By Tom Henderson • Staff Writer • 

Mac High kids to ask council for climate action

Only online subscribers may access this article.

One-day subscriptions available for just $3. Click here for one-day access.

For all other subscription offers, click here.

Already a subscriber, please .

Comments

Randy

The Mac High students should visit the website “climate depot.com” and educate themselves about the opposing views on manmade climate change before they start espousing their teacher’s and Zero Waste’s opinions. The students and their teacher should also read the scientific report on the Vostok Ice Cores that show temperature levels increased before CO2 levels did. Therefore, the relationship is reversed and temperature levels are changing for reasons other than manmade CO2. Have them investigate the way NOAA has “adjusted” historic temperature data to see if they accept it. Finally, have them explain why the Little Ice Age occurred Between 1300 and 1870 before CO2 emissions escalated in modern times. There are a lot of skeptics on the manmade aspect of climate change for good reasons. Rallying students for a cause without educating them on the facts is inappropriate.

actionjax

I agree with you Randy and this is why people should home school or send their kids to private school. Who wants their child used as a political puppet to bring the teacher some kind of attention or acclaim? Repulsive per public school usual.

Mike

I think it is great the kids today day are concerned about their future. They are learning to research the scientific consensus of their time, consider its consequences, and develop a the true American spirit of political action. It gives me faith in our youth. Randy seems sure the earth is being left in better shape for our kids and how he found it. I hope he is right. There are 8 billion of us humans on the earth now. We're pulling precious resources out of the earth every day so all of us can have a better life, NOW. The kids are wondering what will be left for them?

Don Dix

Study a little world history --how did the Romans grow grapes in Scotland if today's climate is supposed to be warmer? How were people able to farm in Greenland 800 years ago? Have the students been made aware that the Arctic sea ice mostly disappeared -- 97 yrs. ago? And without the 'NOAA adjustments', the 1930s rank as the hottest decade.

Even last year (summer of '18), Portland 'supposedly' set a record with 32 days over 90 -- and yet just 30 miles southwest, McMinnville's record 90 degree days is over 50 -- set in 1931.

With full and honest disclosure, Syring and Marshall should be quite able to explain these 'anomalies' and the other temperature swings over 4 billion+ years since the Earth was formed -- (hint - it was never humans, but now it is?).

Please indulge those of us who have facts and questions that don't match the mantra of AGW being 'settled science'!

Don Dix

Mike -- Science has NEVER been a matter of consensus -- and learn the difference between theory and hypothesis.

Rotwang

Oh, bless their hearts.

Mike

Don. Hey nice lecture. You even get to cherry pick items from history as if those some how negate what we 8 Billion humans are doing. You are right weather is variable. What the current 'consensus' is we humans are speeding everything up which does not give the earth time to adjust. A lot of science is agreed upon, i.e. consensus. Consensus does not me unanimous. We are sucking all the resources out of the earth almost as fast as we can so we can continue to grow and expand. 10 Billion, 12 Billion. And science is about, theory, hypothesis and testing those hypothesis. But thanks for the little lecture on what I need to learn.
Because we are consuming the treasure of the earth as fast as we can for our current pleasure and comfort, I don't blame the kids for being pissed at us.
The thing is if you are right and we humans are making no difference in our environment. And I mean Environment with the capital E not just your pet CO2 global warming focus, then no big deal everything is fine. If you are wrong then the kids have been left a sad situation. The kids have every right to be pissed at us. We are destroying their future.
I like they are learning to be Americans, expressing their opinions, coming together.
And of course given the opinions of randy & action the kids are seen as dupes and unable to think for themselves. The kids have to contend with us adults who refuse to take them seriously.

Don Dix

Mike -- Cherrypicking? There are thousands of facts, historical and present, that should lead one to ask specific questions -- and using the 'consensus argument' isn't anything science.

Speeding up what? The Roman Warm Period was 600 yrs -- Dark Ages 500 yrs. -- Medieval Warm Period 400 yrs. -- Little Ice Age 550 yrs. The Earth is approx. 150 yrs into a warming trend, which is a natural recovery from the LIA.

As for the students, they are only as informed as the curriculum includes. If the whole story isn't available (in school), how does one formulate a complete and reasonable conclusion?

And when it is stated, 'the debate is over, the science is settled', that's dishonest -- there never was a debate, and science is never settled.

Mike

Don. I agree. Science is never settled. But scientists do reach consensus regarding 'facts', you know that, and I assume you know that is what I was referring to. At the moment there is consensus that our collective human behaviors are altering our Environment in not a healthy way. That the carbon we are pulling out of the earth and transferring to the atmosphere along with gases like methane and other behaviors which alter the earth's ability to adjust fast enough so that we humans experience serious dislocation and catastrophe.
And your point. It has happened before, it is happening now. Nothing to do. Relax. Be Happy. No reason to alter our collective behavior regarding energy extraction and consumption. And if you are right, well all this foolishness will just be a big waste, and the kids hoodwinked and silly because it was going to happen anyway. Our grand kids and great grand kids are destined to have a crappy future.
Maybe as you suggest to many beans put in the CO2 Climate change pot. I'm inclined to think we humans are messing with our Environment in many potentially terminal ways. Then I tend to be a pessimist and you seem to be an optimist. Good for you.

Tuvey

Climate change being of the Earth or of what people are doing to it will be debated as long as we inhabit it. I want to know what the kids are going to give up. No new cell phones, kindles, iPads, computers, computer games, straws, plastic bags, styrofoam containers. Are they ready to give these things up or are they only expecting the adults to moderate? I want an accounting of what they've done so far.

Joel

Great comment Tuvey!

Joel

At least that kid from Sweden (the one that gives everyone the angry eye and chews out the adults in her speeches) came to the United States to give her latest speech in some kind of solar powered yacht.

Mike

Tuvey. You're right the American kids got it good now. All kind of toys. Stuff they've been born into and don't know much else. Thing is they sometime learn from watching adults. Few American adults want to give anything up. But the kids are thinking about their future. That's a good thing. If as many seem to suggest us 8 billion humans are having no impact on where we live and we're not responsible for any changes, then it makes no different what the kids think or do. Their future is out of our and their control.

Don Dix

CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is .004 (four tenths of 1 percent). By measurement standards that is considered a trace gas. OSHA's high end safe level of C02 is 5000ppm for an 8 hr. day. The extinction low level is 150ppm (life on Earth dies).

If one works in an office setting, the average C02 concentration is 600 - 800ppm (double the atmosphere).

Greenhouses pump C02 at levels of 1200ppm+ (triple the atmosphere) to promote faster and healthier plant growth. And greenhouse workers spend hours tending to those plants.

If C02 is the pollutant (and deadly) that some claim, why aren't those exposed to such high levels sick and dying?

Humans are purported to contribute 3% (EPA) of atmospheric C02. 3% of a trace gas is minuscule, and yet we are 'told' taxing that trace gas is the way to lower levels back to pre-industrial levels. Why?

There is an admission by observation that the Earth is 'greener' than anytime since humans began studying the climate. Healthier plants lead to healthier life for all other life forms (circle of life). And the Earth is so much closer to the low extinction level than the dangerously high level. On that premise, facts and observation go against the grain of the AGW claim.

Mike

It is odd that nearly 200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action. I read the "25 reasons CO2 does not cause global warming" They should not start with trying to dismiss the 97% of the scientists who say there is a human connection. The core of the CO2 is not to blame argument is interesting. It maintains that sun activity is the reason for climate changes and the human activity since 1870 and industrialization is mere happenstance. They content the earth is in a cooling cycle since 2016 and will continue to cool until 2044. Great news for the kids who are concerned for the future.
And Don knows that CO2 isn't being considered a gas like tear gas or something which will poison workers. He knows CO2 and methane effects the earths ability to reflect and deflect that sun action. I'm sure he knows the building evidence that CO2 also acidifies the ocean. And acidic oceans have been associated with extinctions of massive amount of life.
But since CO2 isn't the problem not to worry. I am still glad the kids are thinking about and concerned for their future. I am happy they are exercising their American freedoms.

Web Design and Web Development by Buildable