posted by Joe Polk at 1:33 AM /
School board members in Mt. Lebanon have approved a series of student textbooks for the 2009-2010 school year. There was no debate, nor questions asked about any of the selections approved May 18.
On April 13, however, two board members questioned whether an additional text reflecting both sides of the global warming debate could be added to a high school environmental geoscience class. The possibility of adding another textbook set off a debate in the community which carried over into online blogs.
State law requires the school board to approve all student textbooks. Board members Mark Hart and James Fraasch asked about the following text: "Dire predictions: Understanding Global Warming--The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC" by Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump. The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Link: www.thealmanac.net/ALM/Story/05-27-ML-global-warm-book-update-B
On April 13, however, two board members questioned whether an additional text reflecting both sides of the global warming debate could be added to a high school environmental geoscience class. The possibility of adding another textbook set off a debate in the community which carried over into online blogs.
State law requires the school board to approve all student textbooks. Board members Mark Hart and James Fraasch asked about the following text: "Dire predictions: Understanding Global Warming--The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC" by Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump. The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Link: www.thealmanac.net/ALM/Story/05-27-ML-global-warm-book-update-B
Labels: global warming, school board
27 Comments:
I'm very disappointed in James on this one because there is no "other side of the debate" unless he thinks that we ought to start teaching our kids junk science written by folks on the payrolls of Exxon and other energy companies. What does it take to get people to stop making Climate Change a political issue? How about 300,000 people dying every year due to the impacts of climate change?
Schultz-
I applaud James and Mark for their query regarding the text. Not because I agree or disagree on the global warming topic, but rather for their position that we teach our students to read, explore, investigate and think!
Time magazine published an article
in the June 24, 1974 issue titled:Another Ice Age?
Some excerpts--
"Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.
The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time."
So rather than sending our students out into the world armed with the cause du jour, why not as Hart and Fraasch recommend teach them how to investigate, research and think!
D. Spahr
If there were overwhelming proof that the earth was round, yet a minority of the population refused to believe the evidence and said that the earth were square, would we still be providing the students with textbooks for each side of the debate?
So you gave me an argument from the 1970's, I gave you one in the previous comment that is happening right now. In addition to the URL I posted earlier please read this one about what is happening in Alaska. I realize that most Americans have too much on their minds these days(Economy, Obama Family's dog choice, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc) to give a damn about Eskimos or Africans being displaced or even killed by climate change, but we need to stop making this a political issue because if we continue to act like there are two sides to the debate we could be talking about Americans living in the continental US being displaced, or worse, by rising sea levels as soon as twenty to thirty years from now.
Regarding the Ice Age argument, which is a popular one used by the right to discredit global warming. There was a small group (read - minority) of scientists in the 70's who believed that the earth was heading towards an Ice Age because we experienced periods where the earth's temperature actually cooled (one of the reasons why we experience global cooling). Please read Killing the myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus for the scoop on that false argument.
Last but not least, I too believe that we should teach the students how to "read, explore, investigate, and think", which is why I highly recommend that same blog, Climate Progress, to not only the students but to the adults who must have been were absent when they taught how to "investigate, research and think."
Schultz, I don't know who or what to believe about climate change. I think all scientists and most people regardless of their political affiliation believe its something that requires a lot more study and analysis. However, I can assure you of one thing - if your goal is to persuade people to listen to your side of the story, you might want to lose the holier than thou attitude. It's a sure fire way to get people to tune out.
Mr. Franklin,
I know who to believe: the scientists that comprise the
American Geophysical Union. Most scientists generally prefer to avoid public debate. That they do so now is largely at their inconvenience and only because they see it as their obligation or duty to society.
I know who not to believe: people who say it's all a hoax by scientists to get more grant money. That line of reasoning strains at a gnat but swallows a camel.
Dave Franklin,
I think a little righteous indignation is in order when lives are on the line.
The scientific evidence that is legitimately published in peer reviewed journals is overwhelming. The doubters have a very clear tactic which is to create enough doubt as to whether global warming is real, or whether or not humans are accelerating it. The same tactic has been used effectively by the tobacco industry as to whether or not smoking causes cancer.
By saying seemingly innocuous things like "both sides of the debate", you are propagating the doubt that will help erode any political will to take action.
So if people want to push a myth that global warming is "debatable", then maybe they should get their heads handed to them in a blog.
The issue here is not whether global warming is fact or fiction, but rather whether Fraasch and Hart were correct in asking if Mann's book would be the only textbook used in the science class.
Mr. Schultz in his May 30th post asked "If there were overwhelming proof that the earth was round, yet a minority of the population refused to believe the evidence and said that the earth were square, would we still be providing the students with textbooks for each side of the debate?"
Perhaps we should revisit history for an answer.
In a biography on Galileo Galilei, pioneer of experimental scientific method it states.
As a professor of astronomy Galileo was REQUIRED to teach the accepted theory of his time that the sun and planets revolved around the earth. He was exposed to Copernicus's theory that the planets as we now know, revolve around the sun.
Galileo's support for the theory got him in to trouble with the Roman Catholic church and the Inquisition convicted him of heresy.
To quote Galileo: "I do not feel obligated to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Apparently, Fraasch and Hart have not forgotten that lesson and believe our students should be instilled with the same sense, reason and use of intellect.
On May 29th, Schultz wrote: there is no other side of the debate.
Hmmm-
From: US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
TEMPERATURE MONITORS REPORT WIDESPREAD GLOBAL COOLING- February 26, 2008
(excerpt) All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down. […] Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Gee, maybe we should have our kids investigate if NASA is engaging in "junk" science, then convict them of heresy!
D. Spahr
The fact of the matter is that we are teaching our students that there is a debate about the existence of man-made global warming. This blog is proof that there is a debate. Many Senators and Congressmen in our own country agree that there is a debate. Simply disagreeing with someone's interpretation of data and of data sources does not make the debate go away.
If you disagree with my asking whether or not we are teaching differing viewpoints on the existence of man-made warming then I would suggest you write a letter to the Board and Superintendent asking us to ban all materials in our environmental science curriculum that teach our students to investigate differing viewpoints on the existence of man-made global warming.
Please note that I am not asking that our administration or teachers advocate one side over the other. I am suggesting that there ought to be room for all sides to be heard. The question is whether we limit the information our students receive to only showing them Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (which was approved last year as part of our curriculum) and this IPCC text that brought up this whole topic.
I, for one, do not want to limit our students to only these sources. Neither should anyone else.
James
James
The possibility of a debate among scientists with different views on a given topic, and the need to teach students how to evaluate competing viewpoints in a scientific debate, are separate issues. The problem with this thread and the School Board's handling of the climate change/global warming materials question is that the two issues are combined, improperly.
The existence of a debate (such as the debate that's persisted in this thread) doesn't mean that all sides in the debate are equally credible and deserve equal time in some public forum or classroom.
For example, the Flat Earth Society might show up in Mt. Lebanon and assert that there is a "debate" about the shape of the planet (there is, in fact, a Flat Earth Society that asserts this, though to my knowledge Mt. Lebanon is not on its radar). If the School Board were to use this "debate" as a justification for modifying the curriculum to enable teaching students about competing views of the world, then every member of the School Board would be deservedly impeached for stupidity.
In short, sometimes debates have competing, legitimate views; sometimes debates pose scientific consensus on one side and straw men on the other. (Students of scientific history here will pause and note Kuhn's work. Point taken.) My view is that the global scientific community has reached a compelling scientific consensus regarding the existence of man-made climate change. There is no credible scientific evidence to the contrary. School Boards that defer to "debate" are copping out. Instead, those Boards should ask the science teachers: Are the classrooms lacking materials that the teachers think need to be taught?
Separate from this is the issue of teaching students to think critically about evaluating competing claims to authority. To my knowledge, and with the benefit of a child who graduated from the high school two years ago and one who will graduate shortly, there is precious little of this kind of teaching going on at our high school. It is there, in the nooks and crannies, with a handful of teachers and a handful of courses, and if you're really looking for it (as a student and parent), then you can find it. But critical thinking skills are generally taught by being piggybacked on substantive content (science, history, literature, language, etc.), and plenty of students graduate from Mt. Lebanon High School without realizing that they were supposed to be paying attention to method as well as to substance.
In other words, I think that a course that presented a multiplicity of materials on climate change to the students -- across the full range of the so-called debate -- would be a great course, if its point were to train students to recognize and assess credible arguments and to recognize and assess specious ones. It would be lousy course if its point were to teach students that scientists really haven't figured out whether climate change exists, or what causes it.
Mike-
What a great idea, a course of study on developing critical thinking skills.
I wouldn't limit it to climate change or any other specific subject.
I recollect that this was the goal of my college philosophy courses-- to develop critical thinking. Topics varied throughout the year and lead to some vigorous and enlightening debates.
As to your comment though on climate change and its cause, I still believe its an open subject. As I posted, in the seventies the consensus was that the planet was cooling. I worked at the Center of Science & Industry in Columbus, OH and we designed a number of exhibits to teach school students on the perils of a cooling planet, cause by man's burning of fossil fuels. We had tips for reducing our impact... lowering themostats, inflating tires, switching to small electric cars. All to avoid global starvation and building snowmen on High Street in July.
Thirty odd years later the consensus is we're going to fry. Or maybe as the Senate report states we're back to freezing.
I don't know, but if we teach our kids to be great investigators maybe one will arrive at the solution.
D. Spahr
D. Spahr
D Spahr, 12% does not make a consensus. The consensus in the 70's was that the Earth was warming, not cooling, and the consensus was overwhelming. I could see you haven't read any of the links I posted earlier (and please do not take what I say and then re-post the quotes out of context).
Here is a link to the full report this time: "The Myth of the 1970's global cooling scientific consensus"
The summary:
There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then......The survey identified only 7 articles indicating cooling compared to 44 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations
Don't take last year's large drop in recorded temperatures as any kind of proof that global warming is not occurring. In chaotic or non-linear systems (such as our climate), higher volatility is often a hallmark of rapid change. Just ask any stockbroker.
Also, remember that even as global average temperatures rise, many places will experience colder climates. For example, if the Greenland ice sheet melts, the lower density fresh water will disrupt the Gulf Stream and its deep return currents, making Europe look more like Newfoundland than Virginia.
As for the School District's decision, I am sure Mt. Lebanon's students will benefit immensely from comparing the quality of evidence and reasoning on the two sides this issue.
Mr. Schultz--
I think you may have missed my point and your 70s Myth article may be 100% corect. I can't open it for some reason and I'm assuming it was written sometime after 1978 or so.
But, I can tell you as I designed exhibits in 1978 the consensus was that the planet was cooling. There were numerous articles in TIME, NATIONAL GEO, etc. supporting that arguement.
And I'm not saying we don't look for ways to save energy and reduce our impact on the environment. Nor ignore Al Gore or Mann.
I agree with David Brown:"As for the School District's decision, I am sure Mt. Lebanon's students will benefit immensely from comparing the quality of evidence and reasoning on the two sides this issue."
As for your 12% consensus example. You're right that's not a consensus.
But if I went to the doctor and they said 88% of the test indicate you don't have cancer, but 12% say you do, I wouldn't ignore it.
Or if I designed passenger aircraft and in 12% of the flight test the wing fell off, I sure as hell would want to investigate why!
I don't think our kids will solve the issue, but again as Brown said so well, our kids will benefit from comparing the evidence.
D. Spahr
D. Spahr,
I hope that in the science curriculum taught in Mt. Lebanon schools, one of the lessons learned is that there is a big difference between information printed in Nat Geo, Time, etc., and the research in peer reviewed journals.
In the former case they are largely printing for entertainment, but are typically quite weak when it comes to scientific rigor. And I say that being a big fan of Nat Geo, Smithsonian etc.
In the latter case, researchers test and extend one another's research according to agreed upon methodology to verify each others' findings and eventually arrive at reliable conclusions.
NatGeo, Time, Smithsonian, blogs,
etc don't do that so I really question your citing of the Time issue from the 1970s, and stacking it up against more rigorously tested evidence. It was an interesting footnote, but also a collection of outlier data that have since been refuted.
If my physician started citing research he read in NatGeo and Time, I would go see another doctor.
If I understand your stance, you are saying that we need to teach students how to discriminate between good and bad research--and with that I emphatically agree!
But I still suspect that part of the motivation for avoiding the text in question, had more to do with the conclusions it reported regarding global warming and humans' impact on the environment.
Tim-
This will be my last post on this topic, spent way too much time on it already.
I think you got my point, and we both agree... we need to teach students how to discriminate (I say -- be inquisitive) between good and bad research--and with that I emphatically agree!
As for citing TIME, NAT GEO I only referred to those publications as examples of the popular opinion in the late seventies. The magazines don't do research, just report it.
As we designed the exhibits I referred to at the science center we didn't base the information we presented to school students on those magazines. We used info. supplied by profs from OSU, the National Weather service etc.
As for the doctor example... if he told me that he recently read in the New England Journal of Medicine that the test claiming I had cancer were found to be inaccurate 99.9% of the time I'd be inclined to accept the findings of the 88% that said I was cancer free.
As for the Mann text... the title starts with "Dire PREDICTIONS" not IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE.
James seems to be satified that the course does include differing opinions and with that I'm satisfied too. I don't think he said, nor I, that we keep Mann's text or Gore's Incovenient Truth out of the classroom. Just as I'm fairly certain that a Lebo AP science course is going to settle the issue once and for all.
To reiterate... I agree with you and Mike Madison, we should be teaching our students how to be "discrimating", "critical" and/or "inquisitive." That's all.
D. Spahr
Tim-
I posted a final reply to your post this morning, but apparently it didn't go thru.
I said it would be my last on this topic, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things you said and make sure I wasn't misunderstood.
My references to TIME and National Geo did't mean I place great confidence in research info from TIME or Nat Geo.
They were only examples of popular or main stream opinion from the late 70s on the issue of global cooling.
Nor did I infer that I would trust a doctor who got his medical info from those publications... that's ludicrous!
You did manage to arrive and agree with my point..."If I understand your stance, you are saying that we need to teach students how to discriminate between good and bad research--and with that I emphatically agree!"
Your last point is the one that I'd especially like to clarify.
I never said AVOID Mann's research and I don't think James did either.
He and I are not the ones who said "there is no other side of the debate" or call Mann's book "junk science".
Had the suggested text been the 2/26/08 US Senate Report on Monitoring Global Cooling, I would have made the same post, asking how you could ignore Mann's research.
We only suggest that our students learn how assess, evaluate credible arguments, practice good scientific investigation.
I'm not sure how you do that if you start out proclaiming-- "there is no other side of the debate!"
Wasn't that the position of the church with Galileo? Brand someone with a differing opinion as a heretic or hand them their blogging head as you suggested earlier.
D. Spahr
D. Spahr: I liked your first post better.
So I have a question for you: What is the "other side" of the debate?
In my experience this is code for any of the following:
1. Global warming is a myth
2. Global warming isn't caused by human behavior
3. It's a natural pattern that has nothing to do with CO2 levels
4. CO2 is actually good for you! (This was the ever nutty Michelle Bachman stance).
5. Global warming is based on junk science.
So I am curious what the other side of the debate is? Researchers around the world have all independently tested and confrimed their findings using accepted scientific research methodology. Sure you can find outlier data and anomalies, but those don't overwhelm the preponderance of evidence. Just like you can find examples of people who smoke most of their lives but yet don't get cancer; but does anyone other than tobacco executives doubt that cigarettes are carcinogenic?
I would love for Mt. Lebanon students to learn how to sniff out any of the red herrings enumerated above, by learning how to evaluate actual science and distinguish it from the code language of propaganda.
The environment is used in our curriculum to allow students to develop skills in research, assimilating and analyzing information, and developing critical thinking skills, and speaking skills that are well thought out. In order to accomplish these goals we need a balance of opinion presented to our students.
Some of you have grasped these skills and are debating our curriculum to convince others of your point of view on global warming.
The flat earth argument has been settled for centuries; the environment is an ongoing current debate that is relevant to all our lives. We need to give our students the respect and balanced curriculum materials to develop their own point of view and prepare them well for life. That task is a lot different from getting agreement with one’s point of view or deciding which school board member(s) we want to criticize.
John:
Your argument cuts both ways. When school board members challenged a text because they don't like what it says about global warming, then I think we have a responsibility to call them on it.
My point is that I have a hard time believing that anyone was challenging this text in the pursuit of epistemology. I think their challenge was code for "we don't believe in global warming".
Normally I wouldn't make such a big deal, but I lived in a state where the board of education voted to teach creationism/intelligent design as an equal scientific paradigm righ alongside of evolution. They used similar code language by saying things like "the debate on evolution is not settled", or "evolution is just a theory". They too pointed out anomalous data and outliers to raise doubt about whether or not evolution was valid. And guess what: that state is still the laughing stock of the entire country when it comes to education.
John,
Again, I don't see how you can call teaching the students on one hand, a theory that was proven decades ago and then on the other - the the wrong side of that theory, the side that already lost the debate, a "balanced" view. The only difference with this issue between when this debate was first settled and today is that now this has become a hot button political issue because some have chosen to put political ideology ahead of science, research, and history
The following is a history lesson for anyone out there who thinks that Global Warming is something that was made up by Al Gore and the Democrats as a means to raise our taxes. Please bear with me.
This Global Warming "debate" you refer to already happened - during the first half of the 20th century. The greenhouse gas effect was discovered way back when James Monroe was President of the United States. The initial discovery was followed up by more quantitative research right before the turn of the century. The findings of these researchers led to the conclusion that an increase in CO2 led to an increase in global temperatures. The debate in that early period (late 19th early 20th century) between said researchers was not a matter of if increases in CO2 caused an increase in the earth's temperature, but by how much a certain increase in CO2 increased the earth's temperature. There was also a debate about how long it would take before all of the CO2 emitted by the coal plants and industrialization would have an meaningful impact on the earth's temperature. The "consensus" at that time agreed that worst case scenario it would probably take a few centuries before CO2 emitted by human activity would be substantial enough impact the earth's temperature. A few decades passed until a little known engineer, Guy Stewart Callendar, took notice that the CO2 levels are rising much faster than expected and having an impact on the earth's temperate. His findings were pretty much dismissed by all but a few who picked up where he left off and then, it was finally vindicated when Roger Revelle made a key discovery that the earth's oceans had a more limited ability to absorb the excess CO2 that was being produced by humans. Up until that point, it was thought that most of the CO2 generated by human would be absorbed by the oceans, and hence, would have little impact on the earth's temperature. The time line of global warming's discovery is here. A summarized or a full version of the story behind the discovery and the individuals who made can be found here.
The story does a great job of including some of the arguments against global warming. Some of these arguments happened over one hundred years ago. The debate was settled a while ago so as I said in my first post "there is no 'other side of the debate'" unless you feel the need to teach the students all of the junk science and false arguments against this already scientifically proven theory. With the state of education in this country, can the students really afford to spend time in the classroom learning about the "other side", the earth is flat side of the debate just because some people, James Frasch, Mark Hart, and others can't look beyond the politics of issue to come to grips and accept that the earth is warming and it is due because of the increasing CO2 emissions generated by human beings. It would help to at least start reading some of the links I have already posted. You may be skeptical about some of the scientific research I have linked to but how about disappearing glaciers? How about people dying?
Some months ago, while in Copenhagen, I met a young Danish engineer who had just returned after spending a year in Greenland. Our conversation eventually went to the topic of global warming. He was quite angry about what he described as the “horror of seeing the glaciers melt”. Apparently, he had worked in an area where the ice was melting so fast that huge tracts of land were suddenly uncovered. One of these plots turned out to be a working farm, with an intact farm house and a number of outlying buildings. Through a variety of means, they determined that this had been a working farm over 500 years ago. When I asked him if this might suggest some sort of pattern or cycle, he thought for about 30 seconds and said, “oh yeah”. I am quite sure that we are going through a cycle of climate change. This may be caused partially by people and their increase in carbon emissions from many different sources. Like it or not, mankind is also part of the ecosystem. We have demonstrated for thousands of years that man can and does adapt. The fact that people choose to live above the Arctic Circle and in the Kalahari Desert, demonstrates that people will always find a way to adapt to their environment. Although we should remain aware of our surroundings and consciously try to maintain as pristine a climate as possible, by adopting “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” philosophy, we tend to create situations with unintended consequences. A few years ago it was thought that a “clean” alternative in creating fuel that a car can burn, was to use plants, and specifically corn to create alcohol that could be mixed with gasoline. After some politicians took up the cause and created incentives for farmers to grow corn for alcohol production and the normal corn production for food was diminished, food became scarce for the hungry of the world and more expensive for those of us who shop at super markets. Ironically, the amount of energy needed to create a unit of alcohol, exceeds the energy unit produced. And, with the incredible increase in the use of fertilizers, tens of thousands of acres of farm land are now so toxic that nothing will grow there. I am much more comfortable in making wise and deliberative decisions rather than what ever is politically correct at the time.
I am sure we will adapt to whatever the fallout is from global climate change. The question is not whether we will be impacted by climate change, or will we adapt to it, but how much destruction, how many lives are lost, people displaced, how much destruction etc once the atmospheric CO2 levels reach the tipping point. The problem with the "climate change is cyclical" argument is that while yes, some of climate change is naturally occurring and cyclical, nobody is denying this, the greenhouse gases generated by human activity over the last century have resulted in record levels of CO2 released into the atmosphere, meaning that instead of seeing the cyclical nature of temperature changes that have been there throughout the earth's history, we are now in a period of increasing CO2 levels which is causing increasingly warmer temperatures that this planet has never seen before. The correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature is pretty obvious. Here is a graph. We are now approaching CO2 levels of 400 ppm. Pre-Industrial revolution levels of CO2 were pretty stable at around 275 ppm. So, we've already increased CO2 levels to almost 50% more than they were back then.
Speaking of people who have demonstrated "that people will always find a way to adapt to their environment," some of those people already giving into climate change and leaving areas that have been inhabited for thousands of years. From the CNN story about the Alaskan village, which I've already linked to 3 times:
The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.
The community of the tiny coastal village of Newtok voted to relocate its 340 residents to new homes 9 miles away, up the Ninglick River. The village, home to indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos, is the first of possibly scores of threatened Alaskan communities that could be abandoned.
Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges.
"We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right now," said Stanley Tom, a Yup'ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council.
The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes.
Newtok is just one example of what the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns is part of a growing climate change crisis that will displace 150 million people by 2050.
So, climate change will only displace 150 million people by 2050. Maybe once it starts having a bigger impact on the continental US more of us will start giving a damn.
I went back and read all of the previous postings, and other than the border line hysteria on the part of Mr. Shultz, I did not see any realistic suggestions or recommendations on solving the possible problem of an increase in CO2, other than stopping all CO2 emissions from any source. Since people will not stop driving automobiles and will insist on turning on their lights occasionally, it does not seem likely that curtailing CO2 emissions in the near future is realistic. We also have the problem of improving economies throughout the world. Once a family reaches the dollar equivalent income of $5,000 per year, they buy a car. It is predicted that China will surpass the United States in automobile purchasing in the year 2012 (The Economist, June 6). China is currently installing new power plants, most of them coal burning, that will produce electric generation equal to that of England, every year for the foreseeable future. People do adapt to changes, both economic and environmental. If the people in the Alaskan village decide to move because their village is flooded, I call that adaptation. If a one industry town, like a mining camp, has their industry close, people will move to another location. When a problem exists, two scenarios are possible. One can take the cynical, political route and immediately start to point fingers and try to punish whoever is responsible for causing the problem. Or, one can calmly assess the problem and attempt to come up with solutions, not blame. In this era of politically correctness, we have somehow lost sight of the practical realities of life and ignore very real problems that can be solved by using practical, rather than political solutions. For example; some years ago, the great thinkers of the world decided that banning DDT was a wonderful thing because the insecticide might cause damage to some bird’s egg shells. As a result, last year 1,000,000 children in Africa died of malaria. This is not a theoretical number, but a real, provable statistic. A few weeks ago when presented with this, the U.N. panel, maintained their stance on protecting birds rather than human beings. Climate change is real; whether caused by normal cyclical activity or human behavior is irrelevant. The increase in CO2 levels will continue as long as human beings live on the planet. Rather than adopting the “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, politically correct solution of shutting everything down, we have to find realistic solutions to the problem. The sooner we get over the hysteria, the sooner we can move forward.
Mr. Canyon,
This wasn't a debate about how to solve the problem. No one on here is talking about solutions and I don't know who suggested that we have to go back to the stone ages in order to solve the problem. Until now nobody asked, so without further adieu..
If you care to read my blog, where I've been writing about this subject for going on three years now, you will see that most of the folks in our camp are pragmatists. For instance, a lot of climate change realists do not believe in this thing called "clean coal" because it does not exist. We're against dirty coal plants, since they are the #1 source of CO2, and I think a lot of us are willing to compromise on Nuclear Power, since that is about the cleanest energy source that is available to meet our growing electricity demand. Instead of the government spending billions upon billions in R&D for "clean " coal a better option is to spend those billions on subsidizing Nuclear power plants, since that is about as close to "clean" energy as we are going to get at the scale we need for a long time. In an ideal world we would be able to meet all of our electricity needs with solar and wind power, but since those two are going to take a long time before they can scale to the size we need them (utility scale(400 MW + power plants) solar are on the way) we are going to have to add Nuclear Power to the mix. Regarding electricity generation, if we build more Nuclear plants, make our grid more efficient and intelligent, and provide incentives for our utilities to strive for energy efficiency rather than consumption, then we should be able to maintain our current level of CO2 emissions using technology that we already have today. If you add to that the fact that we are building more and more utility scale solar power plants and wind farms, and if you add natural gas powered plants to the mix, we will make huge progress in reducing CO2 emissions from the biggest culprit, which is electricity generation. Transportation would be next on the list. If we're going to be generating all this clean electricity then it makes the most sense to invest in electric vehicles. It is unfortunate that our government continues to waste money on things like "clean" coal and biofuels but at least the current administration has set some aggressive goals for electric car sales here in the US, not to mention they included funding for battery technology in the stimulus bill.
Schultz, I'm glad you directed me to your blog. There I learned that you no longer live in Mt. Lebanon. I feel much better now . . .
Dave Franklin - We've had our disagreements on here but I never made it personal. You just did. I don't know you, never met you, but I while I will miss Mt Lebo I surely won't miss your lecturing and your know-it-all, pompous, self righteous remarks on this here blog. Maybe my comments on here come off as "holier than thou", that is not never my intent, but I know for a fact that many people on blog lebo and in the community agree with me on my assessment of you. They also do not share your feelings about me moving.
I think that it's fair to say that this Comment thread has run its course, including a little bit of venting from both Dave and Chris. That last part is unusual for this blog, but I sent their comments on to the blog because I know from personal acquaintance that each of them is capable of taking it as well as dishing it out. At this point, though, they and everyone else should take this particular conversation elsewhere.
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