I’ve talked about the issue of teaching climate change in schools recently, and yesterday I came across a blog that illustrates my concern at The “More” Child.

The author of this blog post is a mother of two children who appear to be in 5th and 7th grade. The antecdote told in the post is about the elder child. It turns out, she has been exposed to a variety of sources of information that has led her to some unfortunate conclusions. The information presented paints the picture that the child is afraid that the world will change drastically by the time she is older.

For one thing, it is not too late. Dr. James Hansen has stated on many occasions, including in his recent op-ed in the Boston Globe, that action we take now can reverse the changes we have seen so far. However, even if we had experienced irreversible climate change, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it. And we aren’t; there are intelligent people working to solve the problem.

The difficulty arises when children are exposed to the topic. For an adult, the concept to 100 years is fairly well understood. It’s longer than we expect to be alive, but not by much. So when projections are stated that say that the sea level will rise by a fifth to a half of a meter in 100 years, adults can visualize what that would be like. A half of a meter is a little more than one and a half feet. Now let’s suppose we live in Palm Beach; the tidal range there is about 3 feet (source). So every day in Palm Beach they see the water rise 3 feet and then recede 3 feet (actually, they see this twice per day).

Sea level rise is a huge problem. But it’s not unsolvable. And if we have 100 years to solve it, that gives us lots of time to find a solution. Please don’t call me a delayer because of that last sentence. I think that the more solutions there are to a problem the better. The best choice, and in my opinion only real long-term solution, is to stop putting so much CO2 into the atmosphere. There needs to be a moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants, unless they can really capture and sequester CO2. Large levees could be a temporary solution for coastal cities, until CO2 emissions and temperatures dropped, which would then lower sea levels. But the problems, and solutions, with respect to climate change are that it is a terribly slow process.

The above linked post supplied these quotes from the 7th grade child:

“It’s not supposed to be this warm.”
“Why is it this warm?”
“Look the trees have buds!”
“Is it going to get cold again?”
“It should be cold.”
“I want it to be coooold.”
“Will it ever snow again, mom? Will it?”
“Can you promise me?”

The answer, as even provided by the mother, is that this is just the weather. It gets warm sometimes in the winter, just like it gets cold sometimes in the summer. The changes in temperature due to global warming are exceptionally small when compared to changes thoughout the year, and even changes during each day.

I’m not sure of the answer. Obviously some sort of education is needed, and not just for the child. Whoever originally planted these thoughts of doom into her head needs it more.

Let’s look at a very simple calculation. It won’t help young children, but maybe it’ll help those with influence upon them. Have a look at the temperature anomalies since 1979 for the lower 48 United States (from the MSU group at UAH for those interested). The black line shows the 12-month running average monthly temperature, the red dots show the average yearly temperatures, and the blue dashed line shows the temperature trend.

Notice at the bottom where it says that the trend is 0.252/decade. This means that in ten years, if the current trend continues, the average temperature for the lower 48 United States will be 0.252 degrees Fahrenheit higher than it was this year. So when little Suzie asks why it’s so much warmer, or when grandma says that she remembers it always being colder in the winter that it’s not really the average temperature they remember. Little Suzie never did know what the temperature was like, she only knows what’s she has been told. And she’s been told that it’s warming.

Let’s assume grandma and mom both gave birth at the current average age when mothers give birth to their firstborn child. That would be about 27 right now in the US. So if we take the current trend, and multiply it by the number of years since grandma was Suzie’s age, we’ll see how much the average temperature has changed in that time.

The answer is that the climate has warmed about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than when grandma was young. It’s actually not even that much, since I just assumed the current trend was the same before 1980. Most people cannot tell the difference of 1.4 F. It’s too small. Go outside, and walk for 5 minutes. I be you experienced a temperature change of more than 1.4 F.

Global warming is boring. Climate change is boring. Not to me, of course. And probably not for anyone actually reading this blog, but to most people I bet they are. I mean, how do you explain to someone that a change of 1.4 F is 54 years is a lot, and something needs to be done? One method is by scaring them. I don’t subscribe to this method. I think it is counter-productive. You can train a monkey to pull a lever to get food. But the monkey doesn’t know, or care, that the lever he is pulling is actually connected to a manual water pump that extracts ground water and puts it into a holding tank to later be used in the aquarium next door.

The same is true with people. You can train a person to reduce there carbon emissions, but if they don’t know why there could be consequences for someone else.

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