Heartland ‘expert’ taught climate denialism at a Canadian university

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For two years, Tom Harris, a man who according to the Heartland Institute is an "expert" on climate change, taught a course on the subject at Ottawa's Carleton University. Harris' course was meant for non-science majors, so, as the Guardian notes, it "may for many students be the only academic exposure they have to climate change while earning their undergraduate degree." When a group of scientists reviewed Harris' taped lectures they found 142 "erroneous" claims.

The group, Committee for The Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (that'd be actual scientific skepticism, not knee-jerk denial!), wrote that:

Key messages for students contradict accepted scientific opinion. These messages include: denying that current climate change has an anthropogenic cause; dismissing the problems that carbon dioxide emissions cause because CO2 is plant food; denying the existence of the scientific consensus on the causes of climate change; and claiming that we should prepare instead for global cooling.

Plant food. Cute.

Carleton's not some out-of-the-way, third-tier school: it's been ranked one of Canada's top 10 universities. And since college students — even Canadian college students! — are well known to believe that they know better than everyone else, you can be sure there's now a coterie of Carletonians arguing late into the night that global warming just doesn't exist. To quote the Climate Reality Project, "Of course it's true. I learned it in school."

Sarah Laskow is a reporter based in New York City who covers environment, energy, and sustainability issues, among other things. Follow her on Twitter.

straight to the source

• Climate Change Denial In Carleton University Course Exposed By National Science Team, CASS
• Heartland associate taught 'biased' climate course at Ottawa university, The Guardian

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Key messages for students contradict accepted scientific opinion.

This has been a highly controversial topic in some circles. As the above qoute from the article show, some belive that is it just "scientific opinion" and not scientific fact. Just my 2 cents...

Edited February 29, 2012 by kennard