Sounds as if you are saying America should just abandon efforts to educate its citizens and leave progress in science and technology to those countries with highly developed governmental educational programs, such as the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Europeans and Russians.
If Republicans get their way, it looks as if you will get your wish.
Lets face it America has been remade for the benefit of corporate elites. Parents need help too. You can't complain about the parents, when many of them only make minimum wage and have little education themselves. We need to start refocusing on how corporations need to take responsibility to put something back into America rather than taking it out. We bend over constantly, because they supposedly provide "jobs". Yes there are some jobs, but most of the money made is too unequally distributed for the entire corporate enterprise to be looked upon as a model vehicle for social good around which we must continue to redefine society at large. There is NOTHING particularly important or useful or just in having just a few people gain all the benefits, simply because they can stack the system against everyone else.
We need a merit and science based economy not one that is designed and operated chiefly to maintain the privileges and benefits for a few.
We need to return to truly PROGRESSIVE taxation, with VERY MUCH HIGHER TAXES for the very wealthy and see the fruits of everyone's labor more equitable distributed so that we can afford to educate both parents and teachers, not menton making sure no one is hungry, without a job, or without health care.
The reason its $40K per year (I only made that much after attaining a professorship) is that the average scientist has no bargaining power in the market and "consumers" fail to make a connection between what the researcher does and what its "worth" to the consumer (the average American who has little idea of what it is that the researcher does and how that fits into how society works as a whole In contrast, the lawyer, banker, CEO can extract their "commission" at the point of sale. Try to change that in this country and loud cries of "Socialism" will be heard, just as is the case when teachers actually band together to form unions. ). Perhaps those cry "Socialism", will only be satisfied when all science, math and engineering is outsourced to foreigners.
Good for Obama for at least trying to improve things, while his critics simply scream, carp and assure that the US simply advocate a further dismantling of science education in the US..
I don't think there will ever be big bucks for most science, but if we want to survive as a species, we need to give serious consideration to developing a science based economy.
Many of those who criticize teachers have never taught a day in their lives. Its tough to teach a kid math, when their parents show no evidence that they take the subject seriously or appreciate how they need to encourage their children to study and excel in the subject. The job is made even tougher when the student only appreciates mathematics by what they assimilate on TV or through video games.
You are mixing up education and intelligence. Intelligent people have an advantage that is not counted by numbers of family members. Unfortunately, for the rest of us there is the Catholic church.
Without a national focus, we would have 50 educational programs, all essentially broke and unable to compete for state funds with other vested interests. Most states are now cutting their funding to education to make up for all the mistakes made by undereducated politicians. That simply hasn't worked.
With some kind of national program at least we have some central planning, a chance to highlight the best and try to encourage others to follow in their lead. Remember, in the meantime most other developing countries continue to improve their entire educational systems, which are at present outcompeting us (just look at the annual scores in math and science over the past decade and the US is sinking in the stats not improving. The lamebrained Bush education department was all about enriching his brother by promoting educational testing and the one-size fits all philosophy of punishing those who are struggling the most to benefit the already advantaged. What Duncan is doing now is quite different and from what I can see so far, a great success (if he could only get the skeptics up off their butts and do something more than just complain and carp).
If Ruppert lost his nose, it would dramatically improve his appearance. Maybe thats he rationale for the deal. He discovered its cheaper than plastic surgery.
It used to be pretty good until the Murdoch empire started quietly editing stories to be sure they benefited firms that in turn benefit Murdoch's ambitions. Now just as FOX news splices crowd scenes between non-related events to distort and misrepresent what is going on, the WSJ now increasingly slants both stories and manipulates financial result reporting to benefit their side of the trade. So few have caught on, because they don't check the published figures, instead they just rely on them as "news".
Maybe those who are directed to Murdoch owned sites using Bing will simply discover that the products advertised there will cost more because those advertisers will be forced to pass on the cost of subsidizing the Murdoch's and Microsofts insatiable appetite for profits as Murdoc and Microsft collude to manipulate the advertising market. Once that news gets out, people will flock to Google as they will know its the search engine that will them better deals.
Most of this information has been embedded in scientific journal articles for months and years. Its just that the news media and the lay public are periodically focusing on the topic because of the Copenhagen meetings. Consequently, recent publications and refinements of the subject are getting much press.
Rest assured, the science predicts much warmer weather ahead, regardless of what the politicians might do or what the global warming deniers might get the masses to believe, or how oblivious to the overall problem the public is or remains.
Although it will becomel warmer at higher latitudes, don't jump to the conclusion that gardens will just pop up everywhere. High latitudes will still have very little daylight during about half of the year not to mention incredibly poor soils. This alone will preclude growing many kinds of plants.
As for world "leaders", they have just been informed that a rise of 6 degrees Celsius is in all likelihood to be expected REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY DO and they have yet to have ANY MEANINGFUL response to the problem, perhaps other than to wait for scientists to tell them that its soon to get a lot warmer.
So while it may be fun to be Pangloss reincarnate, you better plan for some seriously warm weather!
There certainly is a lot of things we don't know, such as the magnitude of the influence of oceanic circulation in the high Arctic. It would only take a small amount of change in circulation to move heat elsewhere out of the into the system being studied, particular given pronounced oceanic acidification now being observed globally. Consequently, I really don't see ANY observed significant "DROPS" in temperatures being observed that are outside the bounds of measurement error, although I would love to be corrected by pointers to the literature (science) that suggests it.
As for complex ecosystems, they may be complex but that does not mean they are not easily perturbed by subtle changes. You only have to look at the increases in in mean low temperatures in recent years and the effects such a small shift can have on pine-bark beetles, which are dramatically altering large temperate forest ecosystems over the course of less than a decade. Indeed, much in the biological world is well modeled by dynamic systems operating at the boundaries of order and chaos. In any event, the evidence from coral bleaching seems to provide much more direct evidence of increasing temperatures. If a single factor were to have wide ranging effects, wouldn't we naturally consider temperature as a common explanation. After all, the fundamental building blocks of ecosystems are composed of molecules and atoms, whose behavior relative to temperature is largely well-understood?
At this point in the debate, the onus is on climate change (global warming) deniers to account for the loss of polar (and glacial) ice, if it is not due to temperature and CO2 forced increases (that are nearly coincident with climatic models based on CO2 forcing). Measures of ice loss, as well as sea rise that are based on gravitational measurements, not on temperatures. Since there appears to be no increases in atmospheric pressures, it would seem logical to conclude that temperatures are rising. The most convincing culprit so far is CO2 increases, which just happen to be readily accounted for by the historical record (measurement error and climatic variability not withstanding).
As for waiting for "scientific uncertainty" to become certainty or for total consensus among scientists before acting is a recipe for disaster. If quantum theory teaches us anything, it is that there are probably no certainties, just measurable probable outcomes.
So the question remains, if its not CO2, what is the forcing mechanism?
I don't think there is anything in what you said that shows how I am wrong. While it is true that many scientists make assertions, its how those assertions are tested and understood that makes it science, not the fact that they are "scientists".
BTW I am familiar with the philosophical angle of science, having minored in it in college. However, there is a very big difference between science and the philosophy of science, although admittedly the concept of falsification is central tenant to both. If one wanted some rigor in understanding science examining economics and sociology would probably not be the best places to start. Its much better to go directly to the source: mathematics.
The confounding ( actually lack of resolution) caused by griding turns out to be small relative to the measurement error of the predictions, so despite your reservations, the models perform extremely well and the past 10-20 years show that the models do make adequate predictions. Unfortunately, the inaccuracies have so far been in failing to predict even greater warming trends than are in fact being observed (ie its getting hotter faster than predicted by many earlier models that did not take into account oceanographic effects.
Unfortunately, the science paradigm doesn't conform well to your notion of "a fundamental flaw" in the system that makes a "Slashdot or Digg-style" moderation appealing. Science is about establishing how we know something. It is emphatically NOT a system whereby 9 million wrong, but highly popular interpretations are more valuable than one correct one. Its a bit like finding a counter example in mathematics. All it takes is one example to disprove a hyothesis. Obviously, few "tests" in experimental or comparative science are so cut and dried that they will be easily established on the basis of a single "counterexample" or "test", but the principle is the same.
Science is not simply a bunch of "experts" making "assertions", from which a consensus then emerges about the truth, even though it may appear that way to the poorly initiated. Although this does happen and science has a strong probabilistic element, the reasons stem from the fundamental conceptual relationships between theory and subsequent "prediction" or "observation" that inform as to the correctness (or incorrectness) of ideas and not what individual scientists (or laypersons) may think (or not think) about such ideas.
If global warming is now slowing down then those who like to bear false witness about global warming have even more serious explaining to do:
Rates of ice sheet melting in Greenland and the Antarctic are accelerating (as is the disappearance of terrestrial glaciers). Since these are based on measures of gravity rather than temperature, the global warming nay-sayers have to account for why the ice is melting more rapidly if the temperature is not going up?
Well whats the answer for this anomaly? Cooler temperatures cause ice to melt more rapidly? If so, how?
In any event, your calculation even using the higher "solar ouptut" number, pretty much proves his point, an 0.1% increase will only increase temperatures by 0.07K. That is negligible compared to the 6K/100 yrs being talked about by climatologists. It seems your alternative theory just doesn't account for the facts and is largely irrelevant to the discussion, unless of course its a harbinger of vastly different solar behavior.
The more relevant aspects of the debate are actually what biological and ecological consequences can be expected from global mean temperature rise and its rate of acceleration. Non-biologists have little appreciation of the magnitude of the changes that can be expected. Many foolishly think jungles will sprout everywhere. Actually, given the rates of change now being measured, its much more likely that we can instead expect biological deserts, both among terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
If is not getting warmer, why is ice melting everywhere at accelerated rates and bringing local temperatures in various places temporarily down with it?
Rapid melt of polar caps, especially in the Arctic where the seas are relatively shallow and there are very large stores of methane (a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2), are largely responsible for the cooling. As Arctic ice and the Greenland icesheets permanently disappear, prepare for dramatic increases in temperatures.
We not only have a problem, WE HAVE AN EMEGENCY. The rate at which the change is occurring is MUCH GREATER (nearly two orders of magnitude) than at any time in earth history.
Don't for one minute lull yourself into the complacency of what the biological consequences will be. They will be dramatic, most notably the collapse of most tropical marine ecosystems (due to rapid ocean acidification and sea level rise. Corals can not tolerate high temperatures and low pH and collapses of most high latitude fisheries, as cold adapted species have nowhere to go and their early life history stages are extremely susceptible to such rapid warming. Terrestrial ecosystems will be stressed by dramatically reduced availability of water from glacial and snow melts that tend to dampen periods of intense warm season dryness.
"your pre-existing political beliefs tell you all you should need to know. "
And from this we can conclude that the Climate Deniers, like Nixon, have only one tool left in their quiver. If one can't come up with any rational scientific explanations to counter the findings of climate scientists that mean global temperatures are in fact rising as the result of burning of fossil fuels, turn to burglary to dig up "dirt" on your opponents, as if somehow the consequence of the entire debate rested upon how it is portrayed in the media. The entire debate if stalled and manipulated may well further enrich a few oil industry titans, but it won't do much to lower the temperature of what is going to be a much hotter world.
Personally, I would prefer that we stop burning fossil fuels and start burning oil company executives, but I suspect it will take a few more degrees of global warming before that solution becomes a widely accepted approach to dealing with a very serious crisis facing humanity.
"In America, at least, I believe we still subscribe to the idea that regular human beings are fit to guide their own destinies. For me, that is the appeal of homeschool."
In principle this is great, but we no longer live in the era of Thomas Jefferson. Instead we live in a highly technological world, where even the most backward use machine guns and construct bombs and on a planet that contains about 6 billion inhabitants that probably can't sustainably support half that number. Just look around and ask yourself, is the environment I will leave to my offspring improving and is this totally unrelated to our present economic situation?
Without a VERY SERIOUS effort at improving COLLECTIVE educational systems, its going to be a hard slog to escape the "school of hard knocks", even for the home schooled, who tip the scales with IQs well above 300, who have a mother with the patience of Mother Theresa and the insight of Emmy Noether, and who have a father with the prowess of Alexander the Great and the financial resources of Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. Even they will be hard pressed to escape the effects of the other 6 billion, particularly when they are a poorly educated 6 billion with little knowledge of how to get out of their increasingly dire predicament. To put it bluntly, everyone's future depends on improving the COLLECTIVE education, including those who are presently fortunate enough to have multiple options.
Regardless of what kind of political advice you are selling, the sad reality is that only a very small percentage of humanity will become critical thinkers, experts, or good at much of anything at all. The question is given that indisputable fact do we want the preponderant mass of humans in that category to learn perhaps something at all, or something about the cultural and social heritage that they share with others, or are we just content to be satisfied that since we personally are doing just fine, there's not really much of a need to care about the education of others and they can just get it wherever they can find it, if they can find it at all.
More often than not history teaches us that it is the uneducated, the stupid, the masses, and the "great minds" who were in charge but got it totally wrong, that determine the course of events. Oh yes, good ideas do come along and no doubt we try to take as much credit for them as we can, but the shear magnitude of the effects imposed by the behavior of the "vast majority" is what limits the direction of history and often the fates of the best and brightest as well, since its not always in their hands no matter what their intelligence or how wonderful their parents.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you say he's interested in promoting rational thought. Yikes!
Its so reassuring to learn that the GOP has taken it upon themselves to crusade for irrationality. What would we do without them?
Sounds as if you are saying America should just abandon efforts to educate its citizens and leave progress in science and technology to those countries with highly developed governmental educational programs, such as the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Europeans and Russians.
If Republicans get their way, it looks as if you will get your wish.
Lets face it America has been remade for the benefit of corporate elites. Parents need help too. You can't complain about the parents, when many of them only make minimum wage and have little education themselves. We need to start refocusing on how corporations need to take responsibility to put something back into America rather than taking it out. We bend over constantly, because they supposedly provide "jobs". Yes there are some jobs, but most of the money made is too unequally distributed for the entire corporate enterprise to be looked upon as a model vehicle for social good around which we must continue to redefine society at large. There is NOTHING particularly important or useful or just in having just a few people gain all the benefits, simply because they can stack the system against everyone else.
We need a merit and science based economy not one that is designed and operated chiefly to maintain the privileges and benefits for a few.
We need to return to truly PROGRESSIVE taxation, with VERY MUCH HIGHER TAXES for the very wealthy and see the fruits of everyone's labor more equitable distributed so that we can afford to educate both parents and teachers, not menton making sure no one is hungry, without a job, or without health care.
The reason its $40K per year (I only made that much after attaining a professorship) is that the average scientist has no bargaining power in the market and "consumers" fail to make a connection between what the researcher does and what its "worth" to the consumer (the average American who has little idea of what it is that the researcher does and how that fits into how society works as a whole In contrast, the lawyer, banker, CEO can extract their "commission" at the point of sale. Try to change that in this country and loud cries of "Socialism" will be heard, just as is the case when teachers actually band together to form unions.
).
Perhaps those cry "Socialism", will only be satisfied when all science, math and engineering is outsourced to foreigners.
Good for Obama for at least trying to improve things, while his critics simply scream, carp and assure that the US simply advocate a further dismantling of science education in the US..
I don't think there will ever be big bucks for most science, but if we want to survive as a species, we need to give serious consideration to developing a science based economy.
Also, they have no boss or people funding them to answer to.
You obviously have never come close to doing any scientific research.
Many of those who criticize teachers have never taught a day in their lives. Its tough to teach a kid math, when their parents show no evidence that they take the subject seriously or appreciate how they need to encourage their children to study and excel in the subject. The job is made even tougher when the student only appreciates mathematics by what they assimilate on TV or through video games.
You are mixing up education and intelligence. Intelligent people have an advantage that is not counted by numbers of family members. Unfortunately, for the rest of us there is the Catholic church.
Without a national focus, we would have 50 educational programs, all essentially broke and unable to compete for state funds with other vested interests. Most states are now cutting their funding to education to make up for all the mistakes made by undereducated politicians. That simply hasn't worked.
With some kind of national program at least we have some central planning, a chance to highlight the best and try to encourage others to follow in their lead. Remember, in the meantime most other developing countries continue to improve their entire educational systems, which are at present outcompeting us (just look at the annual scores in math and science over the past decade and the US is sinking in the stats not improving. The lamebrained Bush education department was all about enriching his brother by promoting educational testing and the one-size fits all philosophy of punishing those who are struggling the most to benefit the already advantaged. What Duncan is doing now is quite different and from what I can see so far, a great success (if he could only get the skeptics up off their butts and do something more than just complain and carp).
If Ruppert lost his nose, it would dramatically improve his appearance. Maybe thats he rationale for the deal. He discovered its cheaper than plastic surgery.
It used to be pretty good until the Murdoch empire started quietly editing stories to be sure they benefited firms that in turn benefit Murdoch's ambitions. Now just as FOX news splices crowd scenes between non-related events to distort and misrepresent what is going on, the WSJ now increasingly slants both stories and manipulates financial result reporting to benefit their side of the trade. So few have caught on, because they don't check the published figures, instead they just rely on them as "news".
Maybe those who are directed to Murdoch owned sites using Bing will simply discover that the products advertised there will cost more because those advertisers will be forced to pass on the cost of subsidizing the Murdoch's and Microsofts insatiable appetite for profits as Murdoc and Microsft collude to manipulate the advertising market. Once that news gets out, people will flock to Google as they will know its the search engine that will them better deals.
Most of this information has been embedded in scientific journal articles for months and years. Its just that the news media and the lay public are periodically focusing on the topic because of the Copenhagen meetings. Consequently, recent publications and refinements of the subject are getting much press.
Rest assured, the science predicts much warmer weather ahead, regardless of what the politicians might do or what the global warming deniers might get the masses to believe, or how oblivious to the overall problem the public is or remains.
Although it will becomel warmer at higher latitudes, don't jump to the conclusion that gardens will just pop up everywhere. High latitudes will still have very little daylight during about half of the year not to mention incredibly poor soils. This alone will preclude growing many kinds of plants.
As for world "leaders", they have just been informed that a rise of 6 degrees Celsius is in all likelihood to be expected REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY DO and they have yet to have ANY MEANINGFUL response to the problem, perhaps other than to wait for scientists to tell them that its soon to get a lot warmer.
So while it may be fun to be Pangloss reincarnate, you better plan for some seriously warm weather!
There certainly is a lot of things we don't know, such as the magnitude of the influence of oceanic circulation in the high Arctic. It would only take a small amount of change in circulation to move heat elsewhere out of the into the system being studied, particular given pronounced oceanic acidification now being observed globally. Consequently, I really don't see ANY observed significant "DROPS" in temperatures being observed that are outside the bounds of measurement error, although I would love to be corrected by pointers to the literature (science) that suggests it.
As for complex ecosystems, they may be complex but that does not mean they are not easily perturbed by subtle changes. You only have to look at the increases in in mean low temperatures in recent years and the effects such a small shift can have on pine-bark beetles, which are dramatically altering large temperate forest ecosystems over the course of less than a decade. Indeed, much in the biological world is well modeled by dynamic systems operating at the boundaries of order and chaos. In any event, the evidence from coral bleaching seems to provide much more direct evidence of increasing temperatures. If a single factor were to have wide ranging effects, wouldn't we naturally consider temperature as a common explanation. After all, the fundamental building blocks of ecosystems are composed of molecules and atoms, whose behavior relative to temperature is largely well-understood?
At this point in the debate, the onus is on climate change (global warming) deniers to account for the loss of polar (and glacial) ice, if it is not due to temperature and CO2 forced increases (that are nearly coincident with climatic models based on CO2 forcing). Measures of ice loss, as well as sea rise that are based on gravitational measurements, not on temperatures. Since there appears to be no increases in atmospheric pressures, it would seem logical to conclude that temperatures are rising. The most convincing culprit so far is CO2 increases, which just happen to be readily accounted for by the historical record (measurement error and climatic variability not withstanding).
As for waiting for "scientific uncertainty" to become certainty or for total consensus among scientists before acting is a recipe for disaster. If quantum theory teaches us anything, it is that there are probably no certainties, just measurable probable outcomes.
So the question remains, if its not CO2, what is the forcing mechanism?
I don't think there is anything in what you said that shows how I am wrong. While it is true that many scientists make assertions, its how those assertions are tested and understood that makes it science, not the fact that they are "scientists".
BTW I am familiar with the philosophical angle of science, having minored in it in college. However, there is a very big difference between science and the philosophy of science, although admittedly the concept of falsification is central tenant to both. If one wanted some rigor in understanding science examining economics and sociology would probably not be the best places to start. Its much better to go directly to the source: mathematics.
The confounding ( actually lack of resolution) caused by griding turns out to be small relative to the measurement error of the predictions, so despite your reservations, the models perform extremely well and the past 10-20 years show that the models do make adequate predictions. Unfortunately, the inaccuracies have so far been in failing to predict even greater warming trends than are in fact being observed (ie its getting hotter faster than predicted by many earlier models that did not take into account oceanographic effects.
Unfortunately, the science paradigm doesn't conform well to your notion of "a fundamental flaw" in the system that makes a "Slashdot or Digg-style" moderation appealing. Science is about establishing how we know something. It is emphatically NOT a system whereby 9 million wrong, but highly popular interpretations are more valuable than one correct one. Its a bit like finding a counter example in mathematics. All it takes is one example to disprove a hyothesis. Obviously, few "tests" in experimental or comparative science are so cut and dried that they will be easily established on the basis of a single "counterexample" or "test", but the principle is the same.
Science is not simply a bunch of "experts" making "assertions", from which a consensus then emerges about the truth, even though it may appear that way to the poorly initiated. Although this does happen and science has a strong probabilistic element, the reasons stem from the fundamental conceptual relationships between theory and subsequent "prediction" or "observation" that inform as to the correctness (or incorrectness) of ideas and not what individual scientists (or laypersons) may think (or not think) about such ideas.
If global warming is now slowing down then those who like to bear false witness about global warming have even more serious explaining to do:
Rates of ice sheet melting in Greenland and the Antarctic are accelerating (as is the disappearance of terrestrial glaciers). Since these are based on measures of gravity rather than temperature, the global warming nay-sayers have to account for why the ice is melting more rapidly if the temperature is not going up?
Well whats the answer for this anomaly? Cooler temperatures cause ice to melt more rapidly? If so, how?
In any event, your calculation even using the higher "solar ouptut" number, pretty much proves his point, an 0.1% increase will only increase temperatures by 0.07K. That is negligible compared to the 6K/100 yrs being talked about by climatologists. It seems your alternative theory just doesn't account for the facts and is largely irrelevant to the discussion, unless of course its a harbinger of vastly different solar behavior.
The more relevant aspects of the debate are actually what biological and ecological consequences can be expected from global mean temperature rise and its rate of acceleration. Non-biologists have little appreciation of the magnitude of the changes that can be expected. Many foolishly think jungles will sprout everywhere. Actually, given the rates of change now being measured, its much more likely that we can instead expect biological deserts, both among terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
Those who bear false witness and say the mean world temperature is not rising have one more fact that they seem unable to explain to account for:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-nasa
If is not getting warmer, why is ice melting everywhere at accelerated rates and bringing local temperatures in various places temporarily down with it?
Rapid melt of polar caps, especially in the Arctic where the seas are relatively shallow and there are very large stores of methane (a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2), are largely responsible for the cooling. As Arctic ice and the Greenland icesheets permanently disappear, prepare for dramatic increases in temperatures.
We not only have a problem, WE HAVE AN EMEGENCY. The rate at which the change is occurring is MUCH GREATER (nearly two orders of magnitude) than at any time in earth history.
Don't for one minute lull yourself into the complacency of what the biological consequences will be. They will be dramatic, most notably the collapse of most tropical marine ecosystems (due to rapid ocean acidification and sea level rise. Corals can not tolerate high temperatures and low pH and collapses of most high latitude fisheries, as cold adapted species have nowhere to go and their early life history stages are extremely susceptible to such rapid warming. Terrestrial ecosystems will be stressed by dramatically reduced availability of water from glacial and snow melts that tend to dampen periods of intense warm season dryness.
Yes the old dinosaurs of the US Senate should fit right in.
"your pre-existing political beliefs tell you all you should need to know. "
And from this we can conclude that the Climate Deniers, like Nixon, have only one tool left in their quiver. If one can't come up with any rational scientific explanations to counter the findings of climate scientists that mean global temperatures are in fact rising as the result of burning of fossil fuels, turn to burglary to dig up "dirt" on your opponents, as if somehow the consequence of the entire debate rested upon how it is portrayed in the media. The entire debate if stalled and manipulated may well further enrich a few oil industry titans, but it won't do much to lower the temperature of what is going to be a much hotter world.
Personally, I would prefer that we stop burning fossil fuels and start burning oil company executives, but I suspect it will take a few more degrees of global warming before that solution becomes a widely accepted approach to dealing with a very serious crisis facing humanity.
"In America, at least, I believe we still subscribe to the idea that regular human beings are fit to guide their own destinies. For me, that is the appeal of homeschool."
In principle this is great, but we no longer live in the era of Thomas Jefferson. Instead we live in a highly technological world, where even the most backward use machine guns and construct bombs and on a planet that contains about 6 billion inhabitants that probably can't sustainably support half that number. Just look around and ask yourself, is the environment I will leave to my offspring improving and is this totally unrelated to our present economic situation?
Without a VERY SERIOUS effort at improving COLLECTIVE educational systems, its going to be a hard slog to escape the "school of hard knocks", even for the home schooled, who tip the scales with IQs well above 300, who have a mother with the patience of Mother Theresa and the insight of Emmy Noether, and who have a father with the prowess of Alexander the Great and the financial resources of Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. Even they will be hard pressed to escape the effects of the other 6 billion, particularly when they are a poorly educated 6 billion with little knowledge of how to get out of their increasingly dire predicament. To put it bluntly, everyone's future depends on improving the COLLECTIVE education, including those who are presently fortunate enough to have multiple options.
Regardless of what kind of political advice you are selling, the sad reality is that only a very small percentage of humanity will become critical thinkers, experts, or good at much of anything at all. The question is given that indisputable fact do we want the preponderant mass of humans in that category to learn perhaps something at all, or something about the cultural and social heritage that they share with others, or are we just content to be satisfied that since we personally are doing just fine, there's not really much of a need to care about the education of others and they can just get it wherever they can find it, if they can find it at all.
More often than not history teaches us that it is the uneducated, the stupid, the masses, and the "great minds" who were in charge but got it totally wrong, that determine the course of events. Oh yes, good ideas do come along and no doubt we try to take as much credit for them as we can, but the shear magnitude of the effects imposed by the behavior of the "vast majority" is what limits the direction of history and often the fates of the best and brightest as well, since its not always in their hands no matter what their intelligence or how wonderful their parents.