Fox News Mocks Student Push For Divestment From Fossil Fuels [VIDEO]
SOURCE:
Students get more info at one of 350.org's events has been leading the effort to get colleges and universities to divest their endowments from fossil fuels.
On a recent edition of Fox's Red Eye, a four-person panel slammed college students for protesting at their colleges and demanding their universities to divest endowment funds from fossil fuel companies. The student movement the panel spoke about has spread across the nation, and is an effort to combat pollution and climate change.
Andy Levy, the host of the panel, began by asking Ambassador John Bolton: "Aren't college students supposed to do kinda things like this in college?"
"Well, if you're asking if they should act in immature and irrational ways, then yes, this certainly fits into that," Bolton replied.
Levy replied: "I just feel, you know, maybe that's when you're in college you should do things like this."
Bolton responded sarcastically, saying students "could learn, I mean it's just a possibility."
Levy moved on to another panelist, Fox News reporter Sandra Smith, asking if she agreed that "colleges need to run their endowments like a business to maximize their returns—so morality should play no part in this?"
Smith responded: "Oh, well nobody's saying it's immoral to invest in a clean coal company, clean burning coal company, or a domestic energy company. I mean, to just attack all of these companies without any research that it appears they didn't do much of, then that is immature and irresponsible. I'll stick by that."
In fact, the students involved with the divestment movement are connected to larger organizations, including 350.org, that have done extensive research on the topic.
Also, the idea that coal can be "clean" is a myth that has been debunked, and the "domestic energy" companies that Smith refers to could mean any number of oil, gas, or coal companies that happen to be based in the United States. The fact that they are domestic companies doesn't make their polluting and contributing to global warming any less harmful.
Continuing the conversation, Levy said: "So no climate change whatsoever as far as you're concerned."
"There is not—still to this day there is not a consensus among scientists—if you ever hear the president or his administration they typically cite a scientist when they're making a point rather than a consensus of scientists," Smith said.
No one proves her wrong, even though there is, in fact, a consensus of scientists who agree on global warming. In fact, essentially all of them do.
(h/t Media Matters)
Sydney Hofferth is a Communications Intern for Campus Progress. You can follow her on twitter at @squidhoff10.
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