http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130104a4.html
So much for a green direction in higher education. One is left to wonder what the donations would have looked like if March 2011’s Fukushima power plant failure wouldn’t have influenced Tepco’s donations to the universities (with, I am sure, other companies following suit given the difficulty of being able to proceed in such “generous” ways in light of the catastrophic effects of nuclear energy particularly suffered in this country; both recently and not so recently). This also brings to mind Bill Gates’ “generosity” when it has come to making donations (sic; a.k.a. investments) in education.
It is a disheartening (though not a new) tragedy that higher education continues to be used to further the profit motive of, in this case, energy companies. It is even more disheartening, not to mention ironic, that this is occurring in the country in which the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. One is left to wonder if such investments/ “donations” will ever be made in the name of proceeding in a more “green” manner that will benefit not only the planet but also the technology that centers on a more eco-conscious discipline which, if deeply researched and exploited within academia, just may redeem some—or, with enough time, all—of the damage that the greedy aspects of humanity have inflicted upon Earth.
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