Tomas Baer: Same old conservative spin

I was extremely disappointed in Michael Jacobs’ Aug. 26 Point of View “For prospective employees, a glossary” dealing with the proposed UNC-CH collaboratory.

Jacobs, as a Republican member of the UNC faculty, had the chance to intelligently defend Sen. Phil Berger’s proposal to establish an environmental center that is politically balanced. Instead he chose to use sarcasm and list the usual litany of Republican complaints about the university, among them the “brainwashing of our youth by liberal faculty,” none of which is relevant to the issue of this collaboratory.

Not being trained in science and possibly knowing very little about environmental science and energy production (his expertise is in capital markets, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, finance), Jacobs perhaps had nothing to contribute to the discussion.

The scientists I know who are working on environmental and energy problems are not the knee-jerk liberal, intolerant, overly P.C. individuals Jacobs described. Rather they are extremely aware of the economic trade-offs associated with protecting our environment, and they take cost vs. benefit issues into account when developing recommendations.

I think that Jacobs has missed his chance to defend Berger’s proposal, thereby exposing the foolishness of this initiative.

This story was originally published August 29, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Tomas Baer: Same old conservative spin."