if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Intelligent Warming
by Hal_10000
It seems a bunch of people have a rod up their butt because California is going to teach—gasp!—about global warming in science class.
A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require “climate change” to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught.
The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change.
“You can’t have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn’t deal with the science behind climate change,” Simitian said. “This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon.”
The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian’s bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal.
Some say the science on global warming isn’t clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms.
“I find it disturbing that this mandate to teach this theory is not accompanied by a requirement that the discussion be science-based and include a critical analysis of all sides of the subject,” said Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, during the Senate debate.
Boortz was going on about this, too. I’m sure if Republicans were objecting that “both sides” of the evolution “debate” weren’t being taught, he’d be mocking them. But switch topics and the tinfoil hat comes out.
Is there anyone out there who thinks kids shouldn’t be taught about global warming? Even if it turns out that manmade global warming is a myth—which seems highly unlikely at this point—it’s something they should be taught. I was taught about overpopulation and deforestation, which turned out to be myths. If our schools start teaching global warming as science, they’ll have to stop telling our kids monster-under-the-bed stories about this phenomenon. They’ll have to talk about the realistic IPCC projections. They’ll have to talk about the importance of industrial methane. And they won’t have to talk about unproven or disproven ideas, such as the notion that global warming is caused by cosmic rays.
I don’t trust our schools to present a reasonable debate or to shy away from presenting liberal “solutions” as science. But right now our kids are hearing about global warming anyway through an increasingly hysterical and inaccurate media. Who would you rather be teaching them about global warming? Their science teacher or Algore?
Comments
Bluntly put, the science doesn’t back it up at all.
At all? So you’re saying CO2 is not a warming gas? At all? That a surface can’t be permeable to visible but not IR light? better close down all the greenhouses! Someone better alert the dinosaurs that they were secretly freezing to death.
We can disagree on the scale and cause of global warming. But to say it’s a myth—that’s just wishful thinking.
It’s not a myth that global temperatures are getting warmer. We can like, you know, measure that.
Back on my soapbox, the global warming/climate change debate is a bad mix of correllation-vs-causation confusion with incredibly bad “solutions” to un-proven causes.
Can we put a tax on the hot air expelled by eco-nuts?
Back on my soapbox, the global warming/climate change debate is a bad mix of correllation-vs-causation confusion with incredibly bad “solutions” to un-proven causes.
Agreed on the solutions. But this isn’t a correlation-causation issue. There are very sound scientific reasons to believe that CO2 and CH4 warm the atmosphere. Such as the fact that human life exists at all.
Let’s forget the cause for a moment and ask ourselves how we’re going to adapt to a warming climate. No one is talking about that because one extreme thinks we’re causing all of it and the other extreme thinks we’re causing none of it. The truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle and given that, we’ll have limited ability to affect any sort of solution. So, how will we deal?
There are very sound scientific reasons to believe that CO2 and CH4 warm the atmosphere. Such as the fact that human life exists at all.
There is significantly less evidence to indicate that (a) these changes wouldn’t happen without them and (b) that there are actually dire consequences to these changes. There is correlation between man-made outputs and global warming. There is not causation.
Who would you rather be teaching them about global warming? Their science teacher or Algore?
You realize they’re likely going to just do things like show his movie and say it’s gospel.. right? We’re talking pubic school here.
Hell, my parents pulled my sister and I out of public school 30 years ago because my sister was getting trouble. Turns out she was bored out of her mind because all they did all day was watch filmstrip after filmstrip. She was in the 3rd grade then and I was in Kindergarten. Imagine how bad it is today with computers, tape and DVD… back then it was somewhat hard to get stuff because it was filmstrips and 8mm movies.. now it’s simple to get tons of video crap.
heh.. oops.. PUBLIC school.
You’ll get little argument from me, Miguelito. We pulled my sister out of public school when she failed a spelling test—because her teacher didn’t know the correct spellings. The principal said he couldn’t fire her.
So you’re saying CO2 is not a warming gas?
Of course it is, so is water. Water is in higher concentration as well as has a stronger effect on trapping heat. This still doesn’t explain the cold snap from the 50s - 70s when CO2 production was at some of its highest points. Global warming fanatics gloss over this by citing sulphates (which have reduced in recent years) and/or radiation from nuclear testing (again reduced in recent years). However neither of these are proven, only speculated. Yet, the GW crowd accepts these explanations as gospel truth.
It’s not a myth that global temperatures are getting warmer. We can like, you know, measure that.
Not necessarily. The scariest temperature forecasts come from ground based readings which can be easily tainted when near cities. Most of these long term trends start in the 19th century forward when a full global readings weren’t possible. Even when more data came in, it had to be statistically measured. These statistics often didn’t include remote regions of the earth where few (if any) people live. The only true global snapshot we got was when satellites could do the measuring. That didn’t start till the late 60s and the increases aren’t statistically significant.
Everything I’m saying here depends on your sources which only proves there is no real objective measure or answer at this point. I’d concede that global warming is reasonable, but the CO2 connection is limited and tenuous at best.
A real scientific view would include the strengths and weaknesses of the science. This would highlight for students the areas that need to be followed and researched. However, I am quite sure this would not be taught, only the propaganda would be taught.
The next step is to formulate plans to deal with this problem, which gets even tricker as the solutions range from useless to potentially more harmful.
Let’s forget the cause for a moment and ask ourselves how we’re going to adapt to a warming climate.
This is what I keep trying to tell my family. It doesn’t really matter why it’s warming, just that it is. If it keeps going up, there could be real consequences for people that live in certain areas. They need to know the potential consequences.
If it’s man-made, it is probably too late to realistically change it anyway.
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Not only is it a myth, it’s a total crock of shit.
Bluntly put, the science doesn’t back it up at all.