Activists Must Rethink Politics of Opposition, Says Columnist

As business supports more academic research on alternative fuels, campus activists have been forced to rethink how best to promote climate change and other issues, according to a columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

Collin Levy criticizes activists for vehement protests and “antics” at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, recent recipients of big grants from BP and ExxonMobil. The philanthropist Steve Bing recently withdrew $2.5-million of a larger gift to Stanford in protest of the university’s decision to accept money from those companies.

Ms. Levy suggests that many activists oppose not just pollution but also capitalism and all of industrial society, a conflict she says has caused many to overlook potential solutions to climate control, such as nuclear power.

“Stanford and Berkeley have both entered into big-bucks corporate partnerships dedicated to what was once a great environmentalist goal — addressing the problem of energy sufficiency,” he writes. “But instead of celebrating victory, student activists are on the warpath.”

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