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Educational annoyance

It is a good thing that the current educational system rewards mediocrity. Regurgitating known talking points that have been proven wrong in peer reviewed papers is one such manifestation of cut and paste research.
It is a good thing that the current educational system rewards mediocrity. Regurgitating known talking points that have been proven wrong in peer reviewed papers is one such manifestation of cut and paste research. So let’s start from scratch, again.

First, define climate change. Now I know, doing things the old fashioned way is, well, old fashioned. According to the latest IPCC missive the definition now used is not the one used by the UNFCCC. (Look it up, article 1). It now reads: Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. (SYRAR5- glossary page 120). Therefore, according to this definition, climate change is not only real but has occurred since time immemorial. In fact, according to this definition, human (anthropological) climate change has occurred even before humanoids walked the earth. 

Do humans have an influence on climate? Only on a local level. Perhaps the students in Duffield can do a little experiment? Record the morning and afternoon temperatures, always at the same time. Then compare them to the temperature numbers from Environment Canada for the city of Edmonton. Invariable the numbers are higher in the city because of the asphalt and concrete. It is called the Urban Heat Island effect. 

Education as taught under constraints imposed by various bureaucrats is not exactly prone to teach history. If such was the case, they would look up the Minoan warm period or the Medieval warm period and assess the estimated temperatures in those times. They may even learn about the Holocene climatic optimum where temperatures were warmer than now, especially in northern latitudes. Or they could possibly Google the Triassic period when dinosaurs romped in plus 1500 Co2 levels, instead of current 410 levels of plant food. 

In other words, I am convinced that the “youth of today” should protest any perceived injustice. However, you do not protest “a belief”. I protest the complete inability of certain individuals to distinguish the difference between facts and belief. 

Perhaps a quote from the president of the U.K. Royal society is illustrative: “A considerable change in climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the polar regions ... (places that) have been hitherto covered (in ice), have in the last two years entirely disappeared, 20 November 1817.

Joe Prins, St. Albert
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