Putting Reality back into Energy Education
A few weeks ago I was asked to join an effort to encourage university’s to not divest mainstream energy sources from their endowments. Environmental lobbyists are encouraging students to blindly follow their claims concerning global warming and to protest colleges’ investments fossil fuel companies. In response, some colleagues of mine put together an outstanding letter and proposal to improve the energy education at universities around the country.
You can find the letter and list of signatories here:
This is the most important argument that you never hear. People seem to think that reducing emissions won’t have repercussions. If people understood the suffering that would result from divestment on the scale advocated by alarmists, there would be no debate.
I think you’re right. Similarly to entitlement, when faced with pain now or worse pain in the future (in this case perceived pain), we seem to choose the latter. Even many people who are convinced of the impending disaster of climate change would have second thoughts in the face of such a huge cost.
Honestly, I’m surprised that colleges haven’t already done this.
*Haven’t already divested.
I bet that the “87 percent of the energy people around the world use to feed, clothe, shelter, heal, comfort, and educate themselves” is mostly spent on luxury. We could fight climate change while still providing for people by reorganizing how we use our resources.
Both sides should be taught and given an audience at every school where one/biased side is already in place. Our energy sources are very important our history. It would only be fair to educate students on energy and environment issues as well.
Completely agree. Although, “our energy sources are very important” is a bit of an understatement. They are vital to our continuation and advancement as a species. Everything that we call progress depends on their use.
Also why not teach objective scientific principals to our students and let them make their own conclusions? The better their critical thinking skills, the less persuaded they would be by any form of biased science out there. In this instance, I’m not sure there would be “a side” but more of a mode of thinking and deducting reasoning based on evidence. Since in this case evidence is harder to prove, skepticism should be greater and the science should be more interesting to young students because they’ll realize it’s in its infancy stages.
scientific principles*
“Environmental lobbyists are encouraging students to blindly follow their claims concerning global warming and to protest colleges’ investments fossil fuel companies.”
Any type of teaching that leads to “blind following” of any form is fundamentally dangerous. We shouldn’t be teaching advocacy in this sense, but rather objective science. After all, that should be the main mantra for any university.
“We passionately believe… a moral imperative to make use of the most productive, life-giving energy sources available to us at any point in time.”
This is the way to convince people to who debate for morality and the environment.