Don't You Dare Question Climate Change!

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is offering an on-line class this semester entitled, "Medical Humanities in the Digital Age." The course is being taught by three instructors, Rebecca Laroche, Wendy Haggren, and Eileen Skahill. What's making news about this class is an e-mail sent to all students who've enrolled. It states, "We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the 'other side' of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course." Students who might feel differently are being told not to enroll or to drop the class if already enrolled. The Communications Director of the University, Tom Hutton, not only supports the teachers policy, but added that the ban on debate even extends to discussions between students in on-line forums. And to make matters even more subjective, enrolled students have been given an approved list of reference materials to use for research. These materials are the only acceptable sources to be used for the class as they have been approved by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Global Warming, Global Cooling, Weather, Climate Change debate has been raging for years, with two polarized sides of the debate both speaking loudly and proudly in favor of their chosen platform. Both sides can produce “evidence” to support their claims. Both sides can produce a, ‘who’s-who’ list of supporters for their agenda. The striking difference between the two sides rests in the scientific method. Those who feel climate change is man-made and will eventually destroy the world are very vocal and demand that any and all debate, discussion, or questioning those beliefs should be immediately stopped. They often use the term “settled science” to somehow support the totalitarian approach of silencing opposition. In fact, many of them want to see “deniers” punished for not subscribing to their way of thinking.

Over the last few decades, this group has shifted terminology multiple times before finally settling on climate change. When Global Warming measurements showed no significant warming for several decades and funding started drying up, they moved to a more generic mantle. “Climate change” refers to the broader set of changes that go along with global warming, including changes in weather patterns, the oceans, ice and snow, and ecosystems – basically a high-class word to describe weather. They still cling to the original rationale though; saying the climate is changing is because people are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The opposition groups to the concept of climate change always challenge the narrative. They refuse to rely on climate models that do not make accurate predictions, growing tired of so-called scientists ‘adjusting” data points to meet an agenda. Most are fed up with repeatedly demonstrating the failures in methods employed to measure global temperatures or how this so-called scientific community continues making excuses for being proved wrong. The US government’s Global Historical Climate Network, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the National Climate Data Center all have been called-out for suspicious “adjustments” to the actual temperature data being gathered. These manipulations have been used as the rallying cry for those trying to pass a climate change agenda, but they are based on a false foundation.

The fact that the climate change side wants to end all debate raises more red flags than it dispels. After all, the Climate Change Theory is in fact theoretical, as is the Big Bang Theory. A theory is always open for debate and discussion. One of the most important cornerstones of science is the willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom. Climate researchers have been trying to go back in the records and “find” instances of long-term understanding of the world’s climate. Unfortunately for them, they only cherry-picked the data and when others brought everything forward, they looked worse off. In order to save face, the “warming” community is now trying to shut down debate on the topic. Despite the glamorization given in the mainstream media, the report stating that 97% of Climate Scientists agree with the Global Warming Theory has been debunked and proven false.

These three professors cite that theory as part of their agenda. That statistic was fraudulently derived by a biased researcher hand-picking a few dozen email responses from an informal email survey that carries no scientific weight whatsoever, but to the warming community, it was fact.

Rebecca Laroche, Ph.D. is the only instructor with any information available about her on the University website. Her bio reads, "Rebecca teaches Shakespeare, early modern women's writing, and the environmental humanities. She is the author of Medical Authority and Englishwomen's Herbal Texts. She was guest-curator of "Beyond Home Remedy: Women, Medicine, and Science" at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is working on a book titled Shakespeare, the Herbal, and the Intimate History of Plants and is co-authoring Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory." She is a professor in the English Department, a graduate of Yale University and has focused on 16th and 17th Century literature and women's roles in medicine. There is no evidence of any climate studies or meteorology studies in her educational background. Her personal blog site is focused on old recipes.

Eileen Skahill, MA is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology. She does not have an on-line biography listed on the University website. She holds a Masters Degree in Sociology from the same University she teaches at currently and a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from the University of Colorado in Boulder. A cursory internet search reveals very little about her except for the fact that she too seems to have no education to support her climate theorizing. Her area of inquiry is in the sociology of climate change with an emphasis on environmental and social justice movements.

Wendy Haggren PhD's bio has been removed from the school website, very recently. She works in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and has published papers on multiple topics; none relating to Climate Change. Her research is focused on DNA and genetic engineering. In researching her past on the internet, almost every single link has been scrubbed or deleted. She does have a PhD in Biology

How do three unqualified educators get to decide on how people think? Moreover, since when did science become something that teaches people to stop asking questions?