Thousands of U.S. Schools, Colleges, and Universities Set for Teach-In to Focus Nation on Global Warming
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 12.29.07
As the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Ramachandra Pauchauri puts it, “What we do in the next two or three years will determine the future of our planet.”
And in an effort to mobilize the nation to act before it is too late, an environmental education group, Focus the Nation, is asking schools, colleges and universities across America to set aside January 31 as a day to focus on global warming solutions for the country.
The nationwide event kicks off the evening of January 30th with an interactive web-cast titled the 2% Solution. With the 31st being the national teach-in.
True enough, there are a myriad of ways to get your school involved regardless of age level, but the problem is that there just aren’t many days left before the event. In reality, January 31st is just over a month away and many schools are either off on break or just coming back at that time.
Regardless, there are over a thousand schools already signed up for the teach-in, and you can bet that mine will be involved in some way as well. That makes it over a thousand and one schools on the list.
Granted, I teach at a middle school, so you won't see a bit of the political aspect of it you'll see on the Focus the Nation website in what we choose to do. And if you're in the K-12 system I'd stay away from the political angle as well. The worst thing you can do is mix kids and politics. But the teach-in is definitely do-able in a K-12 setting, and the science is clear that global warming is real and human-caused this time around.
And I realize that it’s short notice to organize, but climate change is the biggest problem we face. Maybe you can pull something together in your school as well, because children are already bearing the brunt of global warming.
See also:: Kids Create Shoes of Hope in Fight Against Climate Change
via:: Essex Library
You seem unaware of the many recent developments in research that indicate that any human impacts are likely to be inconsequential. The warming that we have witnessed (which has stopped for the past 8 years even though CO2 has continued to increase) now appears to be part of a natural cycle. I recommend that do you a current review instead of accepting the Pachauri/Gore dogma. Even the Working Group I report does not support statements made by Pachauri and Gore, and they both admit to embellishment to gain attention. If you want students to gain a good understanding of climate change, by all means provide balance and keep an open mind about the possible causes, eg, solar/cosmic radiation.
Global warming impacts are NOT going to be inconsequential. Every week there is more and more research showing that global warming is occuring faster and stronger and that future impacts will be more severe and sooner than we expected. The IPCC has concluded that current global warming is over 90% likely due to human emissions of GHGs and that human emissions are 13 time more responsible for current global warming than solar radiation. The solar radiation hypothesis of current global warming has been disproved by numerous scientific research studies. The correlation of solar output to global temperatures started to break 30 years ago. For about the past 30 years, while solar energy output has decreased, global temps have continued increasing. Solar radiation is NOT responsible for current global warming. This has already been scientifically established. And global warming has NOT stopped over the past eight years. And the IPCC has made clear that current global warming IS NOT PART OF A NATURAL CYCLE.
The science is well established - global warming is due to human emissions, it is constantly accelarating, and it will lead to serious consequences throughout the planet.
Um, has Martin above been living under a rock? Surely he can't be a regular reader of Treehugger... how has he been resisting saying that same ignorant nonsense in response to, um, virtually every post here at Treehugger which all basically go against everything he's saying?
Just strikes me as a bit odd, is all. Hah.