Your Opinion: Response on university's energy workshop

Dear Editor:

In the Sept. 14 paper Tony Smith shared his concern and sadness that the University of Missouri was involved with the development and presentation of a workshop entitled "Energy in Today's Classrooms" that he read about in the Huffington Post. I found the Post article and read it.

It was apparently developed as the result of comments from one of the teachers who attended the workshop [for free as a benefit of the electric cooperatives providing scholarships to help central Missouri teachers afford to gain further college credits.]

One sentence was used to list the several topic areas covered in the workshop, but the rest of the article was dedicated to challenging why anyone would suggest that some natural phenomena could have a greater effect on climate change than human activity.

A video of the university professor presenting a few slides was included, but the sound quality was too poor to understand what he was saying. Nothing in the Post article provided any substantive refutation of the positions attributed to the professor.

This workshop was developed to provide science teachers tools and information to use in their classes to teach students how their energy, with an emphasis on electricity, is produced, what impacts that production might have on the environment (plants, soil, water, air), and how to best conserve energy in their everyday lives. I know, because I contributed in a small way to the development of the workshop content.

Smith, as an MU graduate, surely knows of the concept of academic freedom.

His letter suggests that any researcher who would dare to present information other than that human activity is the sole cause of climate variation should be hushed up. That is not what the university system stands to protect. In fact, climate change is a viable concept, but it is mostly based upon modeling that seeks to bend existing data to prove a hypothesis. To date that modeling has failed to definitively prove that hypothesis.

Regarding his concern that a public university be embroiled in presenting information on energy production, efficient use and conservation, I simply say that our alma mater is doing what it is supposed to do.

You see, MU is a land grant university and thus has the tripartite mission of teaching, research and extension/outreach. This workshop is an appropriate extension/outreach effort.

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