Interesting concept…..Is it time for a debate on climate which might include our youth?

06/19/2017 | Kennedy Maize

Veteran global warming gadfly David Wojick is mounting a challenge to the way climate science is being taught in our schools, and raising money online for his venture. At the same time, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt says he wants to mount teams to debate climate science, according to the Washington Post.

Full disclosure: David Wojick is a friend for over 25 years, and wrote articles for me when I was the founding editor of Electricity Daily from 1993 to 2006. Also, he’s a very smart guy, with a civil engineering degree and PE certification, a masters’ in mathematics, and a Ph.D. (in actual philosophy) in the field of epistemology, or how do we know what we think we know, specializing in mathematical logic and conceptual analysis. He was recently a senior consultant at the Energy Department’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information.

Wojick is seeking crowd funding for a website portal, he writes, “that collects and distributes materials to teach about the climate debate,” including new teaching materials. He says, “The purpose of this project is to help bring some balance to the teaching of climate science, particularly in grades K-12, but also in college.”

Currently, says Wojick, the pedagogy of climate science is skewed toward alarmism. “Both the federal government and many green advocacy groups maintain websites that distribute climate teaching materials. These materials teach that dangerous human induced climate change is settled science, which is far from true.”

“The reality,” says Wojick, “is that dangerous human influence on climate is completely unproven and the subject of intense scientific debate.” He says his goal is to create a website that offers teaching materials that balance what is being offered by the advocates of global warming. “The first step toward creating balance in climate education is to provide teaching materials that properly present the scientific debate as it actually is. This is done with a simple website.”

At the same time Wojick is pushing his plan for climate-skeptical teaching materials, EPA’s Pruitt, as reported by the Washington Post, told Breitbart News he wants to set up competing teams to debate climate science. Pruitt said, “What the American people deserve, I think, is a true, legitimate, peer-review, objective, transparent discussion about CO₂.”

Pruitt is proposing a “red-team, blue-team” exercise, which has been used before in physical sciences and national security analyses. It follows an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by New York University physicist and former Obama administration energy department executive Steven Koonin. He wrote, “The outcome of a Red/Blue exercise for climate science is not preordained, which makes such a process all the more valuable. It could reveal the current consensus as weaker than claimed. Alternatively, the consensus could emerge strengthened if Red Team criticisms were countered effectively.”

John Christy, a prominent climate scientist and skeptic at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, also championed a red-team, blue-team exercise on climate science in testimony at a March hearing before the House Science, Space & Technology Committee.

—Kennedy Maize is a long-time energy journalist and frequent POWER contributor.

Source: PowerMag.com