Weekly John Locke Foundation research division newsletter focusing on environmental issues.
The newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF and other think tanks as well as items in the news.
NC Public Schools: Using End of Course Test to Spread Environmentalist Propaganda — Part 2
Last week I began a look at some questions from the North Carolina End of Course Assessment, allegedly in Biology, that was recently released and produced by the state Division of Public Instruction. I pointed out that the question that was focused on last week was one of several propaganda, and not science, based questions on the test and that in future weeks this newsletter would focus on other questions from this same test. I also pointed out that, given the definition of biology as being related to the study of living organisms, it was not at all clear that some of these questions even belonged on the exam. I think this is also true of the question being focused on this week.
Here’s the question:
Which environmental concern is most associated with burning fossil fuels?
A global climate change
B pollution of ocean waters
C ozone layer destruction
D decrease in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide
The "correct" answer, as shown in the answer key, is A. Besides the fact that the relationship between this question and biology as a subject is tangential at best — chemistry or physics would probably be more appropriate — both the question and the answer are problematic. First, the question itself is nebulous and lacks rigor. It refers to an environmental concern "most associated with burning fossil fuels." There is no indication of what is meant by this. Is it referring to statistical association, or association in the minds of the general public, or association in the minds of fellow students or their teachers? The question gives no clue. It would of course be important for the student to know this. The only one that would be important in a scientific sense would be statistical association, so we will give the question the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is what is being referred to. But the fact is that the question starts out on very nebulous grounds. Also, the question says nothing about whether the association is positive or negative. Again, to give DPI the benefit of the doubt we will assume it is referring to a positive association.
Moving on to the "correct" answer, "global climate change," the problems get worse. First of all, if they really mean the very general "global climate change" and not specifically global warming, which is what I think the answer is actually referring to, then both the question and the answer are actually ridiculous. The global climate has been changing, sometimes radically, including prolonged ice ages and extensive warming periods, since there has been a global atmosphere and hundreds of millions of years before anyone even thought of burning fossil fuels. No one argues that there is any kind of statistical "association" between any of these changes and the burning of fossil fuels.
So let’s assume that DPI, in issuing this question, didn’t really mean global climate change, but global warming, and not all global warming, but warming that has occurred since the mid to late 19th century, when there began an increase in the use of fossil fuels for heating, cooling, electricity, and transportation. Even given this generous interpretation of the question, if what is being referred to is "statistical association," which itself is a very loose expression since it doesn’t say close association or give any probability statistic, it is not at all clear what the data shows.
During this period the use of fossil fuels has risen continuously, but global temperatures have not. The biggest increase in fossil fuel use has come recently, from the end of WWII to the present. But during this time frame there have been periods of cooling (remember the ice age scare of the 1970s), warming, and neither cooling nor warming. In fact, during the last 60 years — between 1950 and 2010 — there has been only one 20-year period of warming while, as noted, fossil fuel use has increased continuously. This occurred between the late 1970s and the late 1990s.
So yes, there is an association only in the trivial sense that as fossil fuel use increased something happened to the global climate. But of course the climate would have changed even if fossil fuel use did not increase. An actual positive correlation does exist between global warming and sun intensity, but interestingly the exam does not question the students on this relationship.
North Carolina DPI should be embarrassed by this question. First, it requires the student to read into it meaning that is not explicitly stated. Second, the correct answer that it gives is so broad as to render the entire question meaningless. There are two possible explanations for this. Either DPI is attempting to politicize the exam in favor of an environmentalist agenda, or there is profound ignorance on the part of those who are constructing the test. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which is the case.
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