South Dakota House denies climate change, interferes with public education of science

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction

Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln stare out from Mt. Rushmore across the magnificent landscape of South Dakota. But I wonder what they would think about the not-so-magnificent resolution passed by the South Dakota House calling for “balanced teaching” of global warming in the state’s public schools.

Among other things, in their resolution the legislators imply that global warming is bunk because “the earth has been cooling for the last eight years.” Never mind the long-term warming trend. They also make the highly uncontroversial point that almost all of Greenland is covered in a thick blanket of ice. (Who knew?) But of course they fail to mention the other non-controversial point that Greenland has been experiencing some significant melting. And just to make sure we all know where they’re coming from, they extoll the virtues of carbon dioxide, which they refer to as “the gas of life.”

“If you’re going to teach science and there are two sides, you need to teach both, or it’s about politics,” said Republican state Rep. Don Kopp, quoted in the Rapid City Journal.

As if the highly politicized resolution this politician championed as part of an obvious exercise in political theater with no practical ramifications other than politics is actually has something to do with the sanctity of science and teaching.

The South Dakota Senate has now passed an amended version of the resolution, with much of the silliest material excised. It now goes back to the House. I guess we’ll have to await the outcome with bated breath.

In the meantime, here’s the version of the resolution that passed in the South Dakota House:

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Calling for balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota.

WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; and

WHEREAS, there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere where the majority of warming would be taking place; and

WHEREAS, historical climatological data shows without question the earth has gone through trends where the climate was much warmer than in our present age. The Climatic Optimum and Little Climatic Optimum are two examples. During the Little Climatic Optimum, Erik the Red settled Greenland where they farmed and raised dairy cattle. Today, ninety percent of Greenland is covered by massive ice sheets, in many places more than two miles thick; and

WHEREAS, the polar ice cap is subject to shifting warm water currents and the break-up of ice by high wind events. Many oceanographers believe this to be the major cause of meltingpolar ice, not atmospheric warming; and

WHEREAS, 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”; and

WHEREAS, more than 31,000 American scientists collectively signed a petition to President Obama stating: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, or methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the earth”:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-fifth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming include the following:

(1)    That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;

(2)    That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; and

(3)    That the debate on global warming has subsumed political and philosophical viewpoints which have complicated and prejudiced the scientific investigation of global warming phenomena; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Legislature urges that all instruction on the theory of global warming be appropriate to the age and academic development of the student and to the prevailing classroom circumstances.