Slashdot Mirror
California Lawmaker Seeks Climate Change as part of Public Education
Andrew Feinberg writes "A California State Senator is seeking to mandate climate change as part of the standard science curriculum. Other members of the legislative body seek to teach an opposing view. 'Simitian noted that his bill wouldn't dictate what to teach or in what grades, but rather would require the state Board of Education and state Department of Education to decide both. Although global warming is mentioned in high school classes about weather, it is currently not required to be covered in all textbooks, said the head of the California Science Teachers Association ... teachers would have plenty to discuss: rising levels of carbon dioxide, how temperatures are measured globally, and what is known and not known about global warming.'"
When I was in school I had to listen to this climate change global warming shit from people who wanted to push some feel good legistlation into place that would tell me how to run my life. Or, it was impregnated into my science class. They push this crap onto students, and then wonder why they either don't pay attention (like I did) or become emo kids. Now, I can't do this, this, this, and this, because it conflicts with these stupid rules. Wonder why kids don't respect the law now? Hm.....
When are these environmentalists and climate change freaks going to stop with the bullshit and leave us alone?
I thought this scam had already been outed.
Now politicians and school boards everywhere might be open to the idea that they should be dictating what is taught in science class (whether good intentioned or bad).
That's all teachers need is one more jerk telling them what to do.
more narrow minded religion in public schools. Wonderful.
Too bad they will probably not bother to get to the point where we don't know specifically what is causing the climate change.
Or, in general:
Correlation != Causation.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Whether you agree with the Bushies or the Greens, this seems like a bad idea to me. Do we really want politicians mandating which subjects our children are taught? Shouldn't that be left to someone... I dunno... competent?
Is all the non believers who have been getting sent to hell recently. With the level of unbelievers and sinners so high hell is now considerably hotter and this is having a knock on effect on the environment. Since god created hell global warming can be laid at his door.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
A California State Senator is seeking to mandate climate change as part of the standard science curriculum. Other members of the legislative body seek to teach an opposing view. ... what opposing view?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You mean like the climate is static?
The climate has always changed and will always change.
The disputes are over man-made causes and if we could actually do anything about it.
Climate changing is not in dispute.
Though I will give you the answer.... the opposing view of non-scientist whacktards.
Oh....nevermind... :/
Seriously though, I never understood why, on slashdot or all places, there are so many of them. Heck, even if you thought global climate change were a complete scam, wouldn't you at least be in favor of technological advancement? Who wouldn't want to move beyond 19th century technology like internal combustion engines and coal-fired power plants?
I do, however, agree that politicans shouldn't be in the business of setting education curriculum--that's definitely a slippery slope.
is this education or indoctrination?
Why not let scientists decide what should be taught in science?
Now there's a radical idea!
Schools aren't required to teach about the dangers of ozone depletion, nuclear fallout, or mercury poisoning -- what exactly is it that elevates this particular environmental catastrophe to the point of being required curriculum in primary education?
Something doesn't seem right about it.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
That we have a pretty decent commentary on this over at Capitol Valley, so please feel free to discuss it there, too. I'm a little annoyed at the liberties the editors take with submissions these days. I mean, I've been around since '98-99 (see the 4 digit UID, dude?) and there used to be a bit more respect for the submitters instead of just trying to keep traffic on the site.
Hey Zonk, could you at least add my URL to my name on the main post, dude? Come on.
Well, climate change is an important contemporary issue in science, no matter what your opinion. I think injecting a bit more science into the whole thing would only be a good idea. Then again, judging from some of the comments regarding climate change, it seems to me that science education in general needs to be addressed.
/. written though it were gospel:
The thing that amazes me about this whole thing is that (otherwise intelligent) people seem to have been suckered by marketing. For example, companies that advertise about C02 being a harmless gas are simultaneously investing in arctic oil exploration (on the assumption that the arctic ice is melting). Maybe the biggest thing that needs to be taught in science is objective reasoning - something that seems fairly thin on the ground..
Here's something I often read on
"correlation != causation" - true, but I'd challenge anyone to name a single scientific "law" we _know_ to be caused, and don't "merely" observe correlation.
The other thing that amazes me are the number of people who believe really weird things about climate change research. For example, I've read comments alleging that climate scientists "tweak" their models to fit known weather patterns, but never verify those models on other data. This is such a patently ridiculous allegation that in any other field it would be laughed off the stage, but for some reason there is a group of people who are desperate to dis-believe in climate change no matter what the evidence.
I think this is a critical issue, but I'd rather not turn it into a situation where people are fighting over whether they get to teach the answer. Rather, I'd make it a mandate to produce students who are capable of intelligently discussing the questions.
Here's what I'd teach them:
Enough chemistry to understand what a compound is, and how atoms rearrange in order to make different molecules, and how energy is required and released in the process. One could teach this from a fairly young age, even without a full chemistry course. Just so they're conversant in the concepts and can know they want to learn more.
Enough math to know what exponents are and what the difference is between a straight line and non-linear curve is. Even if they blur the huge difference between squares and exponentials, the notion that one can't simply rely on knowing that if it took x years to do something, it will take x more years to do twice that, it would be good.
Also, again in the math front, enough math to understand simple optimization issues--nothing fancy. The ability to optimize the area of a rectangle is almost enough. They must be able to do simple things like know when it's good for a few people to do big things and when it's better for a lot of people to do little things and when neither of these will work and everyone has to do something big in order for anything to matter.
Enough math to be able to comprehend the sheer quantity of waste and pollution in the world.
Enough statistics and probabilities to be able to understand why something can happen one year, not happen another, and then happen again ... and yet still be a trend. That is, they must understand the
difference between a tendancy toward something and a promise that something
will occur.
Enough logic to understand what it takes to prove and disprove existential and universal quantifications.
Enough philosophy and morality to understand and discuss risk analysis and the general good.
Enough politics to understand how it's BOTH the case that an obviously good idea won't necessarily be adopted by the free market, and something that is forced by government won't necessarily fix a problem.
Enough economics to know how to calculate which investments are going to pay off and which are just boondoggles lining someone's pockets in the short term at the expense of the long-term good.
Enough history to revive the notion of sacrifice for the greater good and get people out of the "it's all about me" mode.
Enough biology to understand what an ecosystem is and how one thing affects another. There was a very good episode of the Wild Thornberrys where the ecosystem got upset by a small change and there was a big disaster. Required viewing of that would almost suffice in my eyes. Just enough to be able to understand the significance of the reefs going away or some plankton going away or polar bears going away in some sort of operational terms that didn't make it seems "distant and unrelated".
Enough common sense to understand that not all things labeled bio-degradable, green, or earth-friendly are actually saving people money. We don't have to teach which ones are, just that the question has to be asked and that the answers might be deliberately obscured.
And, just maybe, enough religion to understand that Noah didn't survive the Flood by sitting back and assuming it was God's will or that God would just take care of him.
And enough to know that the true meaning of Faith is that you have enough confidence in what you believe that you are not threatened by truth and science.
Bravo to the United Church of Christ for its recent "not mutually exclusive" stance on science and technology. (I'm not a member of that church, by the way. I just saw notice of this and thought it was cool.)
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Like many people on Slashdot it seems, I think this law is rather pointless, but not necessarily for the same reasons. If you RTFA, anthropogenic global warming skeptics, then you would know that the bill does not mandate that any specifics of climate change be taught, i.e., no one is being told to teach that CO2 emissions are causing global warming. Rather it simply requires that climate change be taught as part of the California science curriculum. It's up to the state education board to determine specific standards as to what is being taught in specific grades.
I would think that even the skeptics (at least on Slashdot) would agree that the earth is getting warmer. Just teaching this in schools doesn't seem to be controversial in the slightest. But it seems rather silly to mandate this in a piece of legislation. It would be like mandating that algebra and geometry be taught to high school students. Any decent earth science curriculum (the focus of 6th grade science education in California) would already have this as part of its standards. Legislation is overkill.
This is something agreed upon by a very large majority of scientists across the globe.
Personally, even if they are over-reacting, polluting the environment is a very bad thing. Since we have only one planet that can sustain human life, I think we should err on the side of caution. If it means you have to spend more on fuel and new energy technology, well, we had it pretty good for a while.
Blar.
The problem with this is the most instructive bits of the topic would never really be covered in a course. All wrapped in the climate change topic are examples that:
... the stuff most people really don't want to hear about - only really served to be a platform on which to stand to "look out for number one."
* politicians will sensationalize for votes
* scientists will overstate for grants
* media will embellish for attention
* countries will argue for/against for power
and, really, the science of the matter - ie., the FACTS
And, just to be clear, I was also one of those climate change research types that got involved before it was fashionable and when Gore was still in Congress looking to make a mark. I was disgusted then; I'm disgusted now.
The best thing you can take away from the study is a healthy measure of skepticism.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
The EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Targeted to high school and undergraduate levels. Includes lesson plans, sample homework assignments, and documentation about how it meets the education standards.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Space and Computers.
Firstly, the level of many of the posts here, the reflexive and snide referral to the principles of atmospheric science as religion indicate to me that an increasingly large group in society are hostile to science. Here is a New York Times article that argues just that, that there is a rising tide of anti-intellectualism building in America today.
As for the accusations of indoctrination, I believe that climate science should be taught in schools. However, it should be taught at a far more advanced level than they typical caricatures that appear in popular culture. Students should first be taught about the physics of electromagnetic radiation, about absorption, reflection, and emission. They should be given an understanding of how some wavelengths transparently pass through some materials, while others wavelengths are absorbed by the same materials. In my experience, students today typically have a terrible understanding of these concepts.
They should also be taught some basic atmospheric science. For example, they should know why the air becomes cooler as altitude increases (up to the thermosphere at least) because the reduced pressure causes the air molecules to move more slowly. This means that they should be familiar with gas laws, and with the concept of adiabiabatically raising a parcel of air. They should be taught about the latent heat in water vapor and also about relative humidity and the capacity of air to hold water vapor. They should understand that raising a parcel of air causes it to cool, thus reducing the amount of water vapor it can hold. When the water vapor condenses to form clouds, heat is released, causing the parcel of air to rise even faster...this is the main mechanism of storms.
Finally, they should be taught the mechanisms of the greenhouse effect. They should especially be taught that the typical pop culture caricature of the greenhouse effect is wrong. The greenhouse effect is typically portrayed as a sheet of gas reflecting infrared radiation back to Earth. This is not the way it works. Instead, increased carbon dioxide, especially at high altitudes (where it is dry) makes it more difficult for infrared radiation to escape to space. The high altitude carbon dioxide causes the Earth's infrared radiation to be emitted to space at a higher altitude. However, since the air is cooler at higher altitude, the infrared radiation is emitted to space less effectively, thus causing an increase in temperature of the entire system. Here is a nice summary.
If the material is taught in a logical scientific way, then I believe that it cannot be called indoctrination. If the students are familiar with the detailed science underlying the field of climate science, then they will be more able to judge between authentic and fallacious arguments. Mandating that this material be taught is really not that different than mandating that chemistry be taught.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Climate change is a documented fact. Within recorded human history we have gone through two 1500-year warming / cooling cycles. There's evidence on every continent of this. But human-caused global warming is bullshit. Basically, we're being asked to believe that the inevitable warming is *more* warm *now* than it *should* be. We have zero evidence of that. Nobody can say with any precision how quickly the earth warms when it warms. It was warmer during the Roman Warming than it is now. Fig trees grew in northern Italy where they don't grow now.
Yeah, teach climate change, but teaching global warming is as bad as teaching creationism. They're both faith-based education.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Some of us believe that mixing our food supply with our energy supply is not "technological advancement."
Some of us believe that expanding the federal government control of large parts of our economy is not going to lead to
"technological advancement."
Some of us believe that the climate is always changing and always providing benifits and downsides to certain regions.
Some of us believe that the best way of coping with these changes is to be prosperous.
Some of us believe that the big-government, anti-market beliefs intertwined with the green movement are actually counterproductive to us coping with climate change.
California is a very liberal state and this just seems like another way to spread the propaganda of global warming into children's minds. Instead of teaching them about climate change, why don't they teach them about the biological history of the earth itself? It would be much more informational and relevant.
Oh, and I do not beleive that global warming is real, I think this is merely an extinction age.
A few degrees can make or break many of the livable areas on our globe. Our entire civilization was built arround how the planet functioned at a certain temperature range, increasing that temp has already had negative effects. I'm of the mind that we need to fix this if we can, and there is much evidence that by changing what we piss into the environment, we can effect a change.
We've pissed away a Trillion Borrowed Dollars into Iraq and only made terrorism worse. There were many people who poked holes in the reasoning for the conflict, but it happened anyway. I wish the pants-filling cowards who let that go by would also realize that climate shift will kill far more than the few thousand who died on 9/11.
So why not piss away another borrowed Trillion Dollars on making our energy systems sustainable?
Blar.
You're conflating regional trends with global mean. In history various parts of the world have been warmer or colder than they are now, this isn't disputed. But in general for everyplace that got warmer, somewhere else got colder. The trend now is that global mean temperature is going up well beyond where it has been in several thousand years.
I'm assuming you'd teach this in 2nd or 3rd year University?
I've dealt with enough 1st year science students (3+ years, full-time) to know that most of them wouldn't be able to get what you're proposing. Some might get most of it by 2nd year, while most would be 3rd or even 4th year to put it all together. And that's assuming that you simplify everything just enough to put it into one or two courses. It's not that they can't do it, but that their high school diploma doesn't guarantee much more than "I can read, write, use a calculator for multiplying two numbers, and I've successfully been babysat for 12-13 years" and it takes University a couple of years to correct what should've been done long ago. (Sorry for the rant, but it's essentially true where I live.)
Ironically, I still think it would be a fabulous idea to (try to) teach this all together. Too bad high-schools, the ones that I know of, don't teach anything like this.
I've been reading a lot of "they should" and "I would" posts in this thread...
Your solution advocates a
( ) technical (*) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to solving an education problem. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state or country to country before a bad federal or international law was passed.)
( ) It will be fought by entrenched fishing interests
(*) Students don't work that way
(*) It will be fought by teacher's unions
( ) It will succumb to NIMBY Syndrome
(*) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(*) Education doesn't work that way
( ) NIMBY Syndrome will prevent mass deployment
Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
( ) Idiots with boats
(*) Asshats
(*) Lack of funding to implement your idea
(*) Domestic reluctance to engage in sweeping change
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(*) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who vote
(*) A lack of support from famous Musicians and Actors
(*) Conflicting educational interests
(*) Lack of centrally controlling authority for school curriculum
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) The money could be better spent curing cancer
(*) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown to work
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(*) Your solution is expensive
(*) Your solution may be politically infeasible
( ) The money could be better spent implementing [other] solution
( ) It makes life harder, not easier
(*) Educating them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
discussing global warming, one of the biggest topics these days, in a classroom is a good thing. But I think we can all agree that it should focus on the science of global warming, and leave out the politics and the unscientific ideas that are being attached to global warming.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We don't _know_ what keeps all the air from floating off into space.
There is this _theory_ of gravity, but it is 'just a theory'. We can't 'prove' it anymore than we can 'prove' the greenhouse effect.
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
The were wiped out c. 1350AD by global cooling, about the same time that the Thames River froze for the first time in recorded memory. So, if the current climatological trends allow the planet to return to 13th century conditions, what's the problem?
It is a good (but not sure) bet that anything a teacher says is bullshit.
Students know this.
Teaching anthropogenic climate change will create a whole generation of skeptics.
Enough economics to know how to calculate which investments are going to pay off and which are just boondoggles lining someone's pockets in the short term at the expense of the long-term good.
The problem is, nobody really knows how to do that.
A /slight/ increase in global temperature results in a /slight/ increase in sea level (a mere 20-40 feet) as Greenland and Antartic ice melts. The /slight/ increase in sea level is a bit of a problem for the 100s of millions of people who live /slightly/ above sea level.
/slight/ percentage of the people displaced by global warming move to California, our population will /slightly/ double or triple.
California is just being self interested here really, as if only a
And the freeways here are already way too crowded...
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
I can foresee a real problem with this. The issue has already become politicized, which can be nothing but detrimental to science (political science is an oxymoron). If the science was actually taught, then the students need to be exposed to the entire argument, both pro and con. If one really thinks an hypothesis is mistaken, the reasons why need to be addressed at a level that takes in more than a "you're wrong. Yeah , and so are you!" level of childish dispute. At the same time they will need to gain a working knowledge of what climate is, including the sad truth that the climate does nothing BUT change, that for hundreds of millions of years the planet has warmed and cooled dramatically, often within generational time spans. They will have to learn that contrary to political rhetoric, science does not operate on the basis of "consensus." A scientific consensus is meaningless in the face of one well supported contrary. Worse, once exposed to the pros and cons of a hypothesis they'll have to accept that some will accept the idea of anthrogenic climate change, others will reject it, while still others may find it a reasonable but unproven hypothesis. It would be a great curriculum taught properly, but educators and politicians would certainly get in the way of such program.
For the record I'm a member of the third group, that consider the hypothesis empirically reasonable, but badly supported (if at all). Most proponents of the "proven" view fail to adequately discuss critical data acquisition issues like how and where atmospheric concentrations are measured to name just one glaring fault. Another problem is the failure to consider climate on a long enough temporal base. Data selection has often censored periods that would "obscure" the conclusions of the analyst - believers debate the Medieval warm spell or the mid-Holocene event for example, using very poor arguments that ignore empirical facts. There are very clear geological and archaeological data records associated with both those events that "climatic" arguments to the contrary can neither explain nor deny.
Proponents of the "not real" tend to see human activity as ineffectual, not worth considering, ignoring the clear evidence from many different parts of the world that we are very much a part of what determines the "natural" environment at any given time and that civilizations may have more of an effect than tribal societies. So called "native " California grasslands vanished when autumnal burning was suppressed allowing the more quickly growing annual grass species that came in the coats of Spanish sheep to spread. The native grasses relied on human environmental effects. With curtailment of that human effect, the perennial grasses lost the environmental advantage. They were no more "natural" than the present state of affairs. In Britain a butterfly population was recently reported recovering after it was determined that they were dependent upon an ant, that in turn was dependent upon warm soil temperatures, that in turn were dependent upon grazing keeping grass short. The butterfly is DEPENDENT upon a human effect in the environment. We are very much a part of the environment and given our numbers and resource demands, we really should be interested in our interactions with it.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Fair enough. I didn't mean this literally, by the way. I was just abbreviating (even for the fact that it was a long post) and didn't do a good job. I don't expect them to be able to make a fortune on the market. What I'd like them to do is understand the difference between long-term and short-term gain, the idea of hidden costs due to poor or misleading accounting, the idea that people in a game for the short term might take different strategies than people in it for the long run, the idea of industry putting off expense on government and vice versa. These are all individually simple concepts that even young kids could conceptualize it if it were made suitably idealized. They show evidence of this kind of reasoning in how they play various games. They won't have to rush out and solve the world's problems as kids. They just need enough to understand what questions to ask so they can evolve robust theories of this stuff as they age. Let them find their own answers.
Even if they got to the point of comprehending the hardness of the problem, that would be good. It would mean they might fear that government or industry might not solve the problem on its own, and that they had a real personal need to get involved themselves.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
the reflexive and snide referral to the principles of atmospheric science as religion indicate to me that an increasingly large group in society are hostile to science.
They're not hostile to science. It's Slashdot, it's all about teh Science. What the posts are hostile towards is *religion*, which is what the Global Warming Cult has become. It's got everything a good old school religion could want: High Priesthood whom one must dare not defy; a clear blue print designed to funnel money away from the wealthy to said Priesthood and their cronies; a vaguely mystical component ("mother earth" "gaia"); the stern, self-righteous demands from on-high for sacrifice and penitence (while priesthood and cronies fly about in their gulf streams); a complete and holistic set of rules which stretch across diet, fashion, pets, transportation, and commerce; and now more and more, really scary and dangerous zealot foot-soldiers and crusaders.
Global Warming not a religion? Dude, in two hundred years, the same schools being forced to teach it today as "science" will be teaching it as social studies alongside Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Unless it becomes a state religion in the US and EU, in which case all mention of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism might be expunged from the curriculum (religions hate competition).
Thanks for the link, finally an explanation that's consistent and logical with the physics I was taught in college, but you must remember that the bill's target audience is public school students and I fear most will never grasp the supporting concepts.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Sure it can. You can "indoctrinate" people in a "logical scientific way" because what you're proposing is to stuff students with a enormous body of information that would take a PhD in one of the relevant fields to understand. Unless you happen to be actively researching the field, either from avocation or professionally, it will be impossible for anyone to be able to gather enough expertise to really understand the data and it's implications.
And there's the rub. Climate Change / Global anything is a hugely complex issue with lots of side arguments, issues and complexities. And that's just the technical aspect of it all. Your lecture series didn't even start with the social and political ramifications of the confluence of global climate change and the rapidly expanding human population on said globe.
Your curriculum is great, more suited to a high functioning college student than random high schooler. But it still doesn't really help and it's not remotely practical for a high school education. If high school could just teach students to understand the scientific method we would be a lot further along in having a populace with some understanding of how we can possibly deal with many of our upcoming issues.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Something tells me the states would not be amenable to forfeiting their constitutional powers, nor should they. In a country as large as the US, the federal government is ill-equipped to create a national educational curriculum that reflects the diversity of local populations. The federal government is already too bloated and overreaching as it is. Making it even more so will not help anything.
No, actually. You're picking a fight where none is offered.
All I did was try to critique a proposal in the context of its own form by addressing the specific issue I cared about, which was that if you're going to tell people what to teach, this is not what to teach.
Mandate doesn't always mean "legally enforced", and is often used in a sense of "moral imperative" (which is not as imperative as the term imperative might seem to imply). Consider the so-called "mandate" a US President often asserts right after election, which is not always implemented and in some cases isn't given the time of day. Or a sports coach may make it a mandate to go and win games.
It was just my own personal list of things that I think need teaching, and you can sum it up by saying I think people should be taught how to think, not what to think. If you have a problem with that, feel free to say so.
I do think it will require leadership, though, in some form. If it is government imposed, I'd like it to be open-minded and empowering, not merely prescriptive. But I'm open to other suggestions as well. Look at Al Gore. There's a leader with a sense of what's imperative. Even without force of law, he's not doing badly.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
It would be nice if students learned all that, but you're talking about classes that only the geekiest of the geeks take in modern high schools (I took all those classes you mention). Just try to get your average "jock" into those classes. :)
That's the biggest problem with science-based curriculum - very few kids are taking classes that would enable them to understand the material. That results in kids instead getting "basic" introductions that give little than more than hand-waving and flawed analogies.
a complete and holistic set of rules which stretch across diet, fashion, pets, transportation, and commerce; and now more and more, really scary and dangerous zealot foot-soldiers and crusaders.
C'mon yourself. That last bit is a hyperbolic reduction meant to provoke a negative response and justify the whole "religious fanatic" analogy. I'll take it otherwise the day somebody sets off a bomb, tortures someone, or mandates genital mutilation in the name of curbing human-exacerbated global warming.
I don't know that I am willing to accept .1C as "well beyond".
That the one seeking to teach climate change isn't seeking to teach just that. I mean I think there's very little disagreement that our climate changes hence the whole four seasons thing. I would think what the senator wants to teach is that humans are causing climate change, specificially through CO2 output and that is a bad thing.
Well opposed to that would be two different views:
1) That the climate is changing, but that humans are not responsible or not a significant contributor. The changes we see are just a result of a natural cycle.
2) The cause of the climate change is not proven. There is not sufficient evidence to identify the source of the climate change.
While you certainly aren't required to agree with them, those would be views opposed to the idea that humans are causing climate change. Some argue that we aren't, others argue that there simply isn't enough proof.
This is silly. Besides, the problems inherent every random schlub mandating their pet topic be covered in the school
curriculum, we already have much broader legislation addressing this: NEEA of 1990
Were that I say, pancakes?
Your post shocked me. All of the things you propose had been covered in either physics, chemistry or geography by the time I was 14. The person who replied saying that they were only covered in the classes the most geeky students took was even more astonishing, since here in the UK they were all covered before subjects became optional.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
there's your fatal flaw - global warming as it's proposed today by most sources is bad science. CO2 has never been considered the driving force of climate, and serious climatologists give you a funny look when you say it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I'm a physicist, so I hope you do not choose to clump me among those who are hostile to science. I in fact enjoy my work quite a bit.
With that said, I believe climate change should be only a very minor part of the standard public education of science. The simple facts are, climate change is an extremely small part of science, has very little to do with the most critical basic foundations of the major areas of science, and studying it is unlikely to give unique insight into critical thinking or future careers in excess of other scientific topics. The only reason it is being considered in isolation is because the exaltation of climate change as extremely important is a political fad. It is, however, unwise to adjust scientific schooling to reflect political considerations.
The real goal being pursued is teaching students about climate change for the purpose of influencing their future political decisions. That, however, is not science, and does not belong in the science classroom. Climate change should at most be mentioned as a very small part of perhaps an Earth & Space science class, and could likely be covered in entirety in one or two class periods. Beyond that, further discussion probably belongs in a Government or Social Studies class, where the discussion of all the political complexities makes more sense.
Diapers let me code longer and break my concentration less. I'm considering getting a catheter.
Blar.
I think we greatly underestimate high school students in our current curriculum. Taught in the correct way, all of the concepts I described above ARE graspable by many high school students. Of course, you won't be able to teach them the calculus attached to the ideas, but the basic concepts are not that difficult. All you need to do is build the basic ideas, brick by brick. Then you link the basic ideas together to build a more complete picture.
Here is an example. Idea #1: Objects emit infrared energy. The hotter an object is, the more energy is emitted. Idea #2: If the amount of EM energy being absorbed by an object exceeds the amount of energy emitted by the object, then the temperature will rise until the rate of energy emission matches the rate of energy absorption. Idea #3: The infrared radiation leaving the Earth is emitted into space by the outermost layers of the atmosphere. Idea #4: The temperature of the atmosphere decreases as altitude increases (until the thermosphere).
All of these ideas are relatively easy to teach, especially if you don't have to teach the associated mathematics. Now link them together. Carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere is effectively a barrier to infrared radiation. This barrier causes the infrared to be emitted to space at a higher altitude (idea #3) than it would have without the CO2. Since the upper layers are colder (idea #4), they emit less infrared (idea #1). Because the upper layers are emitting less radiation, there is now more heat entering the atmosphere than there is exiting. Thus, the temperature of the upper emitting layer must rise to restore the energy balance (idea #2). This results in a general warming of the atmospheric system.
Of course, there are some subtleties to the above arguments that may be difficult to teach to high school students, but the main ideas will be grasped. If we believe our children are stupid and incapable of learning advanced topics, then they will fulfill our prophecy for us. We should give our children more credit. They are smarter than we think.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
You have just described the basic tenets of the AGW hypothesis. It would be more appropriate to teach children about the limitations of peer review (see Wegman), the miss-application of statistical methods (see McIntrye), the more plausible alternative theories (see Svensmark) and the complicity of the media in the promotion of political agendas (see Gore). You didn't once mention the scientific method (hypothesis, falsification, and proof) and how it can be misappropriated by special interest groups (environmentalists). You have failed to include the psychology and history of catastrophism. All in all, C-. Could do better.
Where do you get .1 C from?
Cthulhu loves you.
"C'mon yourself. That last bit is a hyperbolic reduction meant to provoke a negative response and justify the whole "religious fanatic" analogy. I'll take it otherwise the day somebody sets off a bomb"
This has already happened. Remember the uni-bomber? In all, the guys writings were right in there with main stream environmentalism. After reading up on that, take a moment to observe that many of the terrorist groups, and activities, in the US are related to environmentalist groups.
I am not saying that they are wrong; but, to deny that they exist is just plain dishonest.
Geeze, "you diagree with me, therefore you are hostile to science" line. You're the preachy tunnel-vision sort that turn many cynical against environmental issues who otherwise would have been sympathetic to the cause.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The difference here is that it's being done by the legislature rather than school boards, which are more expert in and focused on continually evaluating and improving curriculum.
This is a complete farce and attempt to skew the a generation of students to ensure a particular agenda is maintained. And no, public school is not the place for that. If they're going to teach methodology, I'm all for it. But you and I know that's not what this is about. There is no uniform consensus on the cause of climate change, despite what everyone who responds to this will say. The only thing we know for sure is the climate is changing, humans may be playing a part, but there are a ton of other factors involved including the fact that at many times in the history of Earth the climate has changed drastically. And yes, often in a very short span of time.
It's amazing to me how people piss and moan about education suffering at the hands of agendas but as soon as the masses agree with the agenda suddenly it's okay.
A lorry/truck driver in UK went to court against the government concerning schools using Gores' movie in schools - and he won.
"Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was greeted in the USA with enthusiasm and belief. In England, the government decided this great documentary should be shown at high schools because of its scientific relevance.
Fortunately a truck driver and father of two young sons, Stewart Dimmock, took exception and said, "I care about the environment as much as the next man, however, I am determined to prevent my children from being subjected to political spin in the classroom." He further alleged it was politically biased and scientifically inaccurate (Daily Mail, October 3).
He won the case in the English High Court against the government and its "team of experts," so now the so-called documentary can only be shown at schools with a warning of the bias and inaccuracies.
The convenient lies determined by the High Court were:
The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The government's expert was forced to concede this is not correct.
The film suggests evidence from ice cores proves that rising carbon dioxide causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found the film was misleading: over that period the rises in carbon dioxide lagged behind the temperature rises by 800 to 2,000 years.
The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests this was caused by global warming. The government's expert had to accept it was "not possible" to attribute events to global warming.
The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims this was caused by global warming. The government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims a study showed polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out Gore had misread the study. In fact, four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, throwing Europe into an ice age. The claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
The film suggests the Greenland ice covering could melt, causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
The film suggests the Antarctic ice covering is melting. The evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
The film suggests sea levels could rise by 7 meters, causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimeters over the next hundred years and there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims rising sea levels have caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The government was unable to substantiate this and the court observed this appears to be a false claim.
One has to be concerned these errors have not been emphasized in the U.S.
With the team of experts working with Al Gore, it is unfortunate these errors were not identified. Had the result of the "Inconvenient Truth" been to spotlight the problems of pollution as a whole, it would have still been beneficial. The actual result has, however, vilified coal and focused attention on carbon footprints and alternative costly energy systems that will probably make many obvious players tens of millions of dollars but not address the real critical issues.
Should Al Gore and his team return the Oscar and the Nobel Prize? It is disappointing to think such a revered committee as the Nobel Academy could make such an award without checking the scientific facts first.
This inaccurate "science" and politics unfortunately continues with the Department of Energy canceling its support of the FutureGen thermal power plant.
Let's be honest. In the U.S. economy, the $1.8 bi
This has already happened. Remember the uni-bomber? In all, the guys writings were right in there with main stream environmentalism. After reading up on that, take a moment to observe that many of the terrorist groups, and activities, in the US are related to environmentalist groups.
I am not saying that they are wrong; but, to deny that they exist is just plain dishonest.
Industrial Society and Its Future, the Unabomber's infamous manifesto, is one man's screed on how he believes technology will eventually result in the loss of basic freedoms long taken for granted. Suggesting that it concerns itself predominantly with environmentalist issues illustrates either ignorance of the piece or dishonesty on your behalf. You further undermine your argument by implying that a violent nutjob operating independently speaks for activist causes that haven't done shit in the way of murdering people.
Big, loaded words like "terrorist" get thrown around so much thanks to (often incorrectly) implied affiliation/association such as this, and it's why they lose their meaning over time. We'll all have the wolf-crying likes of you to thank for people not giving a damn if and when a genuine threat is imminent.
The court did its job.
Let me ask the question, why do we always here the phrase:
"Global warming is happening, and it's man made."
Google says: Results 1 - 10 of about 536,000 for global warming man made
Should we feel about it differently if global warming were not man made? If the earth were entering an ice age, should we feel differently if man caused it or if it were natural?
In both cases the consequences are the same. But for some reason, there is a morality and imperative attached to the "Man Made" part of it. We should feel guilty, or responsible, that we have harmed the planet (as if it cares).
When a polar bear kills a baby seal, we watch it with scientific interest on national geographic and wonder at nature. But when man kills baby seal, we are horrified.
There is your "religion." And when religion is involved, I tend to wonder about the facts underneath it.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
They have to teach kids their version of the truth, with their false data, so they will accept the carbon tax, government micro management of our lives, and population control policies that are to come. Do a little research and you'll find global warming and cooling happens naturally. It's not from pollution. Those in power will be using it as a tool, much like terrorism, to control you.
Then when you add in problems with the measurement sites and equipment themselves - this station, for instance - we should have even less confidence in the conclusions drawn from the few and far between measurement sites.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Firstly, the level of many of the posts here, the reflexive and snide referral to the principles of atmospheric science as religion indicate to me that an increasingly large group in society are hostile to science. Here is a New York Times article [nytimes.com] that argues just that, that there is a rising tide of anti-intellectualism building in America today.
You could make that case if society knew what scientists were saying. Unfortunately everything the public hears is filtered through politicians and journalists, both of who muck the issue up with fear-mongering and finger-pointing. Society just doesn't trust them - and they shouldn't.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Mmmmmm, no, regional trends are bullshit. During the Midieval Warming, it was warming everywhere. During the Little Ice Age, it was cooling everywhere. These cycles are 1500 years long (plus or minus 500 years), so you're only comparing this warming against the past one (1) warming.
It's funny how some people only feel alive during a crisis, so they feel the need to invent a crisis when none such exists.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Oh, the IPCC and their assessment reports... I'm sure everyone takes those as the gospel. Those are always popular. Like in 1995 when their analysis estimated that the worth of a human life in developed nations was 15 times greater than human life in the third world. Hey, it only triggered protests and sit ins.... oh, but you'll tell me those were supporters. Part of your imaginary consensus perhaps?
The same IPCC that was served a nice helping of humble pie in front of congress in 1997?
It seems their dire predictions in 1990 didn't materialize so the 1995 report had to be revised a bit. Quite a bit. I doubt they could accurately forecast the weather in LA, much less global climate in 10 years time. So when it came time to make policy decisions that affected the real world and not just global warming fairy land... well, congress went in favor of continued economic progress. I could go on with bad news for the IPCC, but I'll just say they burned all their credibility many years ago. Since then, they only make predictions 100 years out. They must have gotten tired of having egg on their face.
I think you misunderstand science. If understanding changes, then the science has changed. Obviously global warming is happening, it is getting hotter. Our best understanding of this is that we are the cause. The measurements are not going to change, it is getting hotter, but it is possible as you point out that our understanding could. As an example: planets move in the sky, that does not change. Our understanding has changed though: they do this because they orbit the Sun not the Earth. That change in understanding changes the science.
Including global warming is science curriculum is a very good idea. For one thing it is topical, it gets in the news quite a bit. This helps with engagement in science. Further, it seems like a pretty practical matter for the generation now in school. To avoid catastrophe, they may need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This would be a pretty big undertaking. If this is the case, not only would this be a good science subject to learn, but it would also be a survival skill. Finally, this is a subject where there has been intentional dishonesty on the part of fossil fuel companies to attempt to muddy the waters. Teaching the actual science can help students to understand that it is not just the case that not everything you hear is true but that some of it is intentionally deceptive. They can also learn about this in history when they study the tobacco settlement but seeing it in actual operation is also helpful.
More important than the actual science, is an open discussion of the social and economic ramifications of any climate change. That is what has far more impact and applicability to the average person. Climate change is an inevitable, skip the whole political egg shell walking around the right wingers about whether it is manmade or not, and just discuss what happens when there is change. Discuss things like political fallout when a country suffers flooding, food shortages and examine the economics of "green."
Politics and sociology are more interesting to most, and more applicable to daily life than the scientific aspects
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According to the same Wikipedia article, Kacynski killed 3 people, and wounded 23. What's a guy got to do to get the quote-marks removed from the word "terrorist?"
Dark Reflection
In the name of global warming: http://www.earthliberationfront.com/main.shtml
They're usually more keen on arson than bombing per se. The FBI lists more than 600 criminal acts attributed to the ELF and ALF. That's just in the US, of course.
The reason why so many people are so credulous, so ready to gobble the propaganda of the various interest groups is BECAUSE they have no idea of the actual science. When the population does not understand the science, then they are malleable to anyone who cares to manipulate them. It is only when science is widely known that people make proper decisions as to the best directions to lead society. Democracy itself depends on widespread knowledge. Your seeming acquiescence to widespread scientific ignorance does not bode well for American democracy. If the public is ignorant of most important issues affecting society, then democracy is a hollow shell, and voting is mostly meaningless.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
All of that is readily teachable to a reasonable level within the scope of a high-school level science class.
According to the same Wikipedia article, Kacynski killed 3 people, and wounded 23. What's a guy got to do to get the quote-marks removed from the word "terrorist?"
Kaczynski was a terrorist, no question. I wouldn't argue that someone who has killed people or destroyed property in the name of a particular ideology is not a terrorist. What I was referring to were the following words:
After reading up on that, take a moment to observe that many of the terrorist groups, and activities, in the US are related to environmentalist groups.
That's about as sound a statement as saying that right-wing Christian groups are terrorist groups because a few imbalanced, literally militant pro-lifers decided to bomb abortions clinics; it doesn't add up.
Think for a moment: if coal has carbon-14, then the carbon-14-free carbon would be coming from *fewer* fossil fuel sources (only oil, gas, etc.). Thus it would cause an *underestimate* of the human impact (you'd end up measuring fossil fuels minus the coal impact). So now the impact from oil/gas is even bigger, making the coal impact also likely bigger. You just made it even more likely that the carbon dioxide we're adding is what's causing the increase in the air. Nice job.
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that what I was taught in school about global warming was pretty close to what you outlined in your post (Australian private high school, 1980's). The basics aren't very complex, pressurization, heat transfer.
If we believe our children are stupid and incapable of learning advanced topics, then they will fulfill our prophecy for us.
Indeed, this is a major problem in my opinion.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
FACT 1: We don't know for sure whether global warming is true or not, and whether it is human-made or not, but we have enough indication that points it is real, and it is man-made. Trouble is : we can't sit out the experiment: we're living IN the test-tube
FACT 2: The green-minded people know for a fact that humans are absolute uncaring bed-wetters who turn our planet in one big dump: there's a floating dump twice the size of the US in the pacific, other evidence is lying in bottles,cans and small plastic bags everywhere - and know that only long-term persistent trying to talk sense into people leads to a cleaner environment
hence: this program.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Insightful stuff in parent post.
and how the south pole of our planet is warming up! I thought it was GLOBAL WARMING!!!! But here we have one half of the earth getting warmer!!!!
Mars is not in the same orbit as earth. When you've absorbed that think about the consequences of that and how an elliptical orbit will have the planet in that orbit at a different distance from the sun.
Now add in that you need to compare Earth's warming with Mars. If Earth is warming much faster than Mars is, even taking into account our proximity to the sun, then something else is responsible for that change.
But you don't want to think about that, do you.
Take a look at the great attractor you always see when someone has a piccy in a discussion about chaos. In some places the lines are far apart and this means that predictability is good (and as a corollory, if you were to start your prediction now, your predictions wouldn't have to have such accurate data). Then there are places where the lines are close together and any small measurement error can put you on a completely different path quickly. Predictability is poor and your need for accurate information to start predicting is high.
However, we don't have an attractor for the earth's climate. So what you can do is take a lot of models which have made the same basic simulation calculations and added different measurements, different assumptions and filddle factors and run with different mechanisms included.
If this ensemble produces the same picture across most of the models, despite the different fiddles and assumptions made, then the system is insensitive *at that point* to those assumptions and your predictability is high.
That's why ensembles.
They're used as well in telling punters "30% chance of rain" which IMO is pants, but that wasn't the reason for MAKING an ensemble forcast.
Why do you say that? The IPCC report says that most (therefore some isn't) caused by human actions.
More than half is human production causing warming. But about a third is from other sources.
It says it in the report. Did you not read it? Because if you didn't then you had no basis for your assumption that AGW says it's ALL man and nothing else. If you did, either re-read it without the blinkers on and see the bit you missed, or you're lying to keep your religion alive (teh ecofacists hate meeee").
No, what they are hostile to is what they perceive as a threat to their lifestyle: the idea that burning fossil fuels might have a hidden cost. After all, computing uses a lot of energy, as does the modern lifestyle in general, so anything against that consumption is seen as a threat and ignored or outright attacked, even if doing so requires taking a downright absurd position: claiming that changing the composition of a mixture of gasses to have more heat-absorbing ones doesn't heat it up.
This is really not all that different from creationists: they too perceive a fact to be a threat, so they engage in amazing mental contortions to explain it away.
The ironic thing is that switching into renewable energy sources - solar, wind, tidal, waves - would propably decrease the cost of energy after the initial infrastructure investment; after all, oil is getting more and more expensive all the time, and the supply is untrustworthy on top of that, due to the instability of Middle-East.
Besides, if the "Global Warming Cult" is a religion, their god (or should that be devil ?) is proving itself by melting the North and South Pole as we speak; so kneel, heathen ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
He may be undiplomatic, but he is correct.
Name these 'serious climatologists' who don't consider CO2 to be the principal driving factor of the current climate change.
your proposal is bad, the education is not neutral and you could use some more of it yourself. you don't understand the difference between ethics and morality. the first is what can be taught and the second is what's practiced. you can't spell "tendency", and risk analysis falls under statistics and probability, not philosophy (unless you mean utilitarianism) and especially not "morality". you suggest spinning history to make selfishness seem bad, but that's completely biased. you omit biology's cornerstone -- evolution, the understanding of which directly pertains to our health, epidemiology, agriculture etc. the importance of species like bears or whatnot is nonsense too, because the definition of what constitutes a species is very problematic, and there are enough people that think that what we call species only have a sentimental value for us anyway. the inclusion of recycling also seems arbitrary, and should fall under some more general topic. the rest of what you mention is being taught in most places of the world anyway, but the stupidest thing you include is teaching about Noah's ark as if it was a real story, and the "true" definition of faith being that it's things you believe even if they're contradicted by "truth" (your words) and evidence. I completely agree with that, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
Deus est fatalis
I find it enormously ironic that you answer a well reasoned and well researched post with a massive ad-hominem rant... and you sincerely believe that YOU are the rational and scientific one. Unbelievable.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Your seeming dismisal of the opinions of those who are not experts is intellectual elitism. Are you not allowed to have an opinion on the war in Iraq unless you've studied international politics and researched the long term economic impact of a westernized Iraq. Of course not, I can be against the war because it is the "wrong thing."
That said, I don't advocate ignorace, what I do advocate is intelligently discussing questions in a way that non-experts can participate. Besically, do an end around the right wing induced controversy, and just discuss the current implications. The fact the most of the world believes in global warming essentially makes the "truth" a moot point and start the discussion from there. Shouldn't the US participate in international environmental law, not because it will effect the environment, but rather to remain in a favorable political situation. Shouldn't alternative energy be sought not because of the envirionment, but rather as part of national security and long term economics.
Instead of falling into the intellectual trap of arguing all the little nuances, leave that to the experts, and discuss what really matters to the individual.
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All right! My original anti-FUSSP form racks up yet another spoof!
We need more scientific education, not less.
I would argue that ceding factual and rational scientific debate to a sphere of intellectual elites IS a form of intellectual elitism, whose remedy is the widespread dissemination of scientific arguments to the general public. I believe that we should be raising the level of our children's scientific knowledge, so that they will be able to have factually informed opinions on important scientific issues. If, as you seem to be suggesting, we give up trying to teach proper scientific ideas to the general public, then we risk evolving into an anti-rational society, in which there is no fact, only opinion, and in which people form their opinions on important scientific issues based their own preconceived political/ideological assumptions, and not on actual observation of the physical world.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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If Global Warming is to be added to education, then it should not be as a fact. It should be presented as a vehicle for understanding scientific methods. There's a hell of a lot of "bad science" that has been thrown into the GW pot. For example, the use of historic temperature data is only valid when other variables are compensated for.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Climate Science might be important to teach at the university level, but it should be a way too complicated issue to teach at the local school system level. The computer models are probably very complicated, and very likely inaccurate to a higher degree of uncertainty then is thought. Some of the most difficult equations I've ever seen were in my Fluid Dynamics and Heat and Mass Transfer courses. However, having had a few controls classes I wonder if anyone has performed stability analysis of the feedback mechanisms in the models. The earth's climate is pretty stable and if the models aren't stable that would seem to be a big indicator that they are not modeling reality (something else for me to Google today). Personally I take a scientifically skeptical view of the issue. I've read that the average warming is around a degree Celsius and that the margin of error for those measurements is also around 1 degree Celsius. Additionally my parents and grandparents didn't perish in the warming over the last century, and I think the hype and rhetoric have become overwhelming. The hype on both sides of the issue make finding solid information very difficult because of the low signal to noise ratio.
Complete with the sale of indulgences. (See "Carbon Credits.")
The poles heat up quicker than elsewhere.
And the conspiracy theory is a little out there...
so nobody cares. I'm not sure if they've actually gone under yet, or if it's just about to happen, or most likely both. But if you're too poor to build dikes, and your entire country is at 0 $height sea level, you're kind of SOL.
The respondant is correct. It isn't a linear response, it's exponential. That's why a small change is such a big deal.
I suspect you can read the IPCC report as well as I.
Chapter 16 of the 2nd part of the report (the "effects" part) is "Small Islands".
p. 696 has a nice picture with a box around various areas of the world which has endangered islands, it turns out I lied in saying they were all in the Pacific.
Here's a list of some of them:
But it sounds like sea level is actually the least of the problem here, the main problem is the associated effects:
"very high confidence" and the like actually cooresponds to numerical numbers