Well, here's the thing. I monitored the global warming dilemma for a while, waiting to post until I had gathered as many opinions as possible. The official dilemma is now closed.

My question is this: I do not know how to read the original studies. The studies are mathematical models, from what I understand. Hence there is an equation with lots of variables that says "If CO2 rises to this-and-such a level, the model shows an increase in warming." But I cannot find these models, and the writings I've seen are forbiddingly complex. They are, in other words, inaccessible to any but practitioners in the field -- insiders. What this seems to mean, then, is that interpreters of science such as myself can only report on what other interpreters have said. We cannot access the primary sources.

This is more worrisome when critics of the mainstream opinion say "Yes, but this model doesn't take so-and-so into account." I cannot independently verify that, or disprove it.

I certainly can teach to consensus science. I have in fact hosted global warming debates on our campus. One person argued that solar variation is the largest cause -- Mars is getting warmer too. I can even nuance my teaching by pointing out the times that consensus science has been mistaken, or consensus economics, or politics, or whatever.

I hope you see my dilemma. Do I xerox a Time magazine article on "lay science" and call it a day? Can you point me to a model that is comprehensible and, as a bonus, speaks to the critics?

Thanks --

Hi Mark,

I think your question and concerns are very valid. 

I don't know if this is what you are looking for;  my guess is it won't be nearly as comprehensive as what you are looking for.  But a great resource for middle school kids is the NOAA International Polar Year stuff.  The focus of this time period is Climate Change.  It doesn't address climate change in a way that it gives the model but rather in a way kids researh data and draw their own conclusions.

You can access it from....   

                          http://www.ipy.org/

   and.......        http://www.ipy.noaa.gov/

     and.......      http://www.lib.noaa.gov/collections/ipy.html

   and.....   some history       http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/igy/welcome.html

I spent quite a bit of time on this with 7th graders last year with great success.  Climate change was our topic but IPY was our "tool" to explore it.  Let me know if you'd like more info on this.  I'd be happy to share.

Good luck!  Mary

Hi Mark

I just posted on the multicultural topic and it is timely for me to read your post. So here comes my bias frame - - - the studies you talk about are all grounded in specific models (mathematical and labratory based). Both are fine and within the parameters defined and limited within each model they are accurate, precise, and replicable.  Interestingly they only measure and explain what they are designed to measure and explain.

This leads one to think about other explanations - beyond the politics and the model. For instance on an aside, why is it that when the Tsunami hit Indonesia a few groups of indigenous people had no fatalities when the tsunami hit while other "more developed" towns and villages had multitudes of deaths? There is no single explanation here, however it is interesting that when interviewing the indigenous folks they talked of their "beliefs" and how, though an oral culture, they understood the phenomenon that was occurring and what to do. They had no electronic tsunami warning, no internet, no PA system, no emergency broadcast system - they had nothing from the 20th or 21st century to inform them with any relevance.

For global warming the world is being persuaded from both sides in a dialectic (by definition the argument is already grounded in a form of traditional Greek logic). The explanations, as you have indicated, are also interpretations of delightfully complex, mathematically based models. Again, they will only be valid and reliable within the confines defined by their own model. They can explain only what they are designed to explain. Hummmm., I know this explanation is not going to answer your inquiry. My hope is that we do not get caught in our own dialectic eddy. It sort of reminds me of Gulliver's Travels and the story of the "scientists" in one of the cities that were trying to extract sunlight from a cucumber....

Kendall