A few years ago, during a discussion about the migratory flyways of warblers in North America, I pointed to a large map that showed the Gulf of Mexico and then asked offhandedly one of my high-school students, who was well-traveled and from a privileged background, “What’s the name of this body of water?” She frowned and laughed nervously.
At first I thought she was teasing me when she answered, “Dr. Rinker, I don’t know. The Atlantic Ocean?” Moments before, the lab had been filled with vibrant conversation; at this point, however, it went dead silent. Then I had one of those prickly moments as an educator when I realized I had unwittingly uncovered a flaw in our education system but at the cost of this young woman’s pride and standing among her peers.
I responded awkwardly with something vacuous like “It’s the Gulf of Mexico. The world’s a big place, and we all have a lot to learn about its diverse features.” The discussion continued, but I vowed a different approach to my classroom queries henceforth. The flaw? Simple geography.
According to the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, fewer than 30% of American students have a solid grasp of global geography. William Gaudelli, a professor of social studies at Columbia University, noted in the September 2011 issue of Men’s Health, “If people were more geographically literate, they would better understand political issues.” A command of geography is an indicator of practical connection to the world at-large.
As a science educator, I would add, “If people were more scientifically literate, they would better understand our environmental problems.” In 2007, according to one Michigan State University researcher, 28% of American adults qualified as scientific literate – and that was a 10% increase from the early 1990s! A basic knowledge of scientific principles is not a luxury, but a necessity in today’s complex social world.
Try this. Stand in front of your bathroom mirror and talk out the link between fossil fuels and human-accelerated climate change as one example of an environmental issue. Then join these thoughts to the uncertain futures of island-nations such as Tuvalu, Cook Islands, or Maldives. Why these places? As low-lying communities, they are threatened immediately by rising sea levels due to the melting of land-based ice.
Did your bathroom recitation include a link between the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas and the flooding of coastal communities? If citizens cannot articulate the links between combusting gasoline in their vehicles or heating their homes with fossil fuels AND human-accelerated climate change, then how can we possibly hope to stop sea-level rise? Or an increasing incidence of extreme storm events? Or global temperature rise or warming oceans or shrinking ice sheets or glacial retreats – all predicted by our scientific models?
In the aforementioned issue of Men’s Health, an article appeared called “Where School Is In: The Most and Least Educated Cities.” It evaluated the erudition of 100 American cities by tabulating the U.S. Department of Education’s high-school graduation rates along with the Census Bureau’s figures on school enrollment, education levels, and other data.
The best-educated city? Madison, Wisconsin. The worst? Miami, Florida. Other “A” or “B” communities included Portland, Maine (9th) and Virginia Beach (18th). Among the worst: Baltimore, Maryland (84th), Norfolk, Virginia (93th), Detroit, Michigan (96th), and Las Vegas, Nevada (98th). Tampa, Florida (51st) and New York City (54th) both received a “C-.”
The best cities were those with a collection of university, research, and corporate havens along with buoyant economies and low unemployment. Those at the bottom shared economies based on manufacturing or agriculture. And, of course, the report begged the question: what about other cities in the United States?
Personally, I have to wonder about Washington, DC, particularly our esteemed members of Congress.
Representative Chris Stewart (R-UT), the new chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment, is a climate-science denier. Recently, he told the Salt Lake Tribune that “The science regarding climate change is anything but settled.” Stewart has also labeled my colleagues and me as “a small group of radical environmentalists” for our prognostications.
Here’s a partial list of scientific bodies of national or international standing that have issued formal supporting statements about human-accelerated climate change: NASA, National Academy of Sciences, American Medical Association, EPA, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Association for the Advancement of Science, U.S. National Research Council, American Chemical Society, Soil Science Society of America, Geological Society of America, American Meteorological Society, American Institute of Biological Sciences, Society of American Foresters, and World Health Organization.
Are these radical environmentalists? Of course not! So why the apparent intransigence of Representative Stewart and much of the Republican leadership? Here’s a hint. His 2011-2012 campaign contributors included ExxonMobil and the National Mining Association. His brother is a lobbyist for the American Capitol Group that promotes fossil fuel interests including fracking and oil companies. Stewart’s a loud supporter for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Thus, he’s as thick with the fossil fuel industry as a tar-sands tabby in heat. Is it any wonder that this politician claims falsely that “The science regarding climate change is anything but settled”?
So we have a demoralizing link between education (or lack thereof) and a sick planet fueled by policymakers ignorant about the science of our day. A solution is sound instruction about science and geography on every level of learning. Another is voting out of office the politicians who are as archaic as the fossil fuel industry they represent and voting into office politicians who can analyze societal issues without prejudice or prostitution.
H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D.
Ecologist, Educator, and Explorer
Interesting article. In preparing to take your ‘mirror test’, I read a related article by Jon Bowermaster (Earth Loses 300 Billion Tons of Ice Each Year). I, being one of the (hopefully) scientifically literate, tried to convert the outrageously large melt number into something I could understand. The basic math results in 0.03 inches per year (that’s 3 inches per century) in sea level rise. Shocked by this value, I looked up the latest (2007) IPCC report’s section on sea level rise, and found the value of 0.08 inches per year for current rates of total sea level rise. Two conclusions:
1) Melting ice accounts for only about one third of total sea level rise – thermal expansion is the vast majority of the issue and the causes of that are very complex and likely not mostly due to human causes (per IPCC report). Also, the causes of melting ice are not entirely the result of human efforts.
2) The likely total sea level rise over the next 100 years is about 1 foot. Anyone living where 1 foot of sea level rise is a problem has much bigger problems on a regular basis today. You are correct that their problem is 100% human caused – the result of poor decisions on where to live, not carbon emissions.
Over the past decade, total sea level rise (from all sources) is less than 1 inch. Over the past decade, there have been many instances of severe and devastating coastal flooding. Thus, I will resist the effort to stand in my bathroom and link fossil fuel burning to coastal flooding at this time since I am still struggling to find the data to support that statement. I assume that your point is that at some future date (50, 100, 1000 years?), there may be enough cumulative sea level rise to be at least partially to blame for some coastal flooding. That assumes, of course, that people continue to build and rebuild structures and lives where they wish dry land was instead of where it really is.
I hope I am not a climate science denier – since I find the discussion and analysis of it quite interesting. I do, however, find the scientific method an excellent tool and the reduction of hyperbole to numbers quite illuminating.
A truly literate presentation. But our congressional institutions are supposed to be representative of the body public. How sad that this would seem to be true in this case.