Teaching Global Warming in High School

Peter, Conservatives want Americans not to believe what they see with their own eyes.

Heat waves as never seen before. Flooding as never seen in our lifetime. Half the planet on fire.

How anyone can deny that humans haven't had an effect on climate change in incomprehensible.

Not to worry though. We tree hugging liberals will protect our planet despite their obstructionism.

We will reduce CO2 emissions. We will continue to advance cleaner fuel alternatives. We will not allow our environment to be destroyed by the Republican de-regulators.

We are the DEMOCRATS! We care about our planet and will protect it.

Paul Douglas would agree. He is a nationally respected meteorologist, with over 30 years of television and radio experience... and he's a Republican. But still, regardless of that, he sees the signs of global warming and will admit it.

Paul Douglas, a Republican? Where did you pull that farce from?

Google it.

Here's the first thing I got:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-douglas/republican-climate-change_b_1374900.html

We all see signs of Global warming we also see global cooling in parts of the world. Where we disagree is on the cause. Ice has been melting since the last ice age species have died off and become extinct. The planet has been warmer and cooler all before we started pumping C02 into the atmosphere. All before the AGW theory. This isn't a right or left issue it's a follow the science and facts issue. The AGW theory is based on computer models that just don't add up.

In schools, the issue with science is not if global warming should or should not be taught. It's that the teachers are required to basically "teach" (and I'm using this term lightly right now, as I had a teacher tell us parents that her job was not to teach the material but just present it) to a test. Our kids have to pass a series of EOCT and CRCT tests in order for them to move to the next grade. The teachers don't have time to teach anything else, nor can they slow down if the kids don't understand a topic. Basic information is all that is taught right now, if that....and it's frustrating. I'm going to be working on Chemistry with Angela this summer, as the schools are not doing a good job educating our kids for college.

All this means is that I will have to sit down with my grand children and explain that their K-12 teacher has very little factual evidence to validate their position.


Not much different than what I do here on Gather!

maybe we could teach, you know, science in schools -- not the conclusions, but the methods

This reports provides a fascinating look into the difficulties of teaching science when parents and lobbyists muddle reality.

First, while the science teacher works hard to teach her students the facts as developed from the nearly unanimous consensus of the scientific community, she still runs up against parents who simply don't want to deal with the science.

Second, while overall the reporter does try to present the facts, he actually creates a "false balance" by talking about "two sides" and "the other side." That's a discredit to the reporter and to the station in particular. There are no two sides. There is the science. The science includes things we know for sure and things we have more uncertainty about, but there is no uncertainty about the fact that the planet is warming and that human activity is the main cause. That is unequivocal. And has been documented for 100 years.

So who does the reporter go to for "the other side?" A non-science lawyer who works for the Heartland Institute, one of the most vocal anti-science lobbying organizations in the United States. After getting paid for decades to deny that smoking causes cancer (and are still being paid by the tobacco companies), they now get funding from the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel interests who pay them to lie about climate science. Which they do over and over and over.

That isn't "the other side," it's lobbying to protect their fossil fuel corporation membership from any policy options that might arise from honest discussion. The lobbyists want to avoid honest discussion at all costs, so they lie about the science.

And worse, they admitted that they were paying someone to develop an "alternative" K-12 curriculum that would intentionally misinform our children. That in itself is despicable.

The media really needs to do a better job discerning scientists from lobbyists.

Meanwhile, there is 100 years of science, tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific publications, every major scientific organization on the planet, virtually every climate scientist in the world conducting research and publishing it for all to see over many decades, and well-known basic physics. All of that vast empirical evidence from multiple lines of research unequivocally demonstrate that the planet is warming and that it is due mainly to the massive emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels and related processes.

The science is unequivocal.

To suggest that 100 years of science somehow just doesn't exist is to demonstrate absolute and willful dishonesty.

It's truly amazing how politics gets in the middle of everything. High schools should be able to teach pure science....evolution, global warming, etc.

...the recent "super moon" got the tides within a 1/4th inch of a record high tide for the date.
...IF the tides were getting higher, then the whole world would be experiencing new record high tides.

...I do not know just how much is true with global warming,