SAN FRANCISCO American Geophysical Union (AGU) scientists struck back at climate change deniers yesterday at the 44th annual AGU meeting of earth scientists from around the world in step with global leaders' discussion of solutions to climate change at the 17th U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, Africa.
A representative from NASA announced “My guess is that it isn’t that there are a lot of climate change deniers in as so much as the few of them there are - are just loud.”
Eighty nine percent of K-12 climate change educators believe global warming is happening
Further supporting the NASA position on global warming, a representative from the National Earth Science Teachers of America (NESTA) reported the results of 555 K-12 teachers in the United States who currently teach about climate change.
The survey included 61 questions about a range of topics including:
- Respondent demographics,
- Climate change education in K-12 classrooms school,
- Teacher preparation and professional development (in Earth and space science in general and climate change in particular),
- Educational resources teachers use, their preferences and needs for professional development and the challenges they face in teaching about climate change including school and community pressures.
- Lastly surveyed was the teacher’s understanding of climate change, using a selection of questions from the Leiserowitz et al. (2011) survey of climate change knowledge.
Survey results revealed potentially significant differences in climate change education practice, preparation, challenges and understandings based on gender, region of the country (Western states, Southern state, and Northeastern states), area of the school (rural, urban, or suburban), levels of college preparation and in-service professional development, and age of teacher.
On average, 89% of respondents indicated that they believe global warming is happening with the highest levels of agreement from respondents in Western states, younger teachers, urban teachers, and females.
Only 6% of respondents indicated that they did not believe global warming is happening. On average, only 13% of respondents attribute climate change to mainly natural causes with the highest rates of this response among male and Southern respondents.
Among additional data retrieved during the survey yet to be further analyzed was that climate change is most frequently taught in Earth Science and Geology courses, followed by Environmental Science and Biology, but is included in a wide range of other courses in the curriculum.
American public not in step with the nations teachers, scientists
In the AGU’s world-wide newspaper EOS the results of a 2009 survey of 3146 Earth Scientists were published showing that 97% of active climatologists would agree that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.
Despite the majority of Climatologists in agreement that the Earth’s average temperature is increasing, a 2009 PEW poll found that only slightly more than half the nation believed there was solid evidence the earth was warming and that number was on a significant decrease from prior year. Slightly more than a one-third believed it was because of human activity.
I’d rather die than admit I was wrong about climate science
Despite the doubts of some small portion of science teacher’s skepticism of the science behind global warming, there is nothing uncommon about descent in any scientific profession in general.
Presenting at his poster at the conference was an author who explained his theory regarding why Geology texts yet portray North America having its own plate despite common knowledge amongst the scientific community studying plate tectonics that both continents occupy the same plate.
Dr. Allen Krill, Department of Geology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway told a group of fellow AGU members that it seemed pretty clear to him that those who published their results stating that the North and South America were contained to their own individual plates before learning of the final irrefutable truth that both North and South America were contained on the same plate continued to defend their papers to their deaths, while those who had not; readily accepted the new information as they had no published nor public reputations they had to publicly defend. Dr. Krill is the author of the e-book Historical research exposing the scientific conspiracy against continental drift.
The next generation of climate literacy
A number of presenters including the author of Earth: The Operator’s Manual also seemed to agree with these findings that the younger generations may be less resistant to new science concepts as they are being presented the information with less stakeholders to defend their lifelong positions that filter or withhold information regarding the theory.
Global warming appeared in peer-reviewed science publications since the early 1800s, however, several generations within the science profession is still considered rather young given the disciplines of Chemistry and Physics dating back to the 16th century and arguably earlier. The science of Geology began with William Strata Smith in the early 1800s and Environmental Science with Rachel Carson in the 1960s.
NASA, NOAA, NSF join forces for climate literacy
Dr. Sarah Schroedinger presented a solution for the disparity between science educators and the general public. She outlined an interagency collaboration in support of climate change education. The results of such a collaboration may be found at a website known as CLEAN for Climate Literacy Energy Awareness Network showcasing a collection over 500 resources educators can access to bring into their classrooms. Yet another solution offered was additional collaboration at the climate science.gov library site
A number of representatives from partnerships with CLEAN testified to its use in dramatic results in educating the general public about the matter. One such group was Matt Lappe who spoke on behalf of ACE, the Alliance for Climate Education. The group also has its own lesson plans and findings. Lappe announced the group just welcomed its one millionth student member joining 200,000 students active in their online network, 35,000 on action teams having attended now more than 1500 leadership trainings.
Dr. Eugene Cordero introduced his Green Ninja: Footprint Renovation on You Tube
Cordero noted You Tube enjoys 3 billion hits per day with over 1.3 million videos uploaded daily. “Its clear,” Cordero stated, “TV is for those who want to lean back and relax. But for those choosing to spend their time on the internet, they want to lean forward and engage.”
References:
1 Leiserowitz, A., Smith, N. & Marlon, J.R. (2011) American Teens’ Knowledge of Climate Change.
Yale University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/american-teens-knowledge-of-climate-...
The National Earth Science Teachers Association is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization supporting Earth and space science education. Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved.
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