What should schools be teaching our children about climate?

[kelpdiver 2]

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listen to your mother. when you walk out of a room...TURN OFF THE FREAKING LIGHTS! CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND YOU! DONT' STAND IN FRONT OF THE FRIDGE ALL DAY!

going green is that simple, and it will save you money.

that's 1st grader stuff - save you 5 or 10%.

Far more significant is the insulation on the house (esp if you are in a region that relies on heating or A/C), the car you drive, along with your length of commute.

[lawrocket 3]

3 W/M^2 is a pretty small thing. I mean, 1360-1363 really doesn't make much of a difference in anything. Unless you multiply that three per square meter and multiply it times the number of meters on the earth in which case the number becomes rather large. Multiply that number out by 100 years and we end up with quite a difference that the 3 W/M^2 can make. Something at least worthy of consideration, margin of error analyses, etc.

This is common sense to most. Admittedly, there is much in climate science that is counterintuitive, such as GCM modeling that, yes, should be more accurate in the future if the underlying assumptions are correct. People usually don't understand it and scientists donbt explain it. People also don't like "we're the scientists. Believe us" because we don't like arrogance. I'm human, and therefore arrogance is only acceptable from me.

My issue is in understanding these things and looking at underlying assumptions. My job is to gather evidence, examine it and ensure the trustworthiness of it. Then I put an interpretation of the evidence to support my clinet's position (or my position) and argue it's effect - or lack of effect.

This is where I have my perspective - reasonable minds can differ. Is it unreasonable for a lay person to say, "what variables are known variables? Which ones are estimates?" There arte thousands of interrelated mathematical relationships in these models, each of which requires professional judgment and each of these matters of judgment constitutes a margin of error. This is why the investigations surrounding the CRU hack were pretty uniform in the criticism that climate science needs to have more interdisciplinary involvement and, in particular, involve professional statisticians on the teams as a chack and balance to the professional judgement and possible selection bias.

These are the underlying factors that not only drive the public perception but drive the advancement of the science. I posted about a climate policy move that nobody could disagree with. It didn't get a comment. Not one. No reply at all. No challenge of the science. No challenge to the wisdom of the policy because it is one where there are apparently no losers.

Compare with CO2 where the policy proposals are those that change our ways of life with preselected big winners and big losers. It is the uncertainty that governs the policy arguments. It's what it is about.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[popsjumper 2]

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What should be taught, if anything?

OMG...

They've taken out the fluoride and put in crack, LSD and PCP.

What will "they" think of next?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[lawrocket 3]

I can no longer sit back and allow Environmentalist infiltration, Environmentalist indoctrination, Environmentalist subversion and the international Environmentalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Environnmentalist works.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rehmwa 2]

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>think that one through again - the laws of nature don't change

Stolen from Stephen Colbert.

he's funny, one of my favorite shows

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[maxmadmax 8]

Too many calculations!
For this and that.

Here's a question for the smart ones......

When you fart on jumprun, how does it affect the noses of the adjacent skydivers?

Will someone near the exit door inhale more fart gas odors than someone near the front ?

And if you're still with us....how does this affect the greenhouse gasses?

Don't go away mad....just go away!

[davjohns 1]

I see ample evidence that college graduates can not communicate effectively in writing. They can not handle simple mathematical equations. They have little concept of history.

In public schools, we are doing pretty well if they can read and write. But from what I see on the internet, the current crop of students lack much of the rudimentary principles of English.

You want to teach them what???

Let's try to give them the basic building blocks necessary and leave out the politics, religion and debatable issues that confuse learned scholars. We're already lagging behind much of the developed world with all of these students going after soft science degrees. Do we really need to add social policy to the mix?

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[Trafficdiver 8]

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Let's try to give them the basic building blocks necessary and leave out the politics, religion and debatable issues that confuse learned scholars. We're already lagging behind much of the developed world with all of these students going after soft science degrees. Do we really need to add social policy to the mix?

If you give them the basic building blocks of learning and thinking for themselves they may come to the conclusion that the teachers union is screwing them.

Not good for teachers. Better to just fill their brain with shit and keep their 70K a year jobs and three months of vacation.

[billvon 2,400]

>Let's try to give them the basic building blocks necessary and leave out the politics,
>religion and debatable issues that confuse learned scholars.

Agree on politics and religion. There's a lot of talk about "presenting kids with all the options on creationism" and such. Which I agree with - AFTER they learn the basic building blocks. There are too many kids right now who don't know basic science, math and english to try to add comparative religion courses.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

The academics would never ever show this video to their students:

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/featured/prime-time/867432237001/possession-of-a-crayon/1477223377001/page/2#1477057281001

Disclaimer: the TV station where this video originated is considered to be a Conservative.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[skiskyrock 0]

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3 W/M^2 is a pretty small thing. I mean, 1360-1363 really doesn't make much of a difference in anything. Unless you multiply that three per square meter and multiply it times the number of meters on the earth in which case the number becomes rather large. Multiply that number out by 100 years and we end up with quite a difference that the 3 W/M^2 can make. Something at least worthy of consideration, margin of error analyses, etc.

.

I guess you missed the part where I said "no long term trend". Currently (last 30 years or so) the solar trend is in the opposite direction from the observed warming.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of papers that deal with the effects of sun intensity on climate. In fact, variations in intensity during the solar cycle are one of the lines of evidence for a climate sensitivity of around 3C for a doubling of CO2.

[popsjumper 2]

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I see ample evidence that college graduates can not communicate effectively in writing. They can not handle simple mathematical equations. They have little concept of history.

In public schools, we are doing pretty well if they can read and write. But from what I see on the internet, the current crop of students lack much of the rudimentary principles of English.

You want to teach them what???

Let's try to give them the basic building blocks necessary and leave out the politics, religion and debatable issues that confuse learned scholars. We're already lagging behind much of the developed world with all of these students going after soft science degrees. Do we really need to add social policy to the mix?

Maybe our resident vocal college kid and our resident legal beagle will see this.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Laszloimage 0]

It took 2-2.5 billion years (ever since the first living things appeared on this planet) to have all our carbon based energy source (coal, oil, natural, gas) generated and accumulated.
Our industrialized human society sent a significant chunk of this 2-2.5 billion years worth deposits back into Earth's atmosphere in the form of CO2 only in 150 years.
If we draw a timeline of 2.5 billion years, 150 years will only look like a tiny dot or a "flash of a moment" if you will.
Burn a large portion of those fossil fuels in a blink of an eye gotta have some consequences.

Every part of our "civilized" life (even typing this comment) 100% depends on energy which is most likely coming from a fossil based source. The entire structure of our economy, society, and just generally the way of our today's life is standing upon fossil fuel based energy. Because of that it would be impossible switch over to something else in a very short period of time. Understandably there's a lot of blanketing over this issue. Any major change in our current energy policy would lead to an unimaginably great political and economical changes in an unpredictable way.

If we do nothing about reducing our fossil fuel usage, the 2.5 billion years vs. 150 factor can make a sudden stop to our "the way as we know" human civilization.
To make radical changes can't work because of the radical political and economical consequences...
I guess the best we can do is to consider these issues and start gradually phasing out fossil fuel based energy sources and replace them with something else.
There's lot of currently suppressed solutions out there.

I hope it makes sense.