Week of Arrests, Protests Challenges UC/BP Accord
By Richard Brenneman (03-02-07)
The firestorm of controversy over the $500 million pact tying UC Berkeley to one of the world biggest and most criticized oil giants intensified this week, with a teach-in, a demonstration, a pointed exchange between students and a key administrator and at least one arrest.
The central issue is the role BP—the company formerly known as British Petroleum—will play on the campus of one of the nation’s premier public research universities. At the heart of the deal is a plan to genetically engineer grass and microbes to produce ethanol.
According to a UC Berkeley historian Monday night, BP’s half-billion-dollar deal is nothing less than massive greenwashing by a corrupt corporation—supported by a governor eager “to keep his eight Hummers running on alcohol.”
Iain Boal, professor of social and environmental history in the geography department, joined three other professors, an award-winning science writer and a coalition of students for the first teach-in targeting the controversial plan revealed in a press conference last month.
The BP project has garnered an impressive collection of political endorsements, ranging from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama—whose own state of Illinois is another beneficiary of the project.http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=03-02-07&storyID=26451
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