Posted on 10/12/2015 1:18:45 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s 2 a.m. on Friday, and I awaken and slowly consider the topic that I will teach in my class on earth science later today: global warming.
It is irrational to think there is a high probability that a licensed handgun owner will attend my class, have different perspectives than what I teach, become vitriolic, and pull out a gun and shoot me -- or worse, my students. Intellectually, I know that is unlikely. Reason, unfortunately, is not the same thing as emotion. Emotionally, I feel vulnerable standing in front of 120 students. I will be the focal point of their attention, and deep inside I am terrified.
I am frightened because I see a correlation between those who have decided there should be guns on campuses and those who deny anthropogenic global warming is occurring, despite clear scientific evidence that it is. The correlation is that, in both cases, many people are refusing to accept the facts. The fear is real because lives are being taken.
This week, I watched a video of a televised hearing on Capitol Hill in which Senator Ted Cruz questioned Aaron Mair, the president of the Sierra Club, about the veracity of warming trends. In that video, not only does the senator avoid referring to actual data sources, he frequently uses the terms “satellite data,” “facts” and “debate” to gain authority over the situation. Watching it, I suddenly realized that he had no need to cite sources and was not interested in a burden of proof. Rather, he was interested in winning because (like significant percent of the members of Congress) he is a lawyer. In the courtroom there are rules, and prosecuting attorneys do all that they can to win. At 2:20 a.m. on the morning of my class, I wonder how I should deal with any students who watched the interchange.
By 2:30 a.m., I have found a Washington Post article providing many of the particulars of what Senator Cruz omitted: direct NASA meteorological and sea surface temperature data that clearly show global warming over the same period that Cruz dismissed using (unsourced) “satellite data.”
At 3 a.m., I am integrating this new information into my lecture later that morning, but I am even more worried because I feel passionate (and that is risky). I want to argue my case, but I am afraid because just last week an angry student shot 18 students at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, nine of whom died. I arrive at work at 7:30 a.m., check my facts on NASA data online, and find from Yahoo.com that there has been another campus shooting overnight at Northern Arizona University. And, a few hours later, I receive reports of yet another one in my own state, near Texas Southern University.
So, there it is. Today, I will be the focal point of an earth science class, talking about a controversial topic that correlates politically with the issue of guns in the classroom. Most of the students began the semester with little to no interest in becoming scientists. And being mainly from Texas, a high proportion of these students are likely to disagree with my perspectives on science, education, society, economics and politics. A panicked sleep-deprived concern is that any one of 120 could be angry, might disagree with me and might have a gun. Although this is an irrational fear, campus shootings are committed by irrational, disenfranchised individuals.
It may appear that I have only two choices as to how to handle my fear. One would be to deny it and to teach my perspective on global warming with frustration and passion. Yet this strategy is actually riskier than being shot; people might listen to it because of my passion rather than because of data, logic and reason. That is, I might “convince them” that I am right and climate deniers are wrong, but that would be a tragedy because I, too, would become like a prosecution attorney concerned solely with winning. Second, I could avoid presenting my perspective, which I hold to be scientifically valid. That, however, would shortchange the students who are taking an earth science class.
So instead, I settle on a third option. I will present them with data that provide evidence for anthropogenic global warming and review the greenhouse effect as an important mechanism driving the warming trend. That represents the 97 percent scientific consensus that climate deniers won’t acknowledge. Then, I will share with them the basic contents of this essay. That is, I will lay out the ways in which I am feeling compromised in the classroom as a scientist. I will become an untrained lawyer for the defense, and then I will let them decide for themselves.
I find that this is the only option because politics in the United States has become a series of prosecutions that never rest. The playing field is somewhat unfair for scientists because we do not believe that the environment represents a “special interest”; rather, we consider it a common good. In addition, the prosecution is not taking place in a courtroom with established procedures and rules. Climate deniers do not have to rest their case; there is no summation of their argument. Should their arguments be exposed as invalid, they are free to change course and attack from another angle. It’s relentless.
I cannot be overly passionate in classroom because that too is unfair to students. The only way through this is deliberate, careful logic and shared compassion for the world. Anything else is a compromise that empowers anthropogenic global warming denial. And, with that, I must rest my case.
If this self-decieved bastard were truly as dispassionate and fact-driven as he professes to be, he’d explain to his students just how this bogus “97% of scientists agree” was derived.
But you can be absolutely certain that he won’t. Not in a million years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/
Threw up in my mouth reading this.
Fired M4 for the first time in Vegas and Now I know why people love their guns so much.
Working on getting license in NYC/USSR for a gun.
NEVER occurred to me while shooting all three guns that it was a killing tool.
Of course it can be in war, but so can a knife, your hands, and many other things.
It felt like a sport.
It felt great.
And, with that, I must rest my case.
Should have happened before the first paragraph not after all the whining and bleating.
This “man” sounds like a real pansy.
Pansies like Global Warming because they can grow and glow in its warmth, unlike sane people who have to live in the real world.
The 97% crap of scientists who back the concept of Global Warming came from a small group of respondents, not the universal scientific community (in the fields of environment, climatology, biology, etc).
Guns in school is a different argument but by this professor’s linkage, I can say that those who believe in Global Warming and “Gun-Free Zones” in schools are batshit crazy and dangerous to our children.
Remember, this man is a college professor, and he is dangerous to his students whom he would sacrifice to the god of stupidity and blindness.
The best way to get a license is to move to New Hampshire.
Get out of that RAT-infested chess pool!
How about the fact that he claims to teach people ill prepared to filter his nonsense...and is permitted, even paid, to do so.
UNT is a state school, a very large one.
This man, and people like him, enjoy being deluded. They think man(especially White) and his inventions are evil.
The climate has always, and will always, change over time. It’s a non-static, highly complex mechanism. We don’t truly understand it, and therefore any conclusion is bunk. If we understood it, why isn’t there a singular computer model? Why do they all give differing results?
As for guns, mass killings are almost exclusively committed in gun free areas. Libs are bat shit crazy.
I encourage younger people to learn trades, business, entrepreneurship, or get a degree in engineering.
Once the old bat, er, my fiance’s lovely mother passes, we’re gone.
But your admitting YOU are the irrational one here. How are we to know your fear of global warming is not predicated on the same type of irrationality?
There was nobody like this fool in the Advertising & PR Department.
The jerk teaches a science, yet he is no scientist. Instead, he is a thoroughly indoctrinated Leftist tool.
I’m gonna call BS on this one. Never have I heard of ANY mass shooting citing a belief in Global Warming as a factor. Now if this guy was a Christian, that might be cause for concern.
Does he understand that there's a difference?
As far as the crazies killing people in schools, they are doing it because it is a perfect environment for crazies to kill students and teachers without any opposition.
He should hope that he had a couple of concealed carriers in his classroom to protect all of them.
This kind of whiney weakness in men started showing up during Vietnam: if they had picked serving their country, they would have learned to find courage and also learn how weapons are used. Instead we had a national craze of service-avoiding and this is what we ended up with.
Here is a home work assignment for you. Explain how a gas heating the Earth's atmosphere is causing cyclic El Nino's. And try to use a little thermodynamics in your answer.
He really needs to consider meds.
>>It may appear that I have only two choices as to how to handle my fear.
I won’t even bother to suggest that this homo should man-up. So, just put on your Big Girl Panties and go to work, Steve. Laws against guns in school have not stopped a single shooter.
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