Pun Salad

Phi Beta Cons reports that the University of Virginia has declined to sign onto the "American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment", which Commits the participants to a whole bunch of planning, action items, inventories, progress reports, etc. Commented UVa, in its press release:

Despite assurances from the document's proponents that it is simply a promise to spend two years planning for future actions, the document in fact contains stipulations that would require us to commit future institutional (which, under Virginia law, means state-taxpayers') resources without appropriate planning or cost justification, without scientifically verifiable means of proving that the predicted results have occurred, and (perhaps most oddly in a document that presents itself as a commitment to improving the environment) without a clear definition of the meaning of the commitment's benchmark term, "climate neutrality."

Hey, that's an unusually sober and responsible statement! I'm sure sober and responsible UNH will follow in the same sober and responsible path… oh heck, I guess not. Our (interim) President is already down as one of the signatories. And here is UNH's press release, with the usual feelgood self-backpatting. There's no indication that anyone here thought for even a couple seconds about the issues raised in the UVa statement.

Granite Staters will be happy to know that UNH's "commitment" will be appearing soon on a tax bill or tuition statement near you.