that we don't need will somehow also reduce our carbon footprint. If he could read, he would know that this issue has already been examined multiple times and again and again, he's been wrong.
He doesn't realize that the reason for the greening of the dorms is so as to distract and win PR points among his ilk.
Maybe, just maybe, Judah, will be able to do it better than all others who have failed before us! I wonder which despot I've heard that from before...
I guess only one question remains.
When would you like your silver pieces?
At the Claremont Conservative, we question because others refuse to think. It's called logic and reasoning.
If students value being environmentally friendly, then it seems reasonable that the school should take steps to reduce its carbon footprint. You are right to say that there have been "green failures" in the past, but guilt by association is not enough to sink good environmental projects.
I agree with you that some of this is for public relations purposes only, but improving our appearance among potential donors and students has its own value.
Other schools spend their money on service projects because they value their results of those projects, even though the money could be spent to reduce tuition or hire more teachers. I went to a Catholic high school that spent a great deal on service projects, but few complained because that was a fundamental tenet of our education.
We do the same thing at CMC, though the purpose is not one driven by creed or faith. If members of the CMC community value being environmentally conscious, I see no problem with spending my tuition dollars (or yours) to further that goal. If you want an education devoid of a social conscience or one that furthers goals other than we do at CMC, you can go somewhere else.
You are right to say that these projects may not pay for themselves with energy costs, but they may generate revenue in other ways that are (admittedly) difficult to attribute directly to green activity.
Andrew,
The synthesis of free market thinking and government policy was what birthed Claremont McKenna. It was, in its early days, skeptical of some of the failed experiments of the New Deal and the Grand Society just as it ought to be skeptical of the latest in green silliness.
Colleges ought to reflect the views of their founders, insofar as that is possible.
If Gann wants us to become like every other liberal arts college, she is welcome to become President of another liberal arts college rather than change the Claremont McKenna many of us love.
Or maybe, you can go somewhere else where that kind of thing is welcomed. At Claremont, we deserve a debate.
yet another transparent attempt by this blog to aggressively chastise anything and everyone making any effort to be more environmentally friendly. it's like listening to the mentally ill lovechild of rush limbaugh and ann coulter on prozac.
Yet another cowardly anonymous progressive who doesn't want to stand for what he believes because he fears the dismantling of his shoddy ideas.
By the way, stop projecting on the whole mental illness thing.
I guess we have reached a stalemate of sorts. I think colleges should reflect the views of their students and faculty, rather than arbitrarily continuing to adhere to the beliefs of their founders. "It has always been this way," or "We were founded upon this idea" are not statements of sound reasoning.
Fair enough, though. I think we disagree on whether or not there is a contradiction between free market thinking and environmentalism, but that debate can be saved for another time.
That's where we part. I think the school needs to continue to have a mission and that deviating from the mission that the founders set up is almost always a risky proposition that ought to be treaded lightly, if at all.
When a college loses sense of its mission, it can run afoul of its purpose and trends almost inevitably to mediocrity.
Charles,
I can't believe I have to say this again, but I do:
People don't attack you for your ideas. Well maybe some people do, but most people I've seen attacking you do so for reasons entirely unrelated to your substantive thoughts or original research.
They attack you because you say patronizing things like:
"At the Claremont Conservative, we question because others refuse to think. It's called logic and reasoning."
Good god, my man, if you're going to talk down to people, at least amuse them.
Are you implying we should leave the environment to market forces?
Because that's worked out pretty poorly in the past.
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