This is a true story. You won't believe me but it's no less true for that!
University Plymouth, this week. Question by lecturer - 'Who believes in global warming'. A sea of hands obviously goes up. But just to be naughty he then asks 'Who doesn't believe in global warming?' A few hands go UP!
Now remember, these are students - they are supposed to be reasonably informed and intelligent. And they are on a travel and tourism course, one of the areas already affected by global warming. WTF??
A simple fact - you can't 'believe' or 'not believe' in global warming. Global warming is happening. Climate change happens nearly all the time. Nobody disputes it. All scientists agree it is happening. So you can't 'believe' or 'not believe' it - it's a simple, recordable, scientifically proven FACT.
Where there's dispute is in the level of global warming caused by human action. Common sense suggests, and scientific records prove, that as carbon dioxide increases so do global temperatures. But the earth circles the sun in an orbit that changes over long periods of time. Movement of continents also change ocean currents. Volcanic activity can drop the temperature, pollution can mask levels of temperature rises. How much climate change is caused by human activity? That's the question.
What's scary is that despite the facts a proportion of even educated people haven't got it. I know it's not nice having to deal with it, and their lives will be a lot harder than ours were, but hiding from it won't make it go away. Idiots.
2 comments:
Your story illustrates a growing trend in education, as in the wider culture, that assumes all "truths" are relative and merely matters of opinion.
Which of course, is nonsense.
Or as I'd say - bullshit!
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