Should schools teach climate change? This bill would make it mandatory.
A new bill from State Sen. Andrew Gounardes would require that all New York public elementary and secondary schools teach climate change. Image via Pexels
A new bill from a local pol whose district was devastated by Superstorm Sandy would require that all New York public elementary and high schools teach climate change in the classroom.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes’ legislation would make the Commissioner of Education create a model climate change curriculum that would be incorporated into science, social studies, history and health classes. The syllabus would also include environmental justice.
“The fact that the biggest existential threat of our time is not a standardized part of our public school curriculum is a glaring hole in our education system,” Gounardes said. “If we are to understand the nature of this complex threat and address it at every level, today’s students must understand the problem.
“For too long, the public conversation about climate change has been distorted by fossil fuel companies and politicians with an interest in maintaining the status quo. It is now imperative for students to understand the science, the history, the politics and health implications of this global emergency.
More than 80 percent of parents in the United States support the teaching of climate change, according to a joint poll by NPR and Ipsos. Sixty-eight percent believe that climate change and its impacts on our environment, economy and society should be taught, while 16 percent said the fact that it exists should be taught — but not its potential impacts.
The study also found that two-thirds of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats agree that children in the classroom should be exposed to the topic.
A separate report revealed that 86 percent of teachers are supportive of teaching it.
Related: Outdated federal flood maps leave residents at risk, experts say
With hurricanes, floods and wildfires growing stronger by the day, Gounardes — who represents Bay Ridge, Bath Beach, Gerritsen Beach and Manhattan Beach — argued the time is now for students to understand and learn how to reduce the effects of climate change.
“Those of us who represent waterfront districts know from firsthand experience just how vulnerable we are to superstorms like Sandy and natural disasters worsened by climate change,” he said.
“The next generation of future leaders must have the tools to understand and tackle climate change and the effects that are only forecast to worsen. Education is the key to change.”
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Do you suppose that the reason a smaller amount of republicans think climate change (cc) ought to be taught in schools is because there are many scientists who think the climate has always been cyclical? Kids today do not remember decades ago that Al Gore & the other hysterical climate radical Leftist folks said we were going to be living in an ice age by the 90’s. Well how did that work out? The democrats/globalists have for decades been trying to control humanity & trying to figure out way to steal their money/earnings & take away freedoms & businesses. They are dictatorial tyrants. Listen to them; watch their actions. They are intolerant, bigoted; even their media will NOT report that there are professionals who do not believe their climate claims. But being the fascists they are they will NEVER have any of those people on their media. Of course we should live clean lives but to incite hysteria into our children is beyond the pale. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE in 12 years & to teach children this is a travesty. The Left are deranged, hate the innocence of children & want to beat them into submission with all their claims – climate death, that the world is racist (well, except for them of course). Left even claim that climate change is racist. These morons should NOT be teaching anyone anything. WE need to get democrats/globalists/politicians OUT of education; We need to DEFUND the DOE -they are destroying minds, futures, academia, hope, sanity. NYC schools are being run by democrat racists who are destroying education & propping up kids who DO NOT study hard to get ahead. They claim this is racist. Parents are angry about what the democrats are doing but these liars march on in their tyrannical dictatorial style while they burn down the futures of children. STOP voting democrat; when you do you are not winning. Right now only democrats run NYC & it is a shambles! It is THEY who have destroyed life for you.
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/02/image012-copy.jpg?w=515&ssl=1&fbclid=IwAR2OJ9Zdi72Vw8cPgoNwuFt_ADCjiR21Od_OXtOPhMmSW2DOTeO_F34VKro
“Kids today do not remember decades ago that Al Gore & the other hysterical climate radical Leftist folks said we were going to be living in an ice age by the 90’s. Well how did that work out?” If you look at the predictions scientists actually made it turns out things are progressing faster than expected. More glaciers have retreated. More flooding is happening. More food insecurity is occurring because of drought. Fires are burning hotter. Scientists expected there to be the same number of hurricanes but they’d be stronger and wetter but not this strong or wet. The effect of smoke on ash on albedo was underestimated. And by the way, An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 so I have to ask if you’re talking about the 2090’s.
The corruption of the teaching of hard science is one of the greatest tragedies of this anti-science global statist cult .
You can either understand Newton or believe Al Gore .
The question Bob Armstrong is afraid to answer: explaining how Newtonian gravity accounts for this fact:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
(It doesn’t.)
The question David Appell can’t answer is explaining how it shows that atmospheric CO2 could cause measurable surface warming.
I’ve explained this to you more than once:
me on 1/17/20:
“CO2 absorbs the infrared radiation given off by the Earth’s surface, which puts the molecule into an excited states. Then when it collides with an air molecule, this extra energy increases the kinetic energy of the scattering molecule. Temperature is the average kinetic energy of a gas’s molecules, so the temperature of the air goes up.”
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/thehill-v4/2019_was_the_second_hottest_year_on_record_per_nasa_and_noaa/#comment-4760942644
You have still failed to explain how it could be physically possible for atmospheric CO2 to measurably influence temperatures near Earth’s surface.
Here again is the physics, which you seem not to understand:
me on 1/17/20:
“CO2 absorbs the infrared radiation given off by the Earth’s surface, which puts the molecule into an excited states. Then when it collides with an air molecule, this extra energy increases the kinetic energy of the scattering molecule. Temperature is the average kinetic energy of a gas’s molecules, so the temperature of the air goes up.”
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/thehill-v4/2019_was_the_second_hottest_year_on_record_per_nasa_and_noaa/#comment-4760942644
Thank you for confirming that you lack the competence needed to understand the meaning of “measurably influence”.
That requires a calculation, which I sure you won’t understand.
So what kind of answer do you expect?
I don’t expect you to be able to offer any valid explanation of how your superstition could be physically possible, because you have already shown that you are too incompetent to even understand the units involved.
Data like these show the large role CO2 plays in reducing the amount of sunlight-energy leaves the Earth:
https://www.forum-ee9.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/toa-clear-cirrus-cld-2-1024×341.png
No they don’t.
What shows how it could be physically possible for atmospheric CO2 to measurably influence Earth’s surface temperature?
“No they don’t.”
Why not?
The Earth radiates to space approximately what it receives from the Sun, regardless of the spectrum.
What shows how it could be physically possible for atmospheric CO2 to measurably influence Earth’s surface temperature?
…radiates “approximately” to space?
Not good enough. What’s the actual energy imbalance? It doesn’t take much….
The actual energy imbalance varies cyclically and is zero only instantaneously as it crosses from positive to negative and vise versa. It is irrelevant to the surface temperature.
The CO2 has a very low emissivity and a very low absorptivity. It is not a surface and it isn’t massive enough relative to the matter it would need to affect.
What are the numbers for CO2’s emissivity and absorbtivity?
They are very (i.e. off the chart) small ~< 0.05, as mapped by Hottel and Egbert for furnace sizing in 1941.
I didn’t misunderstand anything about the units involved.
You aren’t even capable of comparing latent heat with specific heat.
You can’t compare them — they have different units.
See? You are too stupid to understand that they both have units of heat per unit mass for a given temperature and quality of the matter involved. For any heating or cooling where there is a phase change, both must be combined.
Specific heat and latent heat do not have the same units.
They do not get “combined” in a phase transition — one dominates then, at constant temperature.
You don’t understand that a phase transition takes place at a constant temperature.
Presuming that heating or cooling involves a change of temperature, if there is also phase change, both specific heat and latent heat get combined. They are both thermophysical properties of matter that quantify heat per unit mass for the conditions (P, T, Q) involved. When it comes to Thermodynamics, you are ignorantly blowing acrid smoke.
This experiment shows that CO2’s downward energy transfer is +0.2 W/m2 in a decade. But you lack the ability to transfer than into the number you seem to want. You must learn more physics.
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339–343 (19 March 2015).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
There is nothing in the abstract you linked that suggests more than correlation of observation with speculation. You have yet to offer anything of substance that confirms the possibility of atmospheric CO2 causing measurable warming of Earth’s surface. You offer only your ignorant assertion that cold atmospheric CO2 transfers energy downward to the warmer surface. You have yet to show how that could be physically possible, or if it were, how the atmospheric CO2 could even possibly radiate 0.2 W/m^2 toward the surface.
It is obvious that you don’t know the first thing about Physics,
You clearly didn’t read the paper, because they breakdown the differences seen by wavelength, which allows identification of the gas doing the forcing.
Here are two more papers that did something similar:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
“Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
There is no physically possible way that atmospheric CO2 could absorb or radiate enough energy to measurably affect Earth’s surface temperature. If there were, someone would state how it possibly could. So far, all I have seen from you and the rest of the carbophobes is ignorant circular reasoning and superstitious nonsense.
As I’ve said many times now, CO2 absorbs much of the IR that is radiated by the surface. That heats the lower atmosphere and surface:
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/595px-atmospheric_transmission.png
Nonsense. The Sun heats the surface and the sutface heats the lower atmosphere.
“You offer only your ignorant assertion that cold atmospheric CO2 transfers energy downward to the warmer surface.”
I see you’re also confused about the second law of thermodynamics. I’m not surprised.
You are stupid, too. You treat the atmosphere like a solid surface.
That is not what anyone is doing.
Have you ever studied any physics, anytime? I’m curious to know.
Yeah, I understood it too. I spent a career earning a living by applying it. You are just stupid.
Did you ever get beyond F=ma?
Obviously, you are clueless.
Applying what?
Physics.
I’m more interested in this cult claim!
The people who discovered the infrared absorption spectrum of greenhouse gasses died over a century ago. How were they able to pass their religious beliefs off as science for so long without anyone besides Bob Armstrong noticing?
It’s a claim so fantastic, one would have to be a member of a cult to believe it…
climate.nasa.gov/evidence
Should children be taught how to read a thermometer? o_O
Yeah, obviously.
climate.nasa.gov/system/internal_resources/details/original/1736_world-of-agreement-2018.jpg
No one has ever stated or shown how it could be physically possible for atmospheric CO2 to cause the observed temperature change.