The scientific debate about the reality of anthropogenic climate change has resolved itself in the past 10-15 years. Much like natural selection and heliocentrism before it, the once-contentious scientific finding is no longer argued among serious scientists.
But there are backwaters.
Small, cult-like bands of like-minded authors and followers cling to geocentrism (and, indeed, to the notion that the Earth is flat). In America, legions of science-averse enthusiasts embrace "intelligent design" (and, indeed, young-Earth creationism).
Climate science deniers find solace in the handful of legitimate scientists who argue against the position of the vast majority of climate scientists. Their heroes on this melting ideological ice floe are—almost to a person—old white male physicists. The 2015 documentary, Merchants of Doubt, identifies a common thread among this small fraternity. Most are aging Cold Warriors who see environmentalists as "watermelons": (ecology) green on the outside but (Communist) red on the inside.
Fred Singer, Freeman Dyson, William Happer, and Ivar Giaever are leading representatives of this group. A math teacher at my school maintains a very active conservative political blog. He is a public school teacher in California whose contract is the product of collective bargaining. He opposes unionism, advocates for charter schools, and frequently derides California as the worst state of them all.
And he is an aging Cold Warrior who denies the well-established findings of climate science. When he came across an old speech by Nobel laureate physicist, Ivar Giaever, he shared it in a post.
I found it inspirational. I was inspired to write a corresponding video question set.
The video runs for 33 minutes, but it feels like an hour because it's a disjointed series of tangents masquerading as an argument. The TL;DR synopsis is that a Nobel physicist is upset that society hasn't enthusiastically embraced nuclear power, the physicist also doesn't understand climate science (and thus dismisses its findings), but finds it laudable that China adopted a one-child policy to mitigate climate change. He doesn't accept historical temperature data, but uses that very data to propagate the old "climate has always changed" chestnut.
Some viewers complain about Giaever's tones of condescension and arrogance. The title of Giaever's 2016 book, I am the Smartest Man I Know, does little to blunt such criticism. Like most elite scientists, he is an atheist, and he does reject the legislative agenda of creationists. His Nobel-winning work involved modeling superconductivity. He now serves as a science advisor for the Heartland Institute.
In any case, what about the content of Giaever's talk? It has been dismantled by Skeptical Science in a post titled "Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist." They were thorough, but didn't seem to break a sweat in assembling their takedown.
Still though, my climate science dismissive colleague found Giaever's tangential meanderings to be compelling. I will be delighted to show the talk to my students. But when I assign a video, I virtually always have a corresponding question set. Within the constraints of a presentation's contents, I like to mix multiple choice, fill in the blank, multi-select, matching, and short answer formats. I can't always include all formats, but I do my best.
In the wake of the March for Science, I am reminded of what I was told by a speaker at The Amazing Meeting 2 in 2004. In essence, it was "The cavalry isn't coming. If you see a problem where you live or work, you will have to be the person to solve it."
So here's the Giaever Video:
Nobel Laureate in Physics; "Global Warming is Pseudoscience"
And here's a link to my question set.
YouTube Skepticism: Is Global Warming Pseudoscience?
If you find yourself at the end of the year with awkward bell schedules that need to be filled despite students slipping below optimal attentiveness, here's a candidate that speaks to big-picture science issues.
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