Need to know Science & Climate Change
One of the most recent concerns facing educators and scientists today is the funding of our scientific and educational institutions by industrial interest groups.  How much medical research goes into the search for a cure to a human ailment rather than into a better control for that ailment,- when the research facility is funded by a major pharmaceutical company whose financial future is best served by finding a better control.
I believe those extreme environmentalists with the specious PhD degrees in the Atmospheric sciences are responsible for pressuring many science faculties at even our best universities into making curriculum changes that igmore knowledge that contradicts their own pet theories.  Meterorology students are required to take Physics, but not at an advanced level.  When I was in High School in the 1950's the occurrence of the electrical Back EMF was taught in my grade eleven Physics course (Physics 95).
An Electrical Engineer needs to know about this force, as anywhere an electro-mechanical DC relay or solenoid is used, an inverse parallel diode must be wired across the relay or solenoid's coil to divert the reverse current around the coil,- preventing spurious operation of the coil. Electronics Technicians also learn about this force early in their carreers as they could never trouble shoot any device that incorporates a relay or solenoid without this knowledge.  Thus people in the electrical trades need to know about the Back Electromotive Force (Back EMF).  Meteorologists have no apparent need to know about this force as the atmosphere is not made up of electrical circuits.
When the university of Toronto put on Science Fairs in the mid 1990's there was one that attracted my attention because they were introducing a number of innovations to Astronomical Telescopes, one of my abiding interests.  The winning exhibit that year was for a model of "Lightning" telling us all about the positively charged Heavy Return Current that follows the Stepped Leader.  I congratulated the High School student who won, and informed him the heavy return current was more likely to be the Back EMF in the lightning rod where the electrical measurement was made.  Moments later I was button holed by the presiding, and angry, Physicist who promptly informed me that the Back EMF was no longer a topic taught at the university's introductory levels of Physics.  Thus the Meteorologists who studied lightning were not taught about this important and relevant Back Electromotive Force in their required Physics courses, as it was deemed anyone not specializing in Physics or the electrical trades didn't need to know about it.
To properly explain lightning, they did need to know about the Back EMF.  Lacking knowledge of the back EMF, the Atmospheric Scientists who studied lightning developed inaccurate theories to explain how lightning does work.  I believe the Back EMF was removed from the Physics curriculum so that lightning could be presented by the Extreme Environmentalists (with credentials as Atmospheric Scientists) as a heat producing phenomenon instead of the cooling phenomenon it really is.
Mr. Gore and his friends keep telling us that as far as Climate Change is concerned; all the science has already been done.  What an unscientific statement!  Similar statements made in times past helped stagnate the scientific growth of entire civilizations for hundreds of years and perhaps even millennia.  One such statement was: "Everyone knows the world is flat!"  Ever since Ferdinand Magellan first circumnavigated the world in the 16th century, and since our scientists have more recently photographed it from space, - we know the world is not flat.  We know beyond the shadow of a doubt the world is a very large oblate sphere that only appears to be flat due to our own very small size compared to it.  Well Mr. Gore, if the science on Climate Change has already been done, it has most certainly been done wrong by you and your friends.
Mr. Gore's attempt to discourage further independent scientific inquiry into climate change is a most undesirable aid to the deliberate dumbing down of America.  It would appear those who wish to rule the world, prefer to rule over an ignorant and docile population.
The Extreme Environmentalists come in waves.  Those that were caught in Climate Gate 2009 were likely active long before they got caught.  Their wave paved the way for the next wave, and they were likely better informed than the following waves.  Thus it fell to them to remove the academic stumbling blocks such as the Back EMF then being taught at the introductory levels of Physics.  A later wave decided to make Physics a requirement for graduation in the Atmospheric Sciences.  In a following wave, Meteorologists were encouraged to come up with an explanation of lightning without knowing they were missing key information.  This is the well organized deliberate dumbing process in action.
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