Pa. schools still don’t teach about climate change
Pennsylvania is getting hotter and wetter. But in Pennsylvania schools, there’s no requirement that students learn that their actions are contributing to it by changing the climate.
The state is one of only four without science education standards to teach that people cause global warming, a problem that’s difficult to ignore as California wildfires burn out of control.
That could change, if state lawmakers don’t interfere and play politics.
On Sept. 9, the State Board of Education adopted proposed regulations to amend science standards. Among the changes would be for instruction about climate change and global warming to begin in kindergarten.
The goal is to implement the standards in the 2024-25 school year, to give schools time to develop curriculum.
The proposal still has to go through a public comment period, then needs approval from the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, a five-member board appointed by the Legislature and governor.
The Legislature’s education committees will review the plan, but the General Assembly’s approval is not required. Lawmakers could, though, try to block the standards with legislation. That’s a concern, as the Legislature is controlled by Republicans, the party that often considers climate change to be fake news, or just doesn’t have the courage to do anything about it.
There’s plenty of evidence that it’s real, and that something must be done.
All lawmakers have to do is review a study that they required. Published by Penn State in 2015, it projected that by 2050, the state will be about 5.4 degrees warmer (3 degrees Celsius) than it was in 2000. Precipitation is projected to increase by 8%.
A study last year by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale — a Democrat running for Congress — found that the 48 months between June 2015 and June 2019 were the wettest in state history, and the five warmest summers had been the past five summers.
A national climate assessment researched and written by 13 federal agencies in 2018 concluded: “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.”
Doing something to solve the problem starts with teaching people the facts. That’s why it’s important for climate change, and its causes, to be discussed in our schools.
Montana, Nebraska and Ohio are the other states that don’t require that students be taught about how people have caused global warming, according to the National Center for Science Education. Pennsylvania hasn’t updated its science education standards since 2002.
The proposal advanced Sept. 9 was drafted over the past year. Input was gathered from teachers, students, college professors, business and community leaders and others at 14 stakeholder meetings, including one in the Lehigh Valley that was held virtually in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The update is broad and covers many topics. Lessons about how people impact the environment was one of the top suggestions from those who offered input. Proposed standards include:
Kindergarten: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air and/or other living things in the local environment.
Grades 3 to 5: Describe human-caused changes that affect the immediate environment as well as other places, other people and future times.
Grades 6 to 8: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing human impact on the environment. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.
Grades 9 to 12: Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems. Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
Climate change is a sticky subject under the Capitol dome in Harrisburg, where deniers have been invited to testify at legislative hearings. So I wouldn’t be surprised if some lawmakers tried to squash the plan.
Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf are feuding over Wolf ’s decision last fall for Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This group of Northeast and mid-Atlantic states works collectively to reduce carbon emissions.
The program requires power plants to buy a credit for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The states auction the credits but set a cap on the amount of them. That reduces pollution in two ways — it encourages plants to become cleaner, and the states reduce the amount of credits available over time, therefore limiting the amount of pollutants that can legally be emitted.
Plants can trade or sell their credits.
The money collected by states is used for programs to promote energy efficiency, renewable energy and other climate-related efforts.
Tuesday, the state’s Environmental Quality Board approved a draft regulation to enter the program. Public hearings will be held before a final vote.
Republican lawmakers oppose joining the initiative and are trying to block it. They passed legislation that would prohibit Pennsylvania from joining without their approval. Wolf received the legislation Wednesday. He has said he will veto it.
Some Republican lawmakers say the program would cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars, with some of the costs being passed on to consumers, and plants and related businesses eventually closing, resulting in job losses.
There surely would be costs. But there’s also great cost to doing nothing.
DePasquale’s audit identified at least $261 million in “climate-related costs” in 2018, including $126 million in damage to roads and other infrastructure from floods and landslides.
The federal analysis from 2018 laid out a worst-case scenario that by about the end of the century, an estimated $160 billion in wages could be lost annually from the impacts of temperature extremes, which can hamper productivity of outdoor workers. There could be another $141 billion hit by then from deaths due to extreme temperatures, as well as coastal property damage of $118 billion.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is worthwhile and would be a big step toward addressing global warming, something Pennsylvania hasn’t done enough about.
Requiring students to be taught about global warming and climate change would be another big step. Maybe some bright young minds will come up with other ways to tackle the problem that older generations have ignored for too long.
Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick can be reached at 484-2802909 or paul.muschick@mcall.com