<p>For my entire fourth year, DuPont is paying for my education, not AccessUVA. 33,000 dollars total. (It shows up in my transcript as “DuPont grant”.)</p>
<p>This feels kind of wrong, considering that my entire ambition in studying biochemistry is to eventually be part of the green chemistry effort (and peers like me share this ambition) to remove current industrial practices from the market.</p>
<p>Consider it changing the system from within.
;)</p>
<p>One option would be to turn down the money and pay for your education yourself if you have a problem with the money coming from them.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that DuPont is also interested in pursuing “green chemistry.” If there is money to be made there, why wouldn’t they? They may regard funding your schooling as a wise investment in their own future.</p>
<p>“Money gained from selling a mangy dog doesn’t smell.” – old Tamil proverb</p>
<p>Think of it as a form of “green conversion”.</p>
<p>(I had a “Dole Pineapple” fellowship - and I don’t even like pineapple!)</p>
<p>They’re cautiously tiptoeing into green chemistry … while still being part of the conventional chemical industry establishment … and in terms of money invested, actions speak louder than words. </p>
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<p>Sigh. It’s not that. You see…AccessUVA normally provides the grants…</p>
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<p>emeraldkity, that reminds me of another conflict too. It’s a bit far off, but if I should opportunities or offers from the big giants in relatively progressive fields, I am not sure if I should accept. </p>
<p>Have you ever seen Blade Runner? One thing I noticed from that film is that all the specialists didn’t notice the evil they were contributing to. (“I only make the eyes…” or “I only produce the motor circuits…”) Evil can arise collectively from people who believe their individual work is virtuous…</p>
<p>I have dreamt of an activist lobby that sought to deprive big chemical firms of their new talent pool and divert them to more progressive industry; it would run huge ad campaigns and so forth against Big Chemical’s recruiting efforts. (Consider the ad campaigns that DOW etc. runs – “the Human element” and so forth - aren’t targeted at consumers…they’re targeted at young science students who otherwise might be alienated by the company’s reputation.) </p>
<p>So I guess it really unnerves me when all of a sudden I find out they’re responsible for the sheer majority of my grant money.</p>
<p>I went to a talk last night by Diet for a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappe. She would argue…you don’t have to stop doing everything ‘bad’ to ‘save the planet’. You just need to define your life philosophy and work from there. That philosophy could involve changing the system from within.</p>
<p>“So I guess it really unnerves me when all of a sudden I find out they’re responsible for the sheer majority of my grant money.”</p>
<p>Think of it as moral jujitsu.</p>
<p>To me it seems like you are taking money away from them that otherwise they might spend on evil, but this way it’s going to something good.</p>
<p>So don’t accept it and pay for your education yourself. I’m sure there’s someone else who would appreciate it.</p>
<p>If you really believe that DuPont is evil, then I think it is incumbent upon you not to accept the grant money from them. I do suggest that you research the company with an open mind though, and you may find things are not as black and white as you once thought. If you do conclude, ultimately, that you do not want to accept money from a source you consider evil, then I will greatly respect your decision. Either way I do believe that in a few years time, and without being corrupted in any way, you will look at this episode with a much more nuanced view.</p>
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<p>Those commercials are targeted at consumers, not young scientists. Running an expensive ad campaign for the benefit of young science students (or even chem grad students) makes no sense. Chemistry grad students are not going to be dissuaded from industry anyway just because they aren’t green yet. </p>
<p>Anyway, while I admire your idealism, I think it’s a bit displaced. R & D in industry necessarily is concentrated on those things in which it is feasible to turn a profit. The most realistic way of “stopping” them from producing chemicals with polluting or non-biodegradable byproducts is to invent new processes which are just as cost-effective but are green, not by staging some giant protest so that chemistry researchers won’t join their company. So in that case, there is nothing wrong with accepting their money.</p>
<p>And while you’re at it you might want to quit using your laptop that might contain plastics and other products produced by Dupont and the like, be sure to not use carpet, watch TV (displays), use a cell phone, use anything with electronic circuits, eat any food that might have been made available through the use of their pesticides/herbicides or use their packaging, wear clothing that uses fibers produced by them, use paint, use antiseptics made by them, and any of hundreds of other products produced by them.</p>
<p>I am in a similar, but different boat. I am a vegetarian devoted to animal rights and I am receiving a 4 year grant from KFC. The way I ended up taking it was by rationalizing it as such: SOMEONE is going to get that money- do I want that money to go to someone like me who will not use the money in a roundabout way to buy meat or someone else who will buy meat?</p>
<p>That money is going to go to someone more than likely. It might as well go to you so that you can get an education to eventually work towards what you want to do, even if receiving the grant seems to go against your beliefs. Just a thought :).</p>
<p>DH had a grant from the CIA once. He figured, if they were willing to give it to a Berkeley lefty, he was willing to accept it.</p>
<p>In 20 years you will laugh at your “high-minded” naivite.</p>
<p>It’s good to be high minded. It’s also good to know how best to put your high mindedness to good use, starting with your education.</p>
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<p>On the contrary it’s targeted at businesses and young recruits, as well as improving its public image in the mind of legislators, public prosecutors and the like.</p>
<p>Consumers don’t buy directly from DOW; businesses do. </p>
<p>I feel to deprive the big companies of their recruits wouldn’t be a mere protest – it would be a constructive action. And yes, I use things in everyday life that use DOW/DuPont/etc. plastic; I use chemicals in the lab that use such plastics, or neurochemicals… but if I had any say in it, I would choose otherwise, much like one opts for organic tofu at the grocery store. And perhaps, one day a parallel movement will occur, with a green firm competing with the big companies like an organic label competes with traditional agriculture. (I usually do not buy organic, by the way.)</p>
<p>I really don’t have the option to refuse this money, by the way — they replaced nearly my entire AccessUVA grant (a huge grant – it’s about 85% of my funding) with this.</p>