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posted by LaminatorX on Friday May 16 2014, @03:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the Head-in-the-Tar-Sands dept.

Time Magazine reports that Wyoming, the nation's top coal-producing state, has become the first state to reject new K-12 science standards proposed by national education groups mainly because of global warming components. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a set of science standards developed by leading scientists and science educators from 26 states and built on a framework developed by the National Academy of Sciences. The Wyoming science standards revision committee made up entirely of Wyoming educators unanimously recommended adoption of these standards to the state Board of Education not once but twice and twelve states have already adopted the standards since they were released in April 2013. But opponents argue the standards incorrectly assert that man-made emissions are the main cause of global warming and shouldn't be taught in a state that ranks first among all states in coal production, fifth in natural gas production and eighth in crude oil production deriving much of its school funding from the energy industry. Amy Edmonds, of the Wyoming Liberty Group, says teaching "one view of what is not settled science about global warming" is just one of a number of problems with the standards. "I think Wyoming can do far better." Wyoming Governor Matt Mead has called federal efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a "war on coal" and has said that he's skeptical about man-made climate change.

Supporters of the NGSS say science standards for Wyoming schools haven't been updated since 2003 and are six years overdue. "If you want the best science education for your children and grandchildren and you don't want any group to speak for you, then make yourselves heard loud and clear," says Cate Cabot. "Otherwise you will watch the best interests of Wyoming students get washed away in the hysteria of a small anti-science minority driven by a national right wing group "and political manipulation."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday June 04 2014, @02:18PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 04 2014, @02:18PM (#51093) Journal

    The computer models predict a much drier western US, including California.

    I know this comment is quite late (I've been away from the internet for three weeks), but no, the models don't predict a much drier western US - some do and some predict a much milder drying (plus there's the matter of just how much temperature increase we'll actually get - that seems to be consistently over-estimated by current models). And we would expect droughts in the western US (and elsewhere) because they happen whether or not there is global warming - especially when human incompetence is involved.
     
     

    Today it is a very different matter and raising Manhattan island, let alone the other New York boroughs would be prohibitive (unless, of course, the Feds wanted to finance it).

    "Prohibitive" means the cost is large enough to prohibit the proposed course of action. Given that this raising would be over the course of centuries (and moving dirt is dirt cheap and likely to stay that way), I don't see what is supposed to be prohibitive about it. Nor are we talking of that much land area or that intrusive a project. For example, you could fill in when a building is torn down.

    And it's worth remembering that the Fresh Kills landfill, the landfill run by New York for about 60 years, took in enough volume of trash over that time frame that it would raise all of Manhattan Island by more than a meter if spread out over the island. They didn't need federal funding for that massive movement of materials.

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