[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JPcBwYGmo[/youtube]

Video of an Ecumenical Meeting of Seminarians from UTS and the Staff of National Catholic Reporter

This article from the HuffPo trumpets the news that New Yorks’ Union Theological Seminary has voted unanimously to divest from fossil fuels.

For those who are unfamiliar with UTS, it bills itself as the flagship of American Progressive Protestant theology.

What this means is that the financial fat cats who bankroll UTS will start weeding out all investments in fossil fuel companies from their sizable portfolio of endowment investments.

I just love this kind of champagne environmentalism. It reminds me of Al Gore using his private jet to travel around the world talking about the terrors of global warming and weeping into his beer about how terrible things will be if we don’t stop using up so much jet fuel in the world.

I’ll believe these New York Protestant innerleckshuls are serious when they give up their limousines, move out of New York City to a commune in the Poconos and start raising goats, knitting their own underwear from goat’s wool and use a windmill and old bike to generate electricity.

I used to get this hot bovine manure from the snooty English when I lived over there.

The invasion of Iraq was going on at the time and they’d say, “This war is all about oil isn’t it? You Americans want to control the world oil supply.”

At which point I’d say, “Do you have a car? Umm, Do you shop at the local supermarket where they fly in fresh strawberries from Peru in February? Do you have electricity in your house? Because we all benefit from cheap energy and for most of us it’s harvested from sources and in ways that are not always the kindest, nicest and most friendly. So I’ll believe your self righteous rant when you move to Wales and dig your own peat for your fire in your hovel and raise chickens and grow your own leeks.”

For any other Catholics who are peeved by this sort of snooty self righteousness, here is the pull quote:

Though it may be the first seminary to fully divest from fossil fuels, Union joins a growing movement of religious organizations taking action to promote sustainability. In July 2013 the General Synod of the United Church of Christ voted to begin a path to divestment from fossil fuels companies, becoming the first major religious body in the U.S. to make such a decision.

In May leading Catholic news agency The National Catholic Reporter published an op-ed stating that climate change was the church’s number one ‘pro-life’ issue, saying “the right to life has little meaning if the earth is destroyed to the point where life becomes unsustainable.”

Pope Francis, too, has implored all those in leadership positions to be “protectors of creation” — a charge many religious groups and institutions have taken to heart.

National Catholic Reporter says global warming is the “number one pro life issue.”

Then pull in Pope Francis and let’s draft him into our cause by a nice quote taken out of context.

Classic.