Climate Tiff in S. Dakota Reveals Gap Between Scientists, Public

THE GIST:

• South Dakota's legislature passed a resolution that denies global warming.
• The resolution bears a striking resemblance to others that interfere with teaching evolution.
• Educators say they should be allowed to teach the scientific consensus.

A non-binding resolution passed in South Dakota last week that denies the existence of global warming is just the latest example of the wide communication gap separating scientists from the average American.

The aim of the resolution is to urge public school teachers to give students a better understanding of the climate science debate and was crafted in response to the showing of Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" to local high school students, said its sponsor, State Representative Don Kopp.

"They're showing Al Gore's video with no recourse," Kopp told South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

"And these kids are being taught that this is a fact. So when they graduate from school they're coming out of school believing that by virtue of their very existence they're destroying the planet to some degree," he said.

It's a gap that leads to honest misunderstandings of how science works, as well as to deliberate exploitation by special interests that see threats in what scientists are discovering about the nature of our world.

WATCH VIDEO: How do we know for sure that our climate is changing? James Williams takes a look at some of the instruments used to monitor the atmosphere.

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"(In South Dakota) There is misunderstanding and very much a blurring between climate science and Al Gore," said South Dakota State Climatologist Dennis Todey. "Al Gore's not here."

What people of South Dakota need, said Todey, is science that helps them plan for future changes in water supplies, which are bound to come with climate changes, he said. "There are a number of scientific questions that need to be answered, but the issue is being muddied by calling (climate change) a hoax."

Like many similar bills and resolutions in other states, most of which are aimed at challenging the teaching of evolution, the South Dakota resolution claims that there is a major scientific debate underway that needs to be taught.

Hence the phrase "teach the debate" is often associated with such legislation.

"It's a good-sounding phrase," said geologist Eldridge Moores, professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis. "What's missing in that equation is that in the scientific community there is no controversy. Sure, there are contentious points of disagreement in climate science. But there is near unanimity that climate change is happening."

Not according to the South Dakota legislature. The resolution states "the Earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; and ... there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere where we live)..."

What's more, "carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly-beneficial ingredient for all plant life on Earth. Many scientists refer to carbon dioxide as 'the gas of life.'"

Unfortunately, all of these statements are contrary to the best available science. The identical pattern of misrepresenting the science and ignoring scientific consensus is also found in anti-evolution bills that are regularly proposed in state legislatures nationwide, said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education.

"The (South Dakota) resolution is painfully familiar," said Scott, whose educational nonprofit closely monitors attacks on teaching evolution in schools.

The South Dakota resolution is only unusual, she said, because it does not bundle global warming with evolution, as has been the case in other states.

The politicians and public often fall for these tactics, said Scott, because they have no idea how science works.

They don't know how critical and skeptical scientists are about each others' work and how much evidence has been gathered and how much thoroughly vetted research it has taken to create the current scientific consensus on global warming.

Anthropogenic global warming is now accepted by all of the largest and most prestigious scientific societies in the world, which together represent hundreds of thousands of scientifically-literate members.

Among the organizations that have made statements supporting the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America and the American Physical Society.

The fact that many people prefer to ignore this and claim there is a major scientific debate points to something else at work, said Scott.

"It underscores that this is a political movement rather than an educational movement," said Scott. "If you just left it up the science teachers, they would present the scientific consensus" which is what they should do at the high school level.

"Give them the basics," she said.

Teaching the debates within the sciences in any meaningful way requires far more knowledge and background in statistics, physics, chemistry and biology, and so would be more wisely handled at the university level, Scott said.