High-school teacher spreads the word on climate change

comments from our community

• 
  Posted by Kelly Tue Mar 3, 2009 3:50pm PST

  most people dont care.. thats the problem... not that we dont know the risks... we just dont care. Drug users know the risks, but still take drugs. People steal things knowing that they probably will get caught. And people only care about themselves in general. So we could put the argument forward, so what if there is climate change, ill be fine. who cares how everyone else is. No argument towards climate change is perfect, so maybe we should ignore it all together... lets say that pollution sucks... rmember back to the days where the air was clean, the beaches were clean, the food was clean... lets battle pollution and clean up the world... and hey that has the added bonus of helping to slow climate change.. booyah @#$%!

  Report Abuse
• 
  Posted by teachmoore43 Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:53am PDT

  Thanks for the information. I've been reading a lot on the subject so I can better inform my students. Just heard about a teacher conference in Berkeley, CA this summer that I might try to go to... http://www.sallyridescience.com/for_educators/institutes/lbl071509

  Report Abuse
• 
  Posted by adoucette Wed Jan 13, 2010 12:16pm PST

  The bottom left row, labeled as CATASTROPHIC, of the seas rising 20 ft, millions of people displaced, economic collapse etc etc, CANNOT happen in a decade as he suggests. What is left out of this silly diagram is the opportunity for relatively LOW COST, MITIGATION, which is why the Dutch still live where much of their land is below sea level. What is left out of the Action side, is that we already ARE taking action, but every additional action has a cost, and not all actions have the same cost/benefit ratio, so it makes sense that if we ARE going to do things to reduce climate change, than the relative amount of climate change we get for them should be related to the societal cost. What is left out is that the Top right, GCC is false but trying to avoid it we cause a Global Economic Depression, that this block could be WORSE than the climate induced problems in the Bottom Right block. What is left out, is the bottom right, where GCC is true and we take action does not necessarily result in a happy face. In this simplistic level of discussion the costs cause the same Global Economic Depression that the Top right block costs and that can be just as bad (or worse) than the changes caused by climate Change. He means well, but he's not doing his students any favors by framing this complex issue in such a polarized manner. How can one be a student in his class and reasonably disagree with his conclusion that we must do something NOW to avoid CATASTROPHE?

  Report Abuse