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.'"
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.
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.
As someone who actually studied climate science I appreciate the attempt at raising public awareness of the issue. However, I fear it will suffer the same fate as evolution education and turn into a political minefield where neither side really "wins" and the real losers are the students who end up with a half-assed and confusing discussion of a very important issue.
The biggest problem with discussions of global warming is they have become so politicized (by both sides) that the actual science is getting lost in the noise. The "save the environment" types have probably caused as much harm in getting to a real solution as the "skeptics". It's all about soundbites and rarely does the science get laid out in a sane and understandable way to the general public.
My point is not whether or not climate change is happening. My point is that whenever it's brought up in schools, like any environmentalist stuff (like when I was in school) it's always bent towards the OMG if we do some pointless exercise we'll save enough energy to (insert insignificant result here) and OMG we must do something now support this legislation. The curriculum is always bent towards supporting the fanatical environmental agenda, always has been since I was in school, and legislating more climate change curriculum despite the politician's best interests will always result in more of the same for kids to have to listen to.
What I'm saying is it doesn't matter what valid climate change data there is, it will be distorted and mistaught in our schools to support yet another draconian measure that Al Gore or whoever else will want to push upon us and that's why I'm against it. Scientists are free to do the climate control studies they want, just stop pushing it on us through the schools because the schools from my experience are the last place you can expect any worthwhile study of it.
Ok?
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
Sorry, I'm not seeing any religion here. Unless you're referring to a religion involving summary dismissal.
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
I was in elementary school in the early nineties and I will vouch for much of what you say(anybody remember Widget?, but the message du jour depends on whomever's in power. Dumping tons upon tons of shit into our environment can't be good for it(or us) but the problem here is that people tend to ignore what they can't see. The issue of the day back then was all about recycling and saving the gay whales etc. The issue of the day now is terrorism, etc. Now, people don't see much of their garbage after it's carted to the landfill. People won't envision water shortages as long as they can shower every day. People will envision terrorists and pedophiles out to get them because 9/11 and its aftereffects are shoved in their faces on a daily basis.
They might ... GASP ... learn about the scientific processes involved?
Actually no, that's what is assumed. What actually happens is that you learn a lot of fanatical enviromental hyperbole in the name of science.
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
The problem here is that you need to have a faith in environmentalism to believe that human-caused global warming exists. We have good scientific reason to *expect* the globe to be warming, and to continue to warm for another two to three hundred years. We also have good evidence to expect that global warming will be a good thing. It's the global *cooling* that we need to worry about .... in two or three hundred years. Ya think anybody is going to start preparing for the real threat? If you think I'm talking smack, picture Chicago buried under a mile of ice. It happened before, it WILL happen again. A little bit of warming is nothing compared to the next ice age.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
This is secondary curriculum so we'll try to stick to well-established notions. So we teach that, based on past records earth has been warming up for a while now, and if it gets warmer, things could be painful. And then what? Full stop? Won't discuss possible causes, possible scenarios, and resulting damages? These subsequent topics are still mired in so much politics due to their policy implication that no matter how the presentation goes accusation of bias/political agenda will start shooting around before you can say "hot".
They are not fit for secondary school curriculum - if you think them fit, you're not much different from the ID evangelists.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Whoever modded this "flamebait" has no idea what flambait actually is.
Public schools by-and-large are the last place you can expect worthwhile study of something controversial. One side or the other always receives more emphasis, depending on the political demographics of the school board in that area.
As much as I detest the idiots out there trying to hush-hush climate change significance, I also detest this idea that we must mandate "global warming" be taught in school. What about we just teach a well-rounded science curriculum? Why not mandate nano-science as part of the curriculum while we're at it?
The fundamental problem I have with this whole thing is that it would seem to be teaching an element of valid science for a political cause rather than for educational merit alone.
Actually, the hypothesis that atmospheric gases (not sure if CO2 was singled out) could contribute to a greenhouse effect was hypothesized by Fourier (of Fourier transform fame) in 1824, approximately a century before Thatcher was even born.
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.
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).
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!
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.
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?
actually if you had maybe done a little research on military meteorologists you would realize that they are probably the best forecasters in the world. Our forecasts actually matter, they are not "will it rain/wont it rain" they are will it rain, when (down to the hour) how much (down to the 100th of an inch) for how long what the winds will be (down to the knot) what is the visibility going to be (down to the nearest 100 meters) what is the projected cloud cover (and not clear/partly/mostly, its few sct bkn ovc and at what level to the nearest 100 feet) max and min temp for the day and at what time, what the altimeter setting will be (down to the hundreth of an inch of mercury). so before you think that your local meteorologist on TV is what the standard is for all meteorologists, pull your head out and realize there are people that are held to a standard those locals could never hope to meet. oh and in my branch all forecasters must keep an 85% accuracy standard, and all that i have ever met maintain over 90%. your picnic isn't that important. pilot lives and mission effectiveness is.
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.
You realize that 85-90% means that, on average, you are wrong once a week, right?
In any case, just because you have a good feel for "how the atmosphere works" doesn't mean that you are qualified to cast judgment on people in a field that relates to the history of the atmosphere. A car mechanic might know how an engine works, but that doesn't make him an expert in automotive history - nor does it make him qualified to predict the future of the auto industry.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"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.
(I'm not suggesting that this is a likely scenario - but I hope you see my point.)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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
They have done that. Back in the 50's to 70's they were worried about climate COOLING and considering dusting the icecaps with coal dust. More recently:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4248062.html
I have no argument against actual global warming. In fact, there is very good evidence that we are warming from a control source outside our ecosphere: Mars Ice Caps.
They have been observed and recorded longer than our own, since Newton. The trend is that the ice caps are melting, therefore the temperature must be rising.
No humans... and the ice is melting. The evidence suggests we have been in a warming cycle that effects at least the inner planets.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
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.
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)