The second paper due for my Geography 100 class is on (drumroll) Glowball Warmening and The Greenhouse Effect. It is due today. I finished and submitted it yesterday, via email.
I had to read a chapter in the $100 textbook about how man’s contribution of CO2 and other Greehouse Gases are the cause of Glowball Warmening. It included sections on weather patterns and how they help mold the different regions of the planet versus how the terrain molds the weather patterns, changes in precipitation patterns because of Warmening caused by man-caused GHG’s, and how all of these things effect storms and their severity, just to name a few of the topics.
The book does not let the student question their “facts”. It is hammered in repeatedly. There is not a single mention of skeptics or “deniers” or any of their arguments. Which is more than somewhat funny because, at the end of the chapter there is a section titled “Critical Thinking”. At the end of this section is where the questions Der Professor chose for us to answer are located.
The questions were to be answered in essay form (two pages, double spaced and footnoted) and did not include any openings with which one could dispute their theory on Anthropogenic Global Warming without looking like an asshole spoiling for a fight (aka: “That Guy”).
For instance:
#3 – Growers sometimes intentionally elevate the levels of CO2 in their greenhouses to increase plant growth, and warmer conditions also may extend agricultural regions farther toward the poles. With more CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is there also an expectation of better crop production? What evidence can you find of this possible benefit?
#4 – Some dry regions will likely benefit from more rainfall, and some productive areas may become too wet or dry. What do the models predict for changes in precipitation? Which countries will gain and which will lose if the atmosphere warms?
Do you see where I’m going here? That is one hell of a strong front to have to work through when you don’t believe in AGW or to get through to even question it.
No arguments allowed. Just go to NOAA’s site, and the EPA’s site, and the IPCC’s site and get your info. Convert it into your own words and move on to the next question. If I were some dew-eyed college freshman straight out of high school (like 90% of my classmates) I’d probably not even have the faculty to question it. Sadly for me (and my grade on this paper), I’ve been blogging the fallicies of AGW for six years and have just oodles of links to back me up.
None of which I got a chance to use because of the clever way they worded the questions.
I swear I used all the snark I think would be allowable and still pass. Namely, finding folks who don’t believe in the “A” in AGW and using their data. It took probably 25-50% longer, but I hope will be worth it. My favorite footnote was from a very well lettered group (The CGFI) who declares that more CO2 in the atmosphere will be the best thing to happen to crop production since raindrops. This almost directly refutes the EPA’s and the US Dept. of AG’s doomsday models, whose links I “accidentally” lost in the ether.
I’ll hopefully hear back within a week on how I did. I’ll let you know.
I will be very interested. I had a few classes like that in university – I just wrote what they wanted me to in order to get my grade – “pleasing the teacher”. I didn’t care to take prinipled stands too often when my grades were on the line. Failing and retaking a class because of politics would not have looked good on my transcripts. Would have just made me look like a moron, like I didn’t understand the material.
Good luck. If you have a good instructor, who values thought, you should get an excellent grade, especially if you stayed within the spirit of the questions and responded thoroughly.
I feel your pain. I recently retired from the Air Force reserves, and a few months later my civilian employer laid me off. What a bonus!
So I’m taking night classes at the local JC while looking for work.
I took a required US history class, one of two required for everyone working toward an AA, AS or BA, BS. There was so much PC drivel I really had a hard time finishing the class. The teacher and materials were factualy wrong on several occations. The worst part though was the entirely one sided arguments presented on everything from the Civil War, to the Spainish American War. 1st & 2nd World Wars, etc. Don’t even get me started on Korea and Vietnam. If the instructor wasn’t teaching from the official Communist Party USA lesseon plans I’ll be surprised. The lack of depth was amazing. No attempt to understand underlying significant actions. No opportunity was missed to show America as petty, brutal, greedy and self-serving. No context covering conditions elswhere in the world were touched upon. We covered the Civil War with no discussion of Lee, Grant, etc. I doubt a single student in the class aside from me knew who Gen. Picket or Col. Chambers were or how significant they were, or how Sherman made Georgia howl. No talk of conditions in Cuba or Puerto Rico or the Phillipines under Spanish colonial rule, just all the obsenities that US forces committed during and immediately after the Spanish American War.
The whole thing was disgusting and left me bitter and deeply concerned over what college students are learning today. I now know for a fact that any non-history major is effectively ignorat of history unless they’ve educated themselves, just as all liberal arts majors are more or less completely ignorant of mathematics and hard science unless again they’ve educated themselves.
Our educations system as it currently exists will be our doom!
I’m finished ranting now. Spring semester starts for me in three days.
Wish me luck!
I wish you the same.
Just get through it without compromising your morals. You may end up dropping a class or two if you just can’t stand the instructors.
When I went back to school in 1980 to finish up a couple of credits and finally get a degree (left over from 68-72) I had to take a Poli-Sci course. Teacher was a full-on communist who warned that the fascist Ronald Reagan was going to ruin the Supreme Court forever and destroy America, but he wasn’t worried because Reagan was also going to start a nuclear war and obliterate the world as we knew it…
Longest quarter of my life.
We’ll send you cookies when you’re in the re-education camp.
I can relate, Phil. While down in Cottage Grove for two days with my Sis last week, she gave me a book, “The Imperial Cruise” by James Bradley, the guy who wrote “Flyboys”.
The book is an out and out hit piece on Teddy Roosevelt. I’ve read the first two chapters, and basically, all they do is concoct a theory that the entire history of the USA is based on White Supremacy!
I’ve been part of that history now for 66 years, and I’m here to call BullTwaddle on that.
It’s no wonder out kids and grandkids have such a FUBAR worldview, if this is what passes for scholarship.
You ARE going to have to decide between getting the degree and upholding your principles, though. THAT will be a tough decision, because once you speak out in one or two of your classes, you WILL be blacklisted by the profs, and it will be hard to get anything better than a “C”, ever.
Go in and talk to the prof. Some of them are willing to entertain differing views if you have well-footnoted arguments. I took a class at a local community collage a while back on British history (time from Queen Victoria to current) taught by a former British subject who was strongly anti-gun, and I wrote a paper on the history of UK gun control. He called it a pro-gun polemic, but he also said I represented my sources correctly, and I used a lot of UK Home Office reports and web-sites, so he disagreed with my position but was fair-mined enough to give me a good grade. But dealing with some of my fellow students in my teaching classes (I was working on a teaching degree & certificate) was a long, trying time. Not as trying as a few of the schools I’ve worked at, but that’s another thread…..
Armageddon Rex said: “Our educations system as it currently exists will be our doom!”
That’s the point!
I was born in 1976. Almost every single teacher I had in my entire scholastic career was either an avowed Communist or agreed with a “friendly” version of the doctrine.
Good students who actually engaged them in conversations – such as myself – would get the truth from them about where they stood. The student body in general would get a watered down version of the above.
I meant Col. Joshua Chamberlain in the comment above. I’m not as ignorant as I am hot headed when I get carried away in a rant. No dishonor was intended. If any were offended by my slip up, I appologize.
Armageddon Rex