Republican lawmakers and their kin are opposing the acceptance of National Science Standards. Why? Because those standards are based on science. What they prefer is that the standards we use to guide curriculum in America’s public schools be the hobgoblin of the Koch Brothers and the rest of the petroleum industry. Way to ruin the country, man. Civilization too. Nice move.
As Chris Hays points out (see below) the anti-science industry in America is leaving Creationism behind and shifting towards the denigration of Climate Science, much to our detriment.
The following interview from All In covers this, and includes Mary Mazzio, documentary film maker, and Michael Mann, climate scientist. Watch it. Then get mad and do something about it.
While you are at it, have a look at this All In segment on the GOP ordering the Pentagon to ignore climate change. Including the Navy, which will be losing ALL OF ITS BASES if they ignore sea level rise.
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I more or less agree, but, based on the huge amount of PBS documentarie they fund, I actually think letting the Koch brothers have a lot more say in science education in our public schools would, in all fairness, be a considerable step forward.
First of all, Sanjay, I believe it’s only David Koch who funds PBS documentaries. I also believe there’s reason to question how rigorous the science presented in those documentaries is.
But the larger point is that our economy is largely based on science, and always has been. Consider: agriculture, based on genetics, organic chemistry, meteorology; steelmaking, based on the Bessamer process; electronics & communications, based on the work of Maxwell, Faraday, Marconi and others. That’s the short list.
Yes, fossil fuels are an important part of our economy today. But they won’t always be, and that change will happen whether or not we purposely cut back on CO2 emissions. The prudent policy is not to get left behind by others who do embrace the changing conditions.
Well, sure — I’ve been a scientist for three decades. Those Koch-funded documentaries are pretty good, actually, and do occasionally cut into right-wing orthodoxy (e.g. on evolution). You’re not giving me a reason why they’re teaching bad science; in fact I don’t think they are. They do seem to be propagating bad _policy_ and sometimes letting others who teach bad science slide. I don’t particularly favor thje Koch’s policy or societal recommendations, but the writing seems a bit of a thoughtless smear.
The Navy won’t be closing all its bases if the seas rise. Instead, they will be spending bazillions to move whatever they can to higher land, and abandoning the rest. Obviously they’d rather not do that, so they want to study climate change now. Because they want to save money.
“Conservatism” hasn’t been conservative for a very long time now, I’m afraid. And the right wing is now so crazy that even the military is too liberal for it, which is pretty shocking. That should be a wake-up call to the Republican Party, but so far it hasn’t been.