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.
I hate to think that this man is corrupting and polluting the minds of his students.
Actually such a prof, and an old acquaintance of mine is a prof at UF so I am familiar with the phenomenon, actually thinks it is better that such a fanatic kill a dozen students and the prof, himself, than that someone in his classroom be armed.
The operant theory, at least in a portion of the professorial left, is that the fanatic is insane and thus not responsible for his actions thus there is no fault in him. The sane person who aborts the crazy guy's actions is a murderer because he consciously and reasonably killed someone he disagreed with. The nutjob is deserving only of care and understanding and therapy. The murderer is to be feared because he is rational when he kills. Ultimately the liberal identifies with the lunatic and can seem himself being a lunatic and being killed by a rational person but cannot identify with and thus fears the rational actor.
As much as envy, I think that fear drives the liberal “mind”-set.
Could be because of their unacknowledged, and justified, inferiority complexes. :)
Exactly. What a girly man.
Further evidence that an abundance of words proves absence of critical thinking.
Very interesting. Thanks for that. I would never in a million years get there on my own.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
Once you disregard the scientific method, you are no longer a scientist.
This guy is a nut.
Their “solution” to globull warming is to impoverish the US and give all our money and resources to turd world tinpot dictators.
Why shouldn’t we be on board?/sarc
I live in the free state of Tennessee. Saturday I walked into a gun store and 30 minutes later (after the mandatory background check) I walked out with two AR-15 lowers. Now to decide how to build them. Choices, choices....
As for the quaint notion that some licensed firearms owner is going to shoot him for the crime of being stupid, it hasn't happened yet. All - ALL - of the calls for violence on the issue have come from the Professor's side, the demonstrations, the shout-downs, the petitions for criminal prosecution for dissenters. All of them.
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