Harry Shannon
Some years ago, McDonald’s in Canada had an ad campaign using the line: “There’s a little McDonald’s in everyone.” Meaningless, of course, but I assume it worked to sell their food (or, as some people would argue, their ‘food’).
Then the Toronto Star ran an article about how the population is getting too fat because we’re eating this stuff. So I wrote a short letter that they published. It read simply:
Given the concerns about fast food and obesity, shouldn’t the slogan be: ‘There’s a little too much McDonald’s in everyone’?
After that the slogan disappeared. I like to think that I got McDonald’s to change their advertising. It struck me that big organizations can deal with reasoned arguments criticizing them. They’ll bring our their ‘experts’ to counter the criticisms or change the focus of public discussion with some distraction. But they can’t stand being made fun of.
I acted on this insight recently. My former employer McMaster University has long had investments in fossil fuel companies. They claim that it’s hard to divest their holdings. And they’re in the process of building some gas turbines on campus.
Their argument is this. In Ontario large consumers, like McMaster, are charged electricity prices that vary by the hour depending on overall demand in the province. On hot summer days, when there’s huge use of air conditioners, the price is very high – so high that the university says it will save millions of dollars by running their own power generators for a few years in periods of peak demand. The savings can then be used to bring in measures to reduce McMaster’s carbon use.
Yes, I know, the logic is: we’ll increase emissions to reduce emissions. In fairness, there are various programs at McMaster designed to cut carbon use. And it may be that the cost savings from using the turbines will fund measures that have a big impact. But by framing the issue this way, McMaster ignores other options such as renewable energy sources.
There’s a group that’s been trying for years to get McMaster to divest its stocks in fossil fuel, but the University has stubbornly resisted. And now it wants the gas turbines.
So a few weeks ago, several students staged a hunger strike to shame the university into acting. Alas the Board and administration essentially disregarded the students, who ended their strike to avoid health problems. At least there was some publicity in local media and some OpEds in the Hamilton Spectator. As well environmental groups worldwide wrote to condemn what McMaster is doing.
I decided to go the satire route. Here’s my letter that appeared in the Spectator:
As a McMaster retiree, I’m disturbed by the university’s plan to build fossil-fuel burning plants and the response (or really non-response) to the students’ hunger strike in protest.
But there is a silver lining. In 2019, Mac proudly announced that it ranked second in the world for impact on a global scale. Once again, Mac is having a global impact: 120 environmental groups from around the world have denounced the project. Mac is clearly after the number one spot in this year’s rankings.