{"id":6321,"date":"2015-06-02T06:01:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T06:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6321"},"modified":"2015-06-02T06:01:08","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T06:01:08","slug":"teaching-about-climate-change-starting-from-lawson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/06\/02\/teaching-about-climate-change-starting-from-lawson\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching about climate change: starting from Lawson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I count myself blessed that I don't have to teach about climate change. \u00a0It's hard enough to take a coherent view yourself than to have to help others take their own stand on it. \u00a0And where to begin? \u00a0Normally, I'd not turn immediately to a skeptic for a teaching text, but\u00a0here's Lord Lawson in a recent\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/the-week\/diary\/9513832\/nigel-lawsons-diary-escaping-election-tedium-in-la-france-profonde\">Spectator<\/a>\u00a0column:<\/p>\n<p><em>\"The burning of fossil fuels has had three consequences.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>First, it has provided \u2014 and for the foreseeable future will continue to provide \u2014 the cheapest and most reliable source of energy, which in turn has raised living standards immeasurably, enabling a substantial reduction in poverty, with its attendant evils of malnutrition, preventable disease and premature death. Its abandonment would be hugely harmful to the world\u2019s poor.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Second, by releasing additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it has had a well-attested and measurable effect in stimulating plant growth, greening the planet and improving its biosphere to the benefit of human and animal life in general.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Third, the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide can also, other things being equal (which they may not be), be expected to make the planet a slightly warmer place.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This last would in turn bring some benefits (notably to human health) and some disadvantages. \u00a0But to suggest that these disadvantages (to which we can in any case adapt, as mankind has successfully adapted to widely different temperatures around the world) outweigh the massive benefits from the use of fossil fuels, is \u2014 to repeat \u2014 madness. \u00a0Sensibly, both China and India reject the idea of a legally binding cap on their emissions, making a \u2018voluntary\u2019 agreement at Paris meaningless.\"<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Climate\u00a0<em>and<\/em> politics, you see; and therein lies the difficulty.<\/p>\n<p>However, it strikes me that starting from this text and asking students who are capable of doing so to test out and critique these ideas, might be rather interesting. \u00a0All very ESD 2.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I count myself blessed that I don't have to teach about climate change. \u00a0It's hard enough to take a coherent view yourself than to have to help others take their own stand on it. \u00a0And where to begin? \u00a0Normally, I'd...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}