10-04-07 by simpson
I supplied the T-shirts and The Student Campaign to Stop BP at Berkeley offered up a demonstration to drive home the potential damage of Big Oil U on one of the nation’s premier research universities. About 200 people — mostly students – protested the $500 million BP deal that would create the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) on the Berkeley campus.
The shirts from oilwatchdog.org read “I didn’t enroll in UC-BP.”
Professors Laura Nader and Miguel Altieri and student Keith Brown joined me in a news conference before the students protested outside a conference on “Biofuels and the Search for a Fuel of The Future” co-hosted by the EBI.
Ironically, though the plan was announced last February, the deal to create the EBI has yet to be signed. You have to wonder how they’re running conferences if they don’t have their oil money yet.
“The university’s administration is inviting a corporation with a terrible reputation — some say a criminal reputation — to decide what the questions are regarding energy,” said Prof. Nader, an anthropologist. “There’s a reason why we keep an arms length from business and corporations. Money can make students do anything. We should be protecting students from the seduction of big money.”
Professor Miguel Altieri of the university’s College of Natural Resources put it this way: “Students come here to enroll in a public university. They’re going to be enrolled in a university where the research agenda is dictated by private interests.”
“Our hope is that the deal is not going to happen,” said Keith Brown, a student. “A deal which can look like a great deal for the University, as Robert Reich has said [Berkeley Professor of Public Policy, former labor secretary], could be a noose around our neck.”
The students say they have three reasons for opposing the deal:
— The social and environmental consequences of large-scale biofuel production and genetic modification.
— BP’s control over the research agenda and the public university.
— The undemocratic decision-making and negotiation processes.
And here’s their description of the street theater performance:
“Protestors wearing white lab coats bearing the BP logo delivered a Trojan Horse to the conference, with a label reading ‘A Generous Gift To Berkeley From BP.’
Upon arrival, the horse delivered an ‘oil spill’ at the entrance to the Bancroft Hotel, where the conference was just opening. The ‘oil’ — actually a harmless mix of molasses and water — made a sticky mess that conference-goers were forced to step around or track behind them on their shoes. The ‘oil slick’ was clearly marked with a sign reading ‘Contaminated.’ Between 200 and 300 students and others accompanied the horse, and chanted and held signs outside the conference.”
Click here for a San Francisco Chronicle account of the demonstration.
Anybody who thinks today’s students are self-centered and have no social conscience are dead wrong. They made this old guy proud to be associated with them.