domenica 28 febbraio 2010

Astrologia del cambiamento climatico

 
Percepisco che qualcuno sta per fregarti
Wow, grazie per l'avvertimento! Quanto le devo?


La settimana scorsa, la camera dei rappresentanti del Sud Dakota ha approvato il decreto HCR 1009 che prevede l' "insegnamento bilanciato del riscaldamento globale" nelle scuole pubbliche del Sud Dakota.

I rappresentanti del Sud Dakota propongono come cause per i cambiamenti osservati: " Una varietà di effetti climatologici, meteorologici, astrologici, termologici e di dinamica ecologica". A parte l'astrologia (ma anche la "termologia" non è niente male), il documento è una bella collezione di leggende climatiche che illustra bene cosa succede quando i legislatori si improvvisano scienziati. Visto che c'erano, potevano anche abrogare la legge di gravità, così miglioravano la sicurezza degli aerei!

Certe volte mi viene quasi da tirare un sospiro di sollievo: ma allora i nostri legislatori non sono proprio i peggiori del mondo......

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Ecco il decreto completo, se vi incuriosisce.  

State of South Dakota  
EIGHTY-FIFTH SESSION
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, 2010  


363R0643   HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION   NO.  1009  


Introduced by:    Representatives Kopp, Bolin, Brunner, Cronin, Curd, Feickert, Gosch, Greenfield, Hamiel, Hoffman, Hunt, Iron Cloud III, Jensen, Juhnke, Kirkeby, Lange, Lederman, Moser, Novstrup (David), Olson (Betty), Olson (Ryan), Pitts, Putnam, Rausch, Russell, Schlekeway, Sly, Steele, Tidemann, Turbiville, Van Gerpen, Verchio, and Wink and Senators Brown, Abdallah, Bradford, Haverly, Maher, and Schmidt
 


        A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Calling for balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota.
    WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; and
    WHEREAS, there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere where the majority of warming would be taking place; and
    WHEREAS, historical climatological data shows without question the earth has gone through trends where the climate was much warmer than in our present age. The Climatic Optimum and Little Climatic Optimum are two examples. During the Little Climatic Optimum, Erik the Red settled Greenland where they farmed and raised dairy cattle. Today, ninety percent of Greenland is covered by massive ice sheets, in many places more than two miles thick; and
    WHEREAS, the polar ice cap is subject to shifting warm water currents and the break-up of ice by high wind events. Many oceanographers believe this to be the major cause of melting polar ice, not atmospheric warming; and
    WHEREAS, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life on earth. Many scientists refer to carbon dioxide as "the gas of life"; and
    WHEREAS, more than 31,000 American scientists collectively signed a petition to President Obama stating: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, or methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the earth":
    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-fifth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming include the following:
            (1)    That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;
            (2)    That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; and
            (3)    That the debate on global warming has subsumed political and philosophical viewpoints which have complicated and prejudiced the scientific investigation of global warming phenomena; and
    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Legislature urges that all instruction on the theory of global warming be appropriate to the age and academic development of the student and to the prevailing classroom circumstances.