Via Samizdata, someone who knows how to handle demands from the entitled little shits of the green movement.
Professor Andrew Parker of St John’s College at Oxford University is my new favorite person. The Times of London reports that a group of students wrote to Professor Parker to discuss demands being made by student protesters about fossil fuel divestment. His response wasn’t what they were expecting:
Indeed. It was one we would expect of an adult when responding to the demands of a two-year old in the middle of a temper tantrum.
Two students at St John’s College wrote to Andrew Parker, the principal bursar, this week requesting a meeting to discuss the protesters’ demands, which are that the college “declares a climate emergency and immediately divests from fossil fuels”. They say that the college, the richest in Oxford, has £8 million of its £551 million endowment fund invested in BP and Shell.
Professor Parker responded with a provocative offer. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” he wrote. “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”
Apparently, they weren’t impressed.
Fergus Green, the organiser of the wider protest, who is studying for a master’s degree in physics and philosophy at Balliol College, said: “This is an inappropriate and flippant response by the bursar to what we were hoping would be a mature discussion. It’s January and it would be borderline dangerous to switch off the central heating.”
Yes, he was being flippant and rightly so. However, he was also making a serious point. Their demands would result in us getting very cold in the winter, so why not take the lead? Apparently not, it would seem. Eco-hypocrisy starts young, it would appear. Fergus Green wants us to divest fossil fuels and we can stay warm in the winter on unicorn farts. When he matures, then maybe people will be inclined to engage in a mature discussion with him. Making demands is not mature. Until he grows up, treating him like the toddler he is, is the appropriate response. And well done to Andrew Parker. Keep it up and don’t do a U-turn and apologise to these cry-bullies.
This one could be great fun if it starts to run for a bit. Will the students start digging themselves a bigger hole or just let it drop? I wonder if there are any wind turbines visible from the campus, he could offer to turn off the electricity whenever they stop turning. Just to get everyone used to the post fossil fuel life. Of course once the turbines reach the end of their lives that will be it since we need fossil fuels to build and install them.
He’ll end up apologising. They always do.
Good reply to these juvenile arseholes lecturing us on how to live. My response is a good kick up the backside for these twats !
He should have announced he was turning it off. Before releasing a statement telling all the other students why he was doing it.
The others would have sorted out this pair in very short time!
Yes, indeed.
If these people really wanted “mature discussion”, they wouldn’t be using childish terms such as “climate emergency”.
Loved the response. They love it when others make or are forced to make sacrifices but not when it affects them directly. That’s true hypocrisy.
I laughed myself silly at this: I could hardly believe there’s a non-woke professor who hasn’t been hounded out of his job. Naturally, I’ve spread this tale as far and wide as I can.