This commentary originally appeared in The Hill on May 11, 2016.
While the White House, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and most of the media declare that a forced and rapid end to the era of fossil fuels is a moral imperative, more sane voices emerge. Such climate sanity comes from an unlikely source: thoroughly green Stanford University. In mid-April, the trustees of this university, from which I earned two degrees, issued a five-page statement announcing that Stanford would not divest endowment assets in oil and natural gas. This is a curious departure from Stanford's divestiture in coal companies two years ago. Both decisions were made in response to the demands of Fossil Free Stanford, part of a student movement begun in 2010 on campuses across the country.
Stanford's justification for rejecting Fossil Free Stanford's demand departs from the dogma of the orthodox climate alarmists. As the statement explains, the Board of Trustees declined to divest in oil and natural gas because it "could not evaluate whether the social injury caused by the fossil fuel industry outweighs the social benefit it provides." (Emphasis added.) To the climate crusaders, now holding the reins of the federal government, such a statement is blasphemous. There are no social benefits ascribable to fossil fuels, according to entrenched climate alarmists.
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