Ok, there is a method to my madness here. I will confess up front. I recently read a piece from a source called, “The Guardian” that discusses climate change and Republican arguments against climate change. The piece argues that the economy should be a higher priority than trying to do anything about climate change. I think climate change and the economy are inextricably linked over the short term, and especially the long term. I think to ignore climate change to encourage the economy is a bad risk and flirting with disaster down the road, and maybe sooner.
Right away, Ted Cruz is quoted as calling the people concerned with climate as a “climate cult.” Now, first of all this is plain name calling, and it is meant to demean, not meant to advance a discussion. This is where I am going with my essay, it has become next to impossible in this country to have a discussion about any issue or concern. If we continue to resort to constant name calling and demeaning rhetoric, we get nowhere, and, sadly, this may be exactly the intent, to kill discussion.
I do not claim to be a climate scientist, but I do try to learn about what I am encountering in my life. I look at learning as a process of problem solving and trying to understand what I do not understand.
Ok, so I have this tool called “the internet” where I can find lots of information to help me understand, some good, some reliable, some not so good, and some absolute garbage. I need to be very careful with the sources I locate. I need to ask questions about their agenda, their reputation, their credibility, and I do not want sources that merely cater to any biases I may have. I want the truth, or as close as I can come to the truth, and the best understanding of a question I am looking for answers to. I can learn to deal with the truth, but I am at a great disadvantage when it comes to problem solving when I am acting on the basis of faulty information and sometimes, outright lies.
I will tell you, I question everything I read today. I ask, who is saying this? What is their agenda? Who stands to benefit from this information being presented? Does this fly in the face of my prior understanding? Is this credible? And who else is supporting this position? There are more questions. I am very skeptical of most of what I encounter on the internet. It can be a great tool, and it can be a huge problem and source of disinformation. No one is there to referee my search for sources and flag the bad ones. I need to do this myself. As a teacher, and a reluctant fan of technology, especially to the degree my students accept technology, I have a great responsibility to teach my students to be skeptical consumers of information, to be vigilant reviewers of all that is encountered on the web.
I consider all of this part of the problem-solving process. Here is the greatest tool I can impart to my students, how to problem solve. In my opinion, this is where schools are failing our students. Never mind this ton of information and explosion of knowledge out there – slow down and teach our students how to be critical thinkers and evaluators of all they will encounter, not just in school, but in life as well. I will state a bias of mine, all of this starts with a strong knowledge of foundational skills. There are no substitutes for foundational skills no matter what the nattering nabobs of education may try to convince you. You can see, I am not a big fan of leaning into the technology as a substitute for foundational skills.
In my opinion, this is what education at the high school level should be all about – how to be critical consumers of information and to problem solve effectively, to teach students how to be self-directed learners and problem solvers.
I owe it to the reader to circle back to my lead about climate change. I have been a student of weather and climate for a long time, at least 40 years and really longer. I keep a daily weather journal/diary and I have for all of this time. In the beginning, my weather observations were written every day on the calendar. At some time, around the year 2000, my family gave me a 5-year weather journal, spiral bound, and very nice. I am on my fifth one of these now so I have a lot of observations/data at my disposal.
I should say that weather is what you see outside right now and in the more recent time frame. Climate is a way of describing weather patterns that are established and have been documented for a long time. Obviously, the weather in Vermont can be the same as some place in the South on any given day, but over time, the climate in Vermont is very different from the climate in Texas.
Meteorologists and climatologists study weather and climate. They also study factors contributing to weather and climate. The science that has been well documented and established points to some man-made actions that are affecting our climate. You will hear lots about greenhouse gases and the effect on our climate that results from a growing greenhouse effect. I am not revealing secrets when I talk about melting polar ice caps and shrinking glaciers as well as the loss of permanent snow fields around the earth. I am not revealing secrets when I talk about the rising ocean temperatures around the world and the effect this is having on world ocean currents like the Gulf Stream and the weather/climate in places affected.
Ok, you can connect your own dots, but the evidence is to climate change, and mostly contributed to by man’s actions especially with the use of fossil fuels for energy. I am not talking about Mother Nature just being capricious and toying with us in her own way.
You can connect your own dots, try to understand what is happening, and make your own conclusions. The point is to learn about what is happening and be able to make knowledge-based statements and decisions, not to revert to culture wars and name calling. Thank you, Ted Cruz, for helping me make my point.
Take care, and by the way, in the month of July, 2023, West Topsham, Vermont where I live received about 18.40 inches of rain, an unheard-of amount in prior years, hence the flooding of Vermont on July 10-11. 18.40″ of rain is a lot of rain in one month unless you are living where there is a monsoon season. That is not Vermont.
A Vermonter Writes - A Pathfinder 