More Hypocrisy On Display At UCLA and USC

There is no state in the union that is pushing a "green agenda" more than California.

California has already passed a ban on the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles in the state starting in 2035.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/23/21452825/california-ban-combustion-gas-vehicles-cars-2035

Beginning in 2024, you will not be able to buy a gas-powered lawn mover or leaf blower in the state.

Source: https://www.route-fifty.com/public-safety/2021/11/california-become-first-state-outlaw-gas-powered-lawn-mowers-and-leaf-blowers/186568/

At the same time, there is no group of institutions who are promoting the climate change agenda more than the nation's colleges and universities.

This agenda is incorporated into almost everything students are taught.

Students are told they have no future unless fossil fuels are eliminated as an energy source.

Almost all universities across the nation have some type of "Sustainability Plan".

For example, here is a screenshot of UCLA's plan. Of course, UCLA is a state university.

Source: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/plan/

It includes a "Sustainable Transportation Plan" in which the goal is to have a "fossil-fuel LA County"

This is a screenshot from the University of Southern California (USC) Office of Sustainability web page that links to the USC Sustainability Plan. USC is a private educational institution.

A key goal of the program is to increase student, faculty and staff participation in alternative transportation programs.

I was thinking about all of this talk about "Sustainability" when I saw last week that UCLA and USC were applying for membership in the Big Ten athletic conference.

Source: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/34173688/source-usc-ucla-considering-move-pac-12-big-ten

I was wondering how putting all of your athletes on fossil fuel powered aircraft for competitions as far away as New Jersey and Maryland (the closest Big Ten member currently is Nebraska) is consistent with a "Sustainability Plan".

College athletic conferences were initially formed taking account of geography considering regional rivals and the desire to limit travel costs and the time that student athletes spent out of the classroom.

That seems to no longer to be a concern even when it means that thousands of student athletes will have to travel long distances to their sporting events in fossil fuel guzzling jet aircraft.

For example, the carbon imprint of a cross-county flight on a wide body aircraft per traveler is 931pounds per passenger.

A 350 mile trip on regional flight (about the distance from LA to San Francisco or LA to Phoenix or Tucson to play current PAC 12 rivals results in only 222 pounds of carbon emissions per passenger.

It might be one thing if this concerned a couple of football games per year.

However, affiliating with the Big Ten will mean that all sports teams at UCLA and USC will travel thousands of miles to play others schools in the conference.

Here are the current athletic teams at UCLA according to its athletics web page.

If climate change and sustainability efforts are the most important challenge of our lifetimes, according to these colleges and the state of California, why are they making a decision that will increase carbon emissions that is fundamentally at odds with that narrative?

And for what would be considered an incidental purpose related to the educational purpose of the institution?

Why?

Of course, it is all about money.

The importance of the climate change agenda declines rapidly when money is involved or it simply conflicts with what the powers that be want to do in their own lives.

Look no further than the oceanfront mansions of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

Or the private jets that show up at all of the climate change conferences.

If they really believed what they tell others why would they act this way?

UCLA and USC moving to the Big Ten is just another example of the hypocrisy on this issue.