Students are learning energy and climate change advocacy, not climate science
Guest opinion by David R. Legates
For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today.
Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and cryology, and also includes human behavior by both responding to and affecting human activities. Current concerns over climate change have further pushed climate science to the forefront of scientific inquiry.
What should we be teaching college students?
At the very least, a student should be able to identify and describe the basic processes that cause Earth’s climate to vary from poles to equator, from coasts to the center of continents, from the Dead Sea or Death Valley depression to the top of Mount Everest or Denali. A still more literate student would understand how the oceans, biosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere – driven by energy from the sun – all work in constantly changing combinations to produce our very complicated climate.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s definition of climate science literacy raises the question of whether climatology is even a science. It defines climate science literacy as “an understanding of your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and society.”
How can students understand and put into perspective their influence on the Earth’s climate if they don’t understand the myriad of processes that affect our climate? If they don’t understand the complexity of climate itself? If they are told only human aspects matter? And if they don’t understand these processes, how can they possibly comprehend how climate influences them and society in general?
Worse still, many of our colleges are working against scientific literacy for students.
At the University of Delaware, the Maryland and Delaware Climate Change Education Assessment and Research (MADE CLEAR) defines the distinction between weather and climate by stating that “climate is measured over hundreds or thousands of years,” and defining climate as “average weather.” That presupposes that climate is static, or should be, and that climate change is unordinary in our lifetime and, by implication, undesirable.
Climate, however, is not static. It is highly variable, on timescales from years to millennia – for reasons that include, but certainly are not limited to, human activity.
This Delaware-Maryland program identifies rising concentrations of greenhouse gases – most notably carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – as the only reason why temperatures have risen about 0.6°C (1.1º F) over the last century and will supposedly continue to rise over the next century. Students are then instructed to save energy, calculate their carbon footprint, and reduce, reuse, recycle. Mastering these concepts, they are told, leads to “climate science literacy.” It does not.
In the past, I have been invited to speak at three different universities during their semester-long and college-wide focus on climate science literacy. At all three, two movies were required viewing by all students, to assist them in becoming climate science literate: Al Gore’s biased version of climate science, An Inconvenient Truth, and the 2004 climate science fiction disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow.
This past spring, the University of Delaware sponsored an Environmental Film Festival featuring six films. Among them only An Inconvenient Truth touched at all on the science behind climate change, albeit in such a highly flawed way that in Britain, students must be warned about its bias. The other films were activist-oriented and included movies that are admittedly science fiction or focus on “climate change solutions.”
For these films, university faculty members were selected to moderate discussions. We have a large College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment, from which agreeable, scientifically knowledgeable faculty could have been chosen. Instead, discussion of An Inconvenient Truth was led by a professor of philosophy, and one movie – a documentary on climate change “solutions” that argues solutions are pertinent irrespective of the science – was moderated by a civil engineer.
Discussion of the remaining four films was led by faculty from history, English and journalism. Clearly, there was little interest in the substance of the science.
Many fundamentals of climate science are absent from university efforts to promote climate science literacy. For example, students seldom learn that the most important chemical compound with respect to the Earth’s climate is not carbon dioxide, but water. Water influences almost every aspect of the Earth’s energy balance, because it is so prevalent, because it appears in solid, liquid and gas form in substantial quantities, and because energy is transferred by the water’s mobility and when it changes its physical state. Since precipitation varies considerably from year to year, changes in water availability substantially affect our climate every year.
Hearing about water, however, doesn’t set off alarms like carbon dioxide does.
Contributing to the increased focus on climate change advocacy is the pressure placed on faculty members who do not sign on to the advocacy bandwagon. The University of Delaware has played the role of activist and used FOIA requests to attempt to intimidate me because I have spoken out about climate change alarmism. In my article published in Academic Questions, “The University vs. Academic Freedom,” I discuss the university’s willingness to go along with Greenpeace in its quest for my documents and emails pertaining to my research.
Much grant money and fame, power and influence, are to be had for those who follow the advocates’ game plan. By contrast, the penalties for not going along with alarmist positions are quite severe.
For example, one of the films shown at the University of Delaware’s film festival presents those who disagree with climate change extremism as pundits for hire who misrepresent themselves as a scientific authority. Young faculty members are sent a very pointed message: adopt the advocacy position – or else.
Making matters worse, consider Senate Bill 3074. Introduced into the U.S. Senate on June 16 of this year, it authorizes the establishment of a national climate change education program. Once again, the emphasis is on teaching energy and climate advocacy, rather than teaching science and increasing scientific knowledge and comprehension.
The director of the National Center for Science Education commented that the bill was designed to “[equip] students with the knowledge and knowhow required for them to flourish in a warming world.” Unfortunately, it will do little to educate them regarding climate science.
I fear that our climate science curriculum has been co-opted, to satisfy the climate change fear-mongering agenda that pervades our society today. Instead of teaching the science behind Earth’s climate, advocates have taken the initiative to convert it to a social agenda of environmental activism.
Climatology, unfortunately, has been transformed into a social and political science. There is nothing wrong with either of those “sciences,” of course. But the flaws underpinning climate science advocacy are masked by “concern for the environment,” when climate is no longer treated as a physical science.
Climate science must return to being a real science and not simply a vehicle to promote advocacy talking points. When that happens, students will find that scientific facts are the real “inconvenient truths.”
David R. Legates, PhD, CCM, is a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. A version of this article appeared on the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy website.
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The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” http://www.globalchange.gov/about
They are a purely POLITICAL organization, not a scientific one. They are free to ‘define’ whatever they wish, but their definitions of anything called a ‘science’ or ‘literacy’ should not be considered authoritative. For such definitions one should turn to scientists or educators.
Actually the USGCRP is both political and scientific, a bit of an odd duck. It has two components. One is a small office that prepares the GCRA mandated annual report to Congress, titled Our Changing Planet, which summarizes the climate change science research activities of the 13 Federal Agencies that do such research. See http://www.globalchange.gov/.
The second component is those 13 Federal agencies. Their combined budget is about $2.5 billion a year in science, which is a major fraction of the world’s climate science research. The USGCRP office has no control whatever over what research these 13 agencies do; that is up to them. Their research is heavily biased toward CAGW, in order to support US climate policy. See my http://www.cato.org/publications/working-paper/government-buying-science-or-support-framework-analysis-federal-funding.
It has been said that any field that sticks ‘science’ onto its name really isn’t one, e.g. ‘Political Science’. Dr. Legates is a Professor of Climatology, not ‘Climate Science’. He could hit his point home by emphasizing the difference between Climatology and the phony ‘Climate Science’ being fed to undergraduates.
/Mr Lynn
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” http://www.globalchange.gov/about
They are a purely POLITICAL organization, not a scientific one. They are free to ‘define’ whatever they wish, but their definitions of anything called a ‘science’ or ‘literacy’ should not be considered authoritative. For such definitions one should turn to scientists or educators, preferably ones who don’t depend on political sources for funding.
“The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.””
Well, at least, unlike the UN IPCC, they didn’t limit their research to “human-induced” causes, they also included natural causes.
Yes and no. The lead USGCRP agency for climate science research is NSF. They do a lot on short term natural variability, but that is just to explain away the hiatus/pause. They actually deny that natural variability might play a role in long term warming. In fact they claim that climate is unchanging for centuries unless disturbed by humans. Incredible, right? I write about this here (NSF in climate denial):
http://www.cato.org/blog/nsf-climate-denial?utm_content=buffer2695b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Surely even the slowest student must realise that watching “The Day After Tomorrow” is not preparing them for anything?
I suspect that there is a selection bias here.
Only those who already have faith would sign up. Thus critical questioning never arises.
Why not “War of the Worlds” and “Planet of the Apes” while they’re at it?
Why not just 5 minutes with John Cleese now and then? That would actually learn them something:
https://youtu.be/Klu1SCueDow
Nothing unusual there. Schools have become centers of propaganda. On any subject with a political bent, be it economics, history, or climate change. Children are being taught what to think instead of how to think.
Legates does have a point on the dumbing down of climate studies. That sort of thing is all too common with advocates, from teaching history, economics, biology, or anything else with a political interest operating. Sometimes, as with Eugenics, the whole thing is bad science intersecting with prejudice on social class and race to produce horrid results.
It would seem that rigor is the sort of thing advocates try to avoid, as they see the purpose of “education” as something other than actually teaching the subject at hand. It gets down to that old poetry about a little learning being a dangerous thing.
Where I come from, all students had to take courses in logic, philosophy and philosophy of science.
I thought every student at every University had to go through such courses.
From what I now see, I am starting to believe that many students are not introduced to these fundamentals.
If you can’t name names then you have no case.
As an educator, I have tons of issues with the Science Standards. To hammer home why, the kindergarten standard includes these two “understand” goals for little tykes:
1. Every human made product is designed by applying some knowledge of the natural world and is built by using natural materials.
2. Taking natural materials to make things impacts the environment.
It gets much worse from there. If you can get through reading the entire thing, you come away with one opinion. These standards were penned by rich people who never made anything useful and don’t have a lot of shit to do.
What is the kindergarten suicide rate?
this should fry you, Pamela (and rightfully so) –
https://ncse.com/news/2016/06/climate-change-education-bills-congress-0018280
NCSE is a radical political group that made its name fighting what it called anti-evolution bills in state legislatures. It has now extended its work to fighting climate skepticism.
Which standard is that, Pamela? It is pretty unusual for the existing US State Standards. I cannot imaging teaching the concepts of environment and environmental impact in kindergarten. These are typically taught in middle school.
Scroll down to the bottom of page 3: http://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/APPENDIX%20J_0.pdf
Pamela, those are general framework concepts for the teachers to keep in mind. They are not the specific concepts for the students to learn. That is the concepts of environment and environmental impact will no be tested for. In fact in K-2 very little technical content is tested for.
It will be interesting to see how these concepts are finally transformed into content for the students to learn. That may vary from state to state, as the present content standards do.
To clarify, the original framework used to guide the development of the standards has been reinterpreted over time such that outrageous statements are being applied as if they accurately reflect the original thoughts in the book. Anybody who reads the standards most likely reads the appendices for further clarification of the overriding end game of each section. My quote came from appendix J. The original book http://www.nap.edu/read/13165/chapter/12 does not use the same goal statement found in the appendix but has morphed over time to what you see included in my comment. The license thus given to educators to “go there” is pretty evident. Was that the original intent? Doubtful given the content of chapter 8 in the Framework.
It is certainly true that the NextGen Standards are different from the NAS Framework, but the latter was in no way binding on the State teams that wrote the Standards. What will be most interesting is what the curricula and lesson plans that implement the Standards look like.
For example, the Standards allow for natural climate change but the actual teaching materials may not. The Standards call for the middle and/or high school students to learn how to use climate models. What models will these be? Probably AGW models. This is where intervention is really needed.
When I was in kindergarten all we learned was how to sing “Alle Meine Enten”, and playing nice with others.
Here is what the 2010 Virginia Standards of Science Education specify to be taught in kindergarten. Sorry it is so long but there is a lot of stuff. Every grade is now like this, a marathon of science. Note that the students are also tested extensively.
Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2010 Kindergarten
The kindergarten standards stress the use of basic science skills to explore common materials, objects, and living things and will begin the development of an understanding that scientific knowledge is based on evidence. Emphasis is placed on using the senses to gather information. Students are expected to develop skills in posing simple questions, measuring, sorting, classifying, and communicating information about the natural world. The science skills are an important focus as students learn about life processes and properties of familiar materials, such as magnets and water. Through phenomena including shadows, patterns of weather, and plant growth, students are introduced to the concept of change. The significance of natural resources and conservation is introduced in the kindergarten standards.
Scientific Investigation, Reasoning, and Logic
K.1 The student will demonstrate an understanding of scientific reasoning, logic, and the nature of science by planning and conducting investigations in which
a) basic characteristics or properties of objects are identified by direct observation;
b) observations are made from multiple positions to achieve different perspectives;
c) a set of objects is sequenced according to size;
d) a set of objects is separated into two groups based on a single physical characteristic;
e) nonstandard units are used to measure the length, mass, and volume of common objects;
f) observations and predictions are made for an unseen member in a sequence of objects;
g) a question is developed and predictions are made from one or more observations;
h) observations are recorded;
i) picture graphs are constructed;
j) unusual or unexpected results in an activity are recognized; and
k) objects are described both pictorially and verbally.
K.2 The student will investigate and understand that humans have senses that allow them to seek, find, take in, and react or respond to information in order to learn about their surroundings. Key concepts include
a) the five senses and corresponding sensing organs; and
b) sensory descriptors used to describe common objects and phenomena.
Force, Motion, and Energy
K.3 The student will investigate and understand that magnets have an effect on some materials, make some things move without touching them, and have useful applications. Key concepts include
a) magnetism and its effects; and
b) useful applications of magnetism.
1 Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2010
Matter
K.4 The student will investigate and understand that the position, motion, and physical properties of an object can be described. Key concepts include
a) colors of objects;
b) shapes and forms of objects;
c) textures and feel of objects;
d) relative sizes and weights of objects; and
e) relative positions and speed of objects.
K.5 The student will investigate and understand that water flows and has properties that can be observed and tested. Key concepts include
a) water occurs in different phases;
b) water flows downhill; and
c) some materials float in water, while others sink.
Life Processes
K.6 The student will investigate and understand the differences between living organisms and nonliving objects. Key concepts include
a) all things can be classified as living or nonliving; and
b) living organisms have certain characteristics that distinguish them from nonliving objects including growth, movement, response to the environment, having offspring, and the need for food, air, and water.
K.7 The student will investigate and understand basic needs and life processes of plants and animals. Key concepts include
a) animals need adequate food, water, shelter, air, and space to survive;
b) plants need nutrients, water, air, light, and a place to grow to survive;
c) plants and animals change as they grow, have varied life cycles, and eventually die; and
d) offspring of plants and animals are similar but not identical to their parents or to one another.
Interrelationships in Earth/Space Systems
K.8 The student will investigate and understand that shadows occur when light is blocked by an object. Key concepts include
a) shadows occur in nature when sunlight is blocked by an object; and
b) shadows can be produced by blocking artificial light sources.
Earth Patterns, Cycles, and Change
K.9 The student will investigate and understand that there are simple repeating patterns in his/her daily life. Key concepts include
a) weather observations;
b) the shapes and forms of many common natural objects including seeds, cones, and leaves; and
c) animal and plant growth.
K.10 The student will investigate and understand that change occurs over time and rates may be fast or slow. Key concepts include
a) natural and human-made things may change over time; and
b) changes can be observed and measured.
Earth Resources
K.11 The student will investigate and understand that materials can be reused, recycled, and conserved. Key concepts include
a) materials and objects can be used over and over again;
b) everyday materials can be recycled; and
c) water and energy conservation at home and in school helps ensure resources are available for future use.
These 9 minutes should be on every students curriculum:
https://youtu.be/-X8Xfl0JdTQ
So now let’s move forward with free college to teach advocacy climate propaganda. It’s very progressive.
Imagine how relieved I was to find orofessors like you in both high school and college. I was fed the runaway greenhouse effect early in school. In high school my Biology and Earth Science teachers respectively went through the bogus claims of alarmism from a viewpoint of looking at the big picture.
In college I only had 1 physics professor start the alarmism only to be smacked down by the rest of us budding scientists and some philosophers in a class discussion. It started off with one student telling the professor that he didn’t appreciate the message of her lecture and actually felt guilty driving his car on the way home. As this was in Phx where there is laughable public transport, a car is a necessity. That led to the philosophy and psychology students starting a discussion about the values of the professor’s lecture which brought in the marketing and communication students with their viewspoints on the propaganda the professor used. We didn’t learn physics that day but I think the professor learned some things. I knoe I did and more than a few of my fellow classmates did as well.
In the upper classes of college climate change and the alarmist platform was never even discussed. And if it were brought up, the professors would shut it down immediately. The lecture might include more points of how you can not be certain of 1 aspect in a complex system and apply it to all…thereby asserting that alarmist claims would not be tolerated in their lectures.
I’ve been out of college for a while now but take heart. There are still professors that may toe the line to get their grants but that is as far as it goes.
As for high school there was a survey of teachers across the US where the teachers weren’t teaching the alarmism either but presenting both sides of the argument.
I’m on my phone with autocorrect turned off…so please forgive the fat finger mistyped words. Some I catch, others slip through…
It seems like only yesterday I was being told in college that oil would depleted by now.
Good post, thank you for your observations Dr Legates.
I notice that even with government buy-in to this advocacy and their near total funding of the required propaganda, that the public is not buying it.
The young people especially encourage me, they know when they are being fed a line, their education seems to be teaching them how worthy bureaucracy is of their trust.
Those who are currently fire breathing planet saviours, will soon be tax paying suckers earning their real education in the University of hard Knocks.
Human nature seems pretty consistent, we have enjoyed a period of fat and lazy living and due to the excesses our “leaders” have committed in our name we are most likely to enjoy some lean and hungry times quite soon.
People will appear to support the most idiotic ideals and solutions for nonexistent problems, right up until they have to put up the cash.
The scientific method is missing in action, along with its old comrade Common Sense.
Kipling said it well, the Lords of the Copy Book Counting will be back.
Fire breathing planet saviours in the United Nations will not learn a thing in the University of hard Knocks:
C. Level of salaries
“The level of salaries for Professional staff is determined on the basis of the Noblemaire principle, named after the chairman of a committee of the League of Nations. This principle states that the international civil service should be able to recruit staff from all its Member States, including the highest paid. In application of the Noblemaire principle, the salaries of Professional staff are set by reference to the highest paying national civil service.”
Maybe the best article ever here or anywhere else.
Dr. Legates is not only knowledgeable/an expert in this field, teaching climate science but he is an insider(one who observes how the education system in this field is intentionally designed and can report items that describe it which few outside would see clearly).
Most importantly, he is a man with honor/integrity…….willing to speak the truth. .
Is this because his views match mine?
As an operational meteorologist for 34 years observing global weather patterns, I have come across hundreds of young people……..many of them highly educated that have a belief system akin to being members of a cult when it comes to their understanding of CO2.
It often feels like we are living in some sort of alternate universe, where up is down and down is up. Where the beneficial gas, CO2 which is greening up the planet and greatly increasing world food production as it has increased from dangerously low levels for life on this planet to exist……….has been defined as pollution.
Using these current standards to judge CO2, then H2O is an even worse form of pollution. Such a mixed up understanding of the basics in biology, agronomy, meteorology, climate science and related fields(regarding CO2) are being taught today.
40 years ago, who ever thought that photosynthesis would be taught:
Sunshine + H2O + Minerals +Pollution = O2 +Sugars(food)
BTW, decreasing the meridional temperature gradient by warming the higher latitudes and coldest air masses the most has DECREASED many to most types of extreme weather. A notable exception has been high end heavy rain events.
You forgot “gender is fluid.” 😉
And that gender sex.
Thank heavens a fellow Met coming off the fence and saying as it is. Many +++.
I often find debates about AGW with so called climate experts end up with something along the lines that “you are only a meteorologist and therefore an expert on weather not climate” . However, I would argue most Mets are better placed than many to make comment on AGW trends because a substantial part of our training is the study of global and regional climate and on a daily basis we compare observations against climatic norms. We also have training in the physics, mathematics and fundamental flaws and advantages of weather forecast models.
Yes some may argue our knowledge is too general to be an expert in say some specifics of climate modelling, but I have come across way too many “climate experts” who have never understood basic global atmospheric circulation or observed climatic normals, but rather would believe what their “state of the art climate models tell them.
pbweather,
Meteorologists have a very high % of skeptics for just the reasons you stated. In our college classrooms learning cloud physics, fluid dynamics, physical chemistry and so on were/are future climate scientists.
We had a project in our last year synoptic lab to create a simple weather model that was able to hindcast temperatures for an area of the United States similar to the numbers that the LFM(Limited Fine Mesh Model) had forecasted.
We had to pick all the best equations to get the results. Not the best equations that represented the true physical laws of the atmosphere but the equations that yielded the numbers that most closely matched the highs and lows in the Midwest that the LFM had forecasted for that period.
The numerous equations in the LFM model, of course, were based on the physical laws of the atmosphere, so the lesson was really that you can make all sorts of tiny changes to tweek equations in your model to get the desired results………………whether they are weather models or climate models.
The LFM, then the improved NGM and now the better GFS equations/models are constantly being updated based on experimental testing. The LFM, I think mainly just went out 48 hours for most parameters and this model was run every 12 hours. The GFS today, goes out 384 hours and is updated every 6 hours.
Just like I am not knowledgeable enough to hand pick all the best equations to represent the physical laws of the atmosphere in a weather model(only to try to emulate the ones already inl the LFM) I can’t tell you what all the mathematical equations should be in a climate model.
Us meteorologists, however do understand how atmospheric models work. Unlike climate scientists, who use models to project climate at very distant time frames, like 50+ years from now, we live in a world that must constantly reconcile the realities of model limitations because even our best analysis using the best models as guidance often results in busted forecasts.
By the time a climate scientist has to fully reconcile the results of their 50 year climate projection………they will probably be dead and the projection long forgotten.
But this does not mean there will not be adjustments to the original projections, it just means this: Because of the much longer time scales, the adjustments to climate models will/are greatly lagging, when observations are showing them to be a big fat bust.
Don’t get me wrong, climate models do have value(we couldn’t predict weather without our atmospheric models)………..but only when the models incorporate new, objective realities that are constantly updated and completely separated from the model builders previous assumptions(and ego).
A meteorologist learns quickly the value and limitations of their short term atmospheric models.
Many climate scientists, using longer term atmospheric models, with much different mathematical equations to represent the physical laws of the atmosphere………..have not learned this yet.
Today, when I hear the words “climate” and “science” in the same sentence,
I burst out laughing.
Predicting the future climate is not science — not after being wrong for 40 years … so far.
Climate models are not science — they are computer games, based on incorrect climate physics (CO2 controls the temperature).
By hiring and using people with advanced science degrees as props for their climate scaremongering, leftists have brought “climate science” down to the level of used car sales.
Of course it would be very hard to sell their “socialism” without scaring people about something (such as their coming climate change catastrophe fantasy) … and then telling the frightened public only the government can prevent climate doom.
Big government “to save the earth” sounds a lot better than the truth: ‘We leftists want big government because we are smarter than you people in flyover country, so we must tell you how to live.’
Climate blog for non-scientistss:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Attended a mandatory critical thinking class for incoming Freshman at a California university in the mid-eighties. Prof was a Marxist from the Philosophy Department with all course materials and lectures reflecting his theology. It was a joke, outrage, and waste of time you suffered through it.
The same professor organized a conference of educators to spread his perverted form of critical thinking. I dropped into a session out of curiosity. More of the same. Happily I walked across the quad with him in 1989. He was depressed at current events. I took my small revenge piling on with ” Marxism was always crap” keep the flame lit against darkness. That is reward enough.
Science X politics^.000001 = pseudoscience
I recently met a nice young lady who told me she was about to get a degree in “Climate Advocacy” from George Mason University (in Northern Virginia). I wondered at the time if they really gave degrees in “advocacy” but this article suggests they might.
I wonder if it is under the umbrella of “Sales and Marketing” or “Political Science” rather than “Climate Science”?
Words come to mean what most of their users intend them to mean. We older folks just have to try to keep up with the changing definitions. It isn’t always easy. It makes communication among generations complicated.
It is not all gloom. I teach critical thinking, the scientific method, how to tell real science from religion and junk science, and most of my students “get it”. I make the point that I am not teaching them what to think, but rather how to think about the data they can get for themselves. I haven’t been fired for being politically incorrect (so for). Perhaps that is why my college is ranked at the top of its category in the USA.
You can expect the DNC to coordinate with left wing climate scientist and the MSM to ramp up Global Warmining Hysteria leading up to the election. They will be laying out the “Fear” of CO2 and its debunked affects on the planet.
I think it’s more Hill’s style to role it into the claimed mandate list after the election.
my researching into global warming causes is a bit like walking in the low gravity (not as easy as you might think)
https://youtu.be/LEdYf4SGhuI
Sounds like indoctrination rather than education.
Not entirely off-topic:
I just encountered a passage in an Alan Furst novel I’m reading: “They practiced witchcraft, and they called it science.”
It referred to between-the-world-war Communists, but it somehow seemed to fit the instant discussion.
I’m fond of any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. You could explain sorcery with voice activated nanotechnology.
Could somebody kindly provide me with a clear and simple distinction between “climate science” and climatology? The terms are bandied about without definition or explanation, seemingly interchangeably.
Also, what qualifies someone to be “one of our top climate scientists”?
Looking to the top dog at NASA’s GISS, I notice that their “top climate scientist” used to be James Hansen – an astronomer! ??? They have clearly since seen the inappropriateness of such a choice and now appointed Gavin Schmidt to the position – a mathematician! Totally lost .
In any field the standard qualification for being a top scientist is publishing a lot of top journal articles and getting a lot of citations to those articles. Hanson wins hands down, because he pioneered a lot of the AGW science. See for example https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=climate&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=James+Hansen&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C49
His astronomy work was in planetary atmospheres, which he then applied to the Earth and AGW/DAGW came out.
As for Gavin, most climate science is modeling which is applied math. Modeling dominates the field. See my http://www.cato.org/blog/climate-modeling-dominates-climate-science
Gavin is also top ranking based on publications and citations. See for example https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=climate&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=Gavin+Schmidt&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C49
Of course the field is wildly biased toward AGW, so almost all the top scientists are warmers.
The terms climatology and climate science are indeed often used interchangeably. Here is a case, in the first sentence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatology.
This is not unusual in science. Oceanography and ocean science are another example, probably one of many.
Thanks for all the information David. It helps explain a bit.