CUTTING TO THE CHASE.....

Via James McGrath, this is a pithy summary of the real problem in attempting to discuss climate change science with a lot of folk....

No wonder NCSE has found it necessary to broaden the scope of their watchful eye, and create a clearinghouse for climate change education.

I mean, a lot of times the same fella who's arguing that climate change is a hoax, doesn't even believe that the data from 400,000-year-old ice cores is even 40,000 years old....because they think the Earth is, at most, about 10,000 years old. One set of denials supports another.

Now, it was possible once to be a science teacher and hold a fairly conservative assessment of climate change. Prior to the last two IPCC Reports, an instructor could argue with some credibility that while there seemed to be a recent warming trend in global climate, that the book was still out on whether human activity was a major factor in promoting this trend, and that more research was needed. I can say this with some authority, because as recently as 2005 this was the stance I took in my classes. I did not at any point want to overstate the science, and I was in no hurry to add any more potentially controversial material to a curriculum that already includes a healthy dose of sex, evolution and bioethical dilemmas.

But after the Fourth Assessment (2007), it was pretty clear that there was a scientific consensus. No scientific body of national or international standing dissents with the last IPCC Report. In June of 2007, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the last major holdout, replaced an earlier statement rejecting anthropogenic climate change with a non-committal position that reflected the views of a majority of its 30,000-odd members, most of whom have substantial experiencing working in the private sector for energy companies. AAPG's non-committal position, while a positive development, is still an outlier: after all, all of the G-8 nations scientific academies had previously endorsed, without reservation, the Third Assessment back in 2001.

So, now, I'm whistling a different tune. Ironically, while the state of the science in support of anthropogenic climate change is more settled that ever, public support for the science is less than when my teaching career began, thanks to a steady drumbeat of misinformation from various quarters, many of whom are pursuing a delaying action in the public square. So, thanks once again for NCSE for providing a framework for science educators to teach their state standards openly without fear of reprisal from those who want to suppress basic, well-established science:

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY

This....is just amazing.



Back in the day, the Monsanto Corporation sponsored a ride at Disneyland, that ended with a loop song by the Sherman Brothers extolling the brave frontiers of corporate-sponsored chemistry. The ride itself was a hoot and one of my fondest childhood memories. The above video is a virtual recreation of what that ride was like, and I have to tell you, it's not only pretty accurate, it has details that I had forgotten or never personally experienced due to the way the ride evolved. For example, Monsanto eventually quit sponsoring it, and the Disney folk expunged direct reference to the company and its wares from the ride's conclusion.

This no doubt had something to do with message fatigue, but it also has to be noticed that there was a 'sea change' in public attitudes about the discipline of chemistry. In the 1950's, chemistry was seen as a beneficient fountain of modern miracles: WD-40! Nylon! ...and, especially, plastic, PLASTIC, PLASTIC from polymers derived from petroleum.

Then books like Silent Spring entered the public consciousness, and the emerging counter-culture (which Disney resisted for decades) carried with it a largely anti-scientific but emotionally powerful notion of "ecology" that carried with it a negative connotation to the word 'chemical'. Companies like Dow Chemical and Monsanto saw their public image greatly eroded by well-publicized (and, sometime, ill-founded) critiques of pollution and the unintended consequence of exposure to the dreaded 'chemicals.'

But, of course, everything is 'chemistry' in one sense or another. The field of chemistry is simply that branch of physics concerned with discovering and understanding all the different ways that matter and energy can be arranged. There is nothing inherently bad or good about such an enterprise, and it's more than a bit aggravating to see the pseudoscientific movements still with us that take, as a starting point, the position that "chemicals are bad." Only slightly less nauseating is the premise of "unnatural chemicals", as the deadliest chemicals I can think of are those that liberate free oxygen. I'd like to see somebody in the anti-vax movement or the "chemtrail" enthusiasts lambaste oxygen, or, as a kid once allegedly based a science project on, the deadly effects of dihydrogen monoxide (DMO).

EFFICIENCY EXPERTS

So, I'm working quietly at my desk during my prep on a new assessment. Just me, no students.
About ten minutes into this exercise, the lights go out. The district, when it "modernized" the classroom, installed a sensor that automatically kills the lights in the absence of motion. Wow! It has the added plus of looking like a certain homicidal computer in a Kubrick film.

Call it Hal 2.0....

And, frankly, even if I opened my blinds at the top of the north wall, very little light comes in from the outside: it's a typical Fresno winter, shrouded in gloomy fog. Kind of like a Bergman film, without all the sunny moments:

Thus, my productivity grinds to a halt until I can get the sensor to detect my presence. Sometimes I can trigger it from my desk by waving my arms. Usually, though, I have to get up and walk around the perimeter of the classroom. By the time the lights are on and I am back in my seat, a minute of prep time has vanished. This will happen every ten minutes, so I could lose as much as four minutes of prep time if I stayed in the classroom, working quietly at my desk.

No doubt some bean counter factored this modest loss of productivity as an acceptable tradeoff for x number of kilowatt-minutes saved by this exercise per classroom per instructional day. Just like they figured that any discomfort experienced by teachers unable to set the thermostat in their own classrooms (previous practice) is outweighed by their ability to save coin by remotely managing the temp from downtown (another "modernization" wonder).

On a similar topic, my district-supplied laptop (a Compaq 6715b) doesn't work all that fast, because of all the district-mandated software running in the background of the underpowered bargain board slows down its performance. Sure, I lose productivity when Power Points crash, data entry doesn't "take" or when a video won't stream properly at a resolution sufficient to make its use worthwhile. But at least the district can keep an eye on me and others using the system! Besides, I can just make up the lost workplace productivity by either staying after school or working x number of hours at home on a real computer, that actually works.

And....the lights just went out again. Hurrah! THE SAVINGS!!!