Climate Protest Delays Harvard-Yale Game

Most Americans know how long football games can last. Especially in close college football contests, games can easily go into overtime and last more than four hours. Fans at the Harvard-Yale matchup this year received a little more than they bargained for when the halftime show turned out to be an hour-long climate change protest. One time at my local high school there was a similar occurrence at halftime, except instead of a climate protest some freshman who had drank way too much vodka stormed the field and collapsed. He was hospitalized and had to have his stomach pumped. I cannot decide which incident was dumber. There are certainly large corporations who don’t care about the environment. But interrupting fellow peers who are playing in a very important game that they have trained for for the past six months is disrespectful, to say the least. Causing a disturbance and forcing the game to be finished in the dark may have given the protesters the attention they needed, but otherwise did nothing to help solve the issue.

After an hour on the field, police informed protesters who remained that they could either leave or be arrested. For some reason, 42 protesters decided that being arrested would make their point stronger. After disrupting the game the point has been made. Protesters were rewarded with the attention they desired. At that point just leave the field. Harvard officials responded to the protest by arguing that holding stakes in fossil fuel companies would allow the university to have some input on those companies’ actions. Yale chief investment officer David Swenson responded by saying, “Every one of us in the room is a consumer [of fossil fuels]” and that “we would all die” without the use of fossil fuels. National politicians seized the opportunity to connect with younger generations, as presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer released statements in support of the protesters. Ironically, protesters also chanted “ok boomer” throughout the protests. The average age of Warren, Sanders, and Steyer is 70.

Yale won the game in the end, unfortunately for the Big Green football squad. As a result, Yale and Dartmouth are Ivy League co-champions, even though Dartmouth won head-to-head against Yale. The idea of even allowing a co-championship is ridiculous, especially when there is such an obvious tie-breaker. The Big 12 learned their lesson when it came to deciding champions, but Ivy League teams are not a part of the playoffs so it’s okay to give everyone a participation award at the end of the season.