Our conversation with Valencia College Professor James Adamski, PG, a licensed geologist with 35 years of experience in water resources & environmental studies: a thread.

Q: How do you feel about Valencia’s investments in fossil fuels & fracking?

A: Let me give you a couple of broader statements first, and then we’ll get more specific to Valencia. First, climate change is the biggest factor affecting human society for decades to come. The only thing I can see that’s bigger than climate change is the possibility of …

nuclear war, which is still around. Climate change literally will affect almost everybody on the planet, so I think it’s extremely important that we get climate change under control, and part of doing that is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and other …

greenhouse gas emissions like methane. But carbon dioxide is the biggest component of the greenhouse gasses we’re emitting that are causing climate change. So, we need to absolutely reduce that. I think the UN said – I forget the exact numbers, I’m sorry – but, by 2030 ...

we need to reduce our carbon footprint by 40%. But that’s based on 2010 emissions, and emissions have increased since 2010, so it’s really more like 50% reduction by 2030, and then it should be completely zero by the year 2050. The reason why we need to do that is that ...

the warmer the earth gets the more adverse reactions it’s gonna have, like the melting of sea ice. The dying of coral reefs. Changes in weather patterns, like more intense hurricanes. Changes in agriculture, and farming - food production. And so, from that, it’s very important.

More specifically to Valencia, I think Valencia is serious when we say we have a commitment to students and to their future. And I think as part of that, we absolutely as a college and an institution, we need to reduce our carbon footprint. And that not only is …

the carbon we actually emit as part of the electricity we use - and landscaping, and our waste production - but also in investing. I mean, it’s counterproductive to try to reduce our carbon emissions if we are investing in the very companies that are causing climate change.

Q: Yes! And do you have anything you’d like to add about the situation with the adjunct professors trying to unionize? As you probably know as a former adjunct yourself, they don’t get paid very much at all.

A: No, they don’t. And no benefits. As far as unionizing, I mean, I’m all for unionizing. I think it would benefit all professors to unionize, not just the adjuncts, but I mean the full-time people. I know that there have been some emails that we’ve gotten …

from the college that kind of – the way the emails are worded are something like “you don’t have to talk to the union representative if you don’t want to”. I already knew that. I don’t know what the college’s position is on that, I don’t want to speak for them, but …

they certainly are not encouraging us to unionize.

Q: And Valencia spends like $250 an hour on union-busting.

A: That doesn’t surprise me. That’s disappointing. But I think having a union would be a good idea. I would be supportive. I would join it. I don’t know why other professors – I haven’t really talked to any other professors, so I don’t know, but …

I get the idea that a lot of full-time professors aren’t necessarily supportive of a union. And I think that it's naive to think that @valenciacollege, or any employer, has your best interest in mind. Hopefully they do, but that’s probably not always the case.

FIN.