Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Fahrenheit 2011



It's September again, and for me that means back to teaching. Among the six classes I'm teaching this year, two of them are noteworthy—two classes that at first glance might seem unrelated, but to my mind are inextricably linked. The first is a dystopian literature course at the Orange County High School of the Arts. The second is a composition course at Chapman University, writing about ecology, in which we are reading extensively about the impact of climate change.

Amazingly, people the world over seem to think global warming is still a theory under debate, or worse, that it's a hoax. Let me be clear, there is no debate. This is no hoax. The data is overwhelming. There is no argument within the scientific community whether global warming is real. The only discussion is how bad will it get, and how can we curtail the damage.