My students started applauding when I told them New England sued Bush

[Lisa]

... about the weakening of the Clean Air Act. Kind of unexpected -- I can't recall when this last happened.

I'm teaching a college class (in Canada) on environmental policy -- today I was taking them through the history of things like the acid rain treaties, the banning of CFCs, and global warming responses.

I've been trying to counterbalance the news coverage about the US government pulling out of various international treaties, with more upbeat stuff on how states and cities are taking action on their own. Keeping in mind all of my friends here at DU -- I know we've got at least one person here who works for the EPA -- I wanted to make sure my class knows that there are many Americans who don't agree with the administration on this and many other issues.

The most outspoken guy (takes guts to do this in an auditorium full of a hundred people) challenged me on it ... so I told him I'd bring in the press release for next class. So I started combing the Internets as soon as I got back to my office. (Maybe I should have proposed a small wager -- it would be the easiest money I'd ever made from teaching!)

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2002/dec/dec31b_02.html

[MrSlayer]

1. At my son's President's day play the kids all booed Bush.

I thought it was hilarious. He's in 4th grade.

[mhr]

2. Sweet - Let Us Know How The Freeper Reacts When You Show Him The Truth!

eom

[Lisa]

3. actually, he's not really a freeper ...

Just highly critical -- which isn't a bad trait to have these days -- but I sometimes wonder if he just blurts stuff out to see how I'll react.

He also started asking about a project he'd heard of to increase ocean phytoplankton growth near Antarctica, by dumping nitrogen into the sea. I asked him if he was sure it wasn't iron (those experiments have been tried before) -- but he was certain that it was nitrogen! I went through the scientific literature just now and am wondering if he just misunderstood a news story on this, because a) the research is rather sparse to be doing a full-scale project right now, b) most of the ocean around Antarctica seems to have sufficient nitrogen anyway (but it can't be used if iron and silica aren't available), and c) I'm pretty sure the Antarctic Treaty would be invoked by somebody.

End result -- his questions did get me to update the lecture material for next day, and I got some interesting new info, so I'm not too put out.

[LiberalFighter]

5. Don't always do the research to support or refute a statement

Especially if the other person is a student the burden should be on them to prove their statement.

[CanuckAmok]

4. Hey, stranger... where ya been?

Nice to hear from you!