The global warming deniers on the education board want Texas' public school science teachers to cast doubt on the findings of the experts at the National Academy of Sciences, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, yes, all the tenured faculty of Texas A&M University's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. These respected sources agree: Our climate is warming.
NVDL: It's scary how dumb people are in 2009.
The State Board of Education's decision to require the teaching of arguments against the existence of global warming makes two things clear:
This is no harmless coffee shop discussion. This will impact our children's prospects for the future and Texas' reputation in an increasingly competitive science- and technology-based economy. And it's time we all paid closer attention.
The ongoing debate on whether to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in Texas schools had already made it clear that these science doubters had gained a foothold on this important board. That debate, however, arose from the inherent conflict between established science and some fundamentalist Christians' insistence on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis.
If some fundamentalists are unable to accept scientific findings that seem incompatible with their beliefs, that's certainly their right, but they should not be able to impose those views on all our children — especially in science class.
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