Year 3, Month 2, Day 17: Many Tables For One, In A Greek Restaurant

The Lehigh Valley Morning Call (PA) has a nice piece from a local allergist, discussing denialism in general in the context of a textbook dispute:

At a recent Saucon Valley School Board meeting, board member Bryan Eichfeld raised his concerns about a textbook proposed for the 2012-13 school year. The book was not a manual for teaching creationism in the classroom, nor was it a book espousing particular political beliefs. The textbook, “Globalization and Diversity,” simply spoke of the geopolitical, cultural and environmental impacts of — gasp — climate change.

Thankfully, the board overrode Eichfeld’s motion to reject the text, and for that it should be commended. However, the fact that this sort of science denialism is seeping into our schools and possibly hindering the education of our students is troublesome and deserves to be the topic of a healthy public discourse.

As an allergist in the Lehigh Valley, I have seen the health effects of a warmer climate — including an earlier and longer pollen season — firsthand. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international network of climate scientists, first recognized the potential for climate change to impact asthma and allergic diseases in 2001, and I have been deeply concerned about the implications for my patients ever since.

The affects of global warming will extend well beyond my specialization, however, and the implications for everyone will be serious. Climate change will exacerbate extreme weather events, jeopardize the U.S. food supply and drastically alter the landscapes we call home. Educating the public on the science behind these risks and their consequences is the first step to confronting and mitigating this pressing issue.

I’m in kind of a hurry, so this was ideal for a generic “Republicans are idiots” screed. Sent Feb 12:

For more than fifty years, the Republican Party has waged a steady war on expertise and logic. Since the election of Ronald Reagan, the role of actual facts in GOP policy-making has steadily diminished. The eight years of the Bush administration showed us what happens when ideology trumps reality, and it’s not pretty. It will take decades to recover from the damage inflicted during that time.

Nowhere is this more problematic than in the public discussion over the issues of climate and energy, where a group of factually-challenged ideologues have hijacked the conversation. The Tea-Partiers have been cynically manipulated by (to resurrect Teddy Roosevelt’s phrase) “malefactors of great wealth.” Their denial of global climate change serves the temporary profits of a few, while delaying the long-term preparations necessary in the face of one of the greatest threats our species has yet confronted.

Warren Senders