Gallaudet University and Global Warming

There's no better place to indoctrinate new and unsuspecting students on anthropogenic global warming claim by inculcating them (i.e. brainwashing) into the consensus agreement games in college courses instead of learning how to dissect critically such (mis)information. Long gone are the days at Gallaudet University during the late 2000s when "global warming" was on almost everybody's lips, er, hands. That sort of fervor has largely evaporated save except nowadays a few professors or courses that still teach the misinformation game instead of teaching students on how to acquire critical thinking skills to realize whether or not we have an "environmental crises" on a global scale all because we like to belch, "dangerous" CO2 gases! Gag them please!

HIS 323 Geography and the Environment (3)
This course is designed to survey the relationship between human impact on geography and the environment. By looking at different cultures and their values, examining urban and rural environments, learning about less developed and more fully developed nations, and by considering the role of race, religion and gender in human relations, students learn about the complexity of dealing with environmental crises such as global warming. In essence, this course will examine how changes in geography and the environment influence each other. By studying specific areas of the planet, students will be able to consider alternative solutions from those considered in the United States.

Now, if you think that consensus by the "entire global scientific community" has happened then let me tell you, it's already a myth thinking there's actually a consensus. That "entire global scientific" agreement on "global warming" or consensus came from a 2009 survey inquiry by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) survey that had two online questions submitted to some 10,257 Earth scientists where only 3,146 of them responded.

Here are the two questions:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels,do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Out of all those Earth scientists that responded only 75 climate scientists said "Yes" to the number two question. (Doran, P.T. and M.K. Zimmerman (2009), Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Eos Trans. AGU, 90(3), 22, doi: 10.1029/2009EO030002)

Internet source: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009EO030002.shtml

Doran's paper: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Doran commented in the paper:

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists." 

Again, this whole "consensus" thing is a myth saying that scientists mostly agreed that CO2 caused human emissions is the culprit on causing Earth to "warm up." Climate has warmed up many times. It has also cooled many times. In fact, the IPCC acknowledged in their latest 2013 second order draft report confirming that the sun's irradiance plays a huge role on helping Earth warm up rather than CO2. A shocking admission by the IPCC.

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.

 As the leaker explains, this is a game-changer:

The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum. The final draft of AR5 WG1 is not scheduled to be released for another year but the public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.

Indeed. All those years the students at Gallaudet University were unwittingly inculcated into the whole line and sinker that man was the sole reason for Earth's climate to warm up with the excess CO2 spewed into the atmosphere. A gas that plants and even algae that depend and thrive on. Yet, even former Gallaudet University assistant swim coach, Bill Snape, still believes the global warming theory/meme by buying recklessly into the Hurricane Sandy hype and scare.

First, any climate change conversation must highlight the steep price of inaction. Recent polls show that Americans are increasingly aware of the link between climate change and extreme weather. But that connection is still underreported and underappreciated – and absolutely critical to understanding why we must act.

Hurricane Sandy, the hybrid “Frankenstorm” now menacing the East Coast, offers an example of the kind of catastrophic storms we’re likely to see more of in a warming world. That’s because climate change has huge impacts on the hydrological cycle, increasing the risk of flooding and intense precipitation. That hydrological effect has a flip side: Climate change also increases the risk of events like this year’s horrific drought, which drove up food prices and brought down natural disaster designations on more than half the counties in America. Much of the globe is already suffering from climate change. One in every 100 humans on earth became a forced migrant last year, according to a new report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and climate change often worsened their plight. Thousands of Vietnamese, for example, are being driven from their homes by recurrent flooding in the Mekong Delta – a not-so-natural disaster created by climate-change-driven sea-level rise.

A little scientific education is in order here, especially for Gallaudet students and teachers who may still follow Bill Snapes' environmental global warming, global climate destruction, climate change  tirades where Bill gets it wrong on several examples seen here and here.

There is nothing to connect the so-called "Frankenstorm" to that of "anthropogenic caused climate change" because the number of hurricanes has not increased when in fact the number of hurricanes has actually gone down. In fact, we have gone the longest period since the Civil War without a major landfalling category 3 or larger hurricane to hit the United States. Just as well the number of tornadoes has not increased over the last 60+ years according to NOAA's data even though the number of U.S. tornadoes makes up 75% of all tornadoes around the world. Bill Snape simply does not make any sense and would rather appeal to emotions aimed at low information students and people gullible enough to take his words at face value without questions. In spite of the fact that Earth has NOT warmed up over the last 15 years when nearly one-third of all human emissions of CO2 has occurred since 1998.

As for the Mekong Delta that Bill Snape discussed it is known for its annual floods which are always a natural part of the environment that people expect to happen every year. In fact, for flooding to happen it requires 3 major factors to occur at the same time.  High flow discharge from upstream, continuous heavy rainfall and the high tidal flow from the East Sea that pushes against outgoing river water. The outgoing water in the Mekong Delta gets pushed upstream causing water to back up and spread out beyond the banks and flood the surrounding areas.  Ninety percent of the flooding stems from the high flow discharge from upstream and the high tidal flow from the East Sea that pushes the river water upstream causing the area to flood.  High tidal flow accounts for 30 percent of the flooding and a major reason why the Mekong Delta gets flooded every year, a natural event. Some years get some serious flooding (high floods) that have caused damage to property and lives lost. And that is attributed to mostly the tidal events rather than global warming or rising sea levels which has risen over 2 inches since 1993. People have adapted to this annual flooding to reduce fatalities and they have a motto: "Avoiding the Floods, Living with floods and Controling the Floods." They have for hundred of years learned to adapt to this natural yearly event.

Sorry, Bill Snape. Not much of the globe is suffering from the so-called man made climate change as you have tried so hard to scare people into changing. We will still have floods, tornadoes, wind storms, blizzards, excess rain, droughts, glacial ice changes, snowpack changes, and tidal surges. Climate change is a natural event that is influenced by much larger natural factors than man alone. I wonder, did any of the students at any time over the last several years ever stood up and challenged the prevailing notion about global warming on campus by professors and other people? Or did they just meekly sat in their chairs and nodded without fully understanding how things work? 

The moment you call people "deniers" means you have bought into the hype without the full understanding or knowledge of how things work and the fact that you are buying into the theory of anthropogenic global warming rather than on facts alone by using both misinformation and disinformation. The biggest giveaway is the use of hype and fear to cover up much of their lacking information that would've otherwise showed the opposite the understanding about climate change and that there are natural factors at work much larger than CO2 that influences our climate. Global climate is by far an extremely complex system. None of the climate models that have been used has ever accurately modeled past climate changes using CO2 as the forcing agent. That's problematic, folks.  The biggest and obvious most influential factor on our climate is our friendly sun located 93 million miles away with Earth located at the right distance, the various long scale periodicity, the right orbital path around the sun, the right amount of magnetic field around Earth, and the right amount of precision over time to make Earth an extremely livable planet. And that's just a few examples of natural factors that influence Earth's climate. No sun. No Earth. No people or animals. That's a fact.

Gallaudet University's Quiet Climate Change - Part II

This is a second round to my previous blog as I have something else to add. For the longest time I supported the idea of having a robust discussion on climate science.  Because of a politically driven agenda behind the term "climate change" it has become irretrievably tainted as a code word for "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) rather than as both cooling and warming climates that is part of Earth's natural climate variability.

For this part II blog piece I'd like to continue my discussion of Bill Snape's 2008 video presentation that was presented at Gallaudet University.  He covered the Arctic sea ice in the beginning and presented a graph that showed a downward trend based on 27 years worth of Arctic sea ice data at the 9:46 time mark. He used an Arctic sea ice before and after satellite pictures taken in 1979 and 2007. Funny thing is that he said "30 years later" at the 2 minute mark referring the time difference between the two pictures which should've been "28 years later." The two satellite pictures he presented showed a large expanse of Arctic sea ice in September of 1979 and contrasted that with a much smaller expanse of sea ice in September of 2007 under the heavy pretext that the change in ice expanse was due to man's supposed additional introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.

At the time of Bill Snape's presentation he had only 28 years worth of continuous satellite imagery and not 50, 100, 200, 500 or 1000 years worth of sea ice expanse data to see the highest and lowest sea ice extent over a longer period of time. It was simply not possible because satellite technology did not exist at the time. We're only seeing a very small window of time spanning a mere 28 years. That's not enough to make any kind of conclusion other than it's all naturally caused rather than man-made (induced). And then he said the most irresponsible thing that any self-respecting scientists would not do and that is to make a factual statement based on a hypothesis using only 28 years worth of sea ice coverage data that the reason for less ice coverage was because of global warming. He didn't say anthropogenic-caused global warming (AGW) but the whole pretext of his presentation is on global warming as caused by human beings. There's no doubt about that one. To the unsuspecting audience watching Bill's presentation they were most likely not aware that 28 years of data do no equate as an irrefutable proof that AGW is the reason when in reality it is much more complex than that with man's contribution hardly being the source.

Let's look at a time lapse video from 1978 to 2009 using that same Arctic sea ice data and you can see the continual contraction and expansion of sea ice over time.



Here's a video time lapse from 2000 to 2009 that's a bit more detailed and clearer.



In Bill Snape's presentation he showed a September 2007 satellite picture showing the Arctic sea ice at its lowest sea expanse. That was 4 years ago. Since then the expanse has not gotten any lower than 2007 if you look at the AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent graph (go here for an enlarged picture).

You can see that after 2007 none of the sea ice extent ever got lower than 2007. There's also NORSEX's graph to look at well.  With 33 years worth of Arctic sea ice data showed a slight downward trend and that's all it is, a downward trend with no idea of what that trend may have looked like prior to 1979 leading up to today. But we can see what it might have looked like prior to 1979 using other sources to gain a better idea.

Before 1969 six ships completed the Northwest Passage when it was ice free at the time. Earlier than that you had Roald Amundsen back in 1903 made his ice-free trip in the late summer month using his 70 foot long wooden fishing boat during his three year trip to find the "holy grail" Northwest Passage. That passage was ice free then when he discovered the route.  It was also ice free in the 1940s.

St. Roch had serviced RCMP posts and Inuit settlements in the western Arctic since 1928, but it is for her epic voyages through the Northwest Passage from west to east between 1940 and 1942, and the return voyage in 1944..

It certainly wasn't ice free some 13,000 years ago when we had glacial ice sheets that extended all the way to the northern parts of the United States (geographically speaking) before it began retreating as Earth gradually warmed up. That's an indisputable fact. Earth has warmed up since then with occasional mini ice ages.
You have historical, archaelogical, and biological examples and evidences so numerous they point to a very warm Medieval period from 1000 to 1300 AD. And that temperatures were estimated as high as 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today. Crops cultivated were done further north in Europe. Tree lines in the Alps were found to have grown 2000 meters higher than today's tree line elevation. Vikings were able to live on Greenland and even grow crops there before the cold climate returned and had to abandon their established settlements (this is true in the northern parts of Norway). Grapes were grown  for wine at one time as far north as southern Norway. Citrus fruits were once grown much further north in Asia than today. All point to a very warm period of time. All documented.

During the Holocene period studies have found trees that grew few hundred miles more north compared to today or that they found trees growing 1500 to 2400 feet higher in elevation in mountainous areas than today. All at a time when CO2 concentration was much, much lower, of course. Or go further back in time you had CO2 concentrations in the 1000 to 2000 ppm range where both plant and animal species thrived on land.

So, in retrospect, I have several concerns about Bill Snape's 2008 presentation to an audience that weren't exactly savvy in the field of science to understand enough the limitations of data and correlation exercises. The warming (and cooling) of Earth is not unprecedented. It has been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years, even when you have had natural catastrophic events occur such as volcanic explosions and meteor impacts which created dramatic climatic changes on a global scale in a very short time span.

On a closer time scale we have retreating glaciers of Garibaldi Park in B.C., Canada (map) where retreating glaciers revealed several thousand year old preserved tree stumps with their roots still in the soil. Trees that were once part of an ancient forest. An indication of a time when it was much warmer you had mature forest growing in abundance. The Warren glacier (one of many glaciers in Garibaldi Park) began retreating from it's maximum extent in 1705 over a span of almost 300 years to 2003 with recent photographic evidence starting in 1912.

Glaciers in Garibaldi Park have retreated and advanced several times over the last several thousand years which may be in fact tied to solar activity as an important if not main climate forcing mechanism.

Periods of advance in Garibaldi Park are broadly synchronous with advances elsewhere in the Canadian Cordillera, suggesting a common climatic cause. The Garibaldi Park glacier record is also broadly synchronous with the record of Holocene sunspot numbers, supporting previous research that suggests solar activity may be an important climate forcing mechanism.

Bill Snape, do you know what's scarier? To have an audience that isn't savvy enough to understand the limitation of scientific data and correlation exercises, and who are more easily swayed with cute pictures of polar bears with one person presenting only one side of the story that's theoretical in nature. For example, if you want to talk about correlation then tell me which of the two graphs shows a better positive correlation with global temperature change on Earth.


Picture graphs of correlation of Arctic Temperatures With Solar Irradiance (above) and CO2 (bottom).

Those graphs came from a 2005 study on the effects of solar irradiance on Arctic temperatures (Soon, W.H., "Variable Solar Irradiance as a Plausible Agent for Multidecadal Variations in the Arctic-wide Surface Air Temperature Record of the Past 130 Years," Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, 2005) where you can see that there is a much stronger positive correlation between temperatures and solar irradiance than with increasing CO2 concentration over time.

So, where I'm getting at? Well, a lot of things. One is the feeding of scientific information based on a theory such as AGW as if they were factual science and that all scientists have come to a consensus on this (they haven't). It's true that the Arctic sea ice has expanded and contracted seasonally but with only 32 years worth of data we are limited by what we can surmise why a slight downward trend on sea ice extent other than to say it's all part of the natural variability of climate change. It's certainly better than to make a giant sweeping statement saying man has indirectly caused Arctic sea ice or glaciers to retreat all because of a theory and not fact.

Bottom line, Gallaudet University students and staff need to ask real honest and hard questions and not be afraid to raise their hands say, "Excuse me,...." and ask direct, challenging questions and the need for more clarification.

Gallaudet University's Quiet Climate Change

It all began some 4 to 5 years ago at the height of this well known climate fear rippling through the fabric of our easily-duped society ominously known as "Global Warming."  Gallaudet University soon became a part of this movement at the academic level where professors and students excitedly signed about this fearful awesomeness of thermagedon known as "Global Warming."  A term that has changed rather rapidly over the years to become known as "Climate Change" and then progress laughably to "Climate Disruption"......the equivalent of moving the goal post......all within the context of anthropogenic-caused global warming (AGW) even though Earth has not warmed up for 13 years since 1998.

This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.

‘This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’

Something that scientists are increasingly being pressed to admit that this is the case acknowledging global temperature has not risen in 13 years but still attempt to tweak their own reasoning behind the lack of temperature trend increase in favor of the direction of AGW. Such disingenuous attempts.

This "climate disruption" term was first proposed for use in 2010 to replace "climate change." Such a change designed to make it sound increasingly ominous because "climate change" wasn't doing enough to put fear into gullible, fertile public minds.  However, should a cataclysmic volcanic eruption occur, a la Pinatubo or worse Krakatoa, the slamming of a 1/4 mile wide iron-fused meteor into Earth or, god forbid, multiple nuclear warheads going off in different countries then by all means "Climate Disruption" would be appropriately termed for those instances because it would definitely disrupt our climate system in such a catastrophic manner.

The term "climate disruption" was designed in the context of "global warming" (though some scientists continue to deny it's about global warming but about rapid climate change) where human is supposedly the main reason for Earth to warm up (remember, no warming since 1998) rather than attribute to natural variability when humans ultimately have no control of.  Yet some people use even more ominous phrases like "avoid catastrophic climate disruption" like Bill Snape has done last year in May 2010 (fyi, he is the head swim coach at Gallaudet University). Now, it's catastrophic! Thermagedon! This "dangerous" carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in our atmosphere high above us even though CO2 makes up about 0.03% (0.0003) of the total atmospheric gases. The same gas that we exhale everyday. The same gas that green plants absorb it along with water to produce products through photosynthesis, sugar and oxygen, which leave the leaf. In short, we exhale the CO2 while plants absorb the CO2 to make Oxygen, a gas that we need to breath in order to live. But Bill Snape managed to mention "global warming" once, "climate change" twice, and "climate disruption" twice all in the same article he wrote last year.

At the height of Gallaudet University's global warming bandwagon which presumably peaked in 2007 when they made an announcement on joining with Focus the Nation organization in a newsletter (the Dec 17, 2007 newsletter is no longer publicly available except in the Google cache).

Gallaudet students know that climate change is happening every day, but they believe they can reverse the trend. Members of the new student organization Green Gallaudet have already taken a number of actions, from selling reusable shopping bags to becoming part of the effort to make campus buildings environmentally friendly. Now the group, which held its first meeting in September, is planning a marathon day of activities surrounding climate change. Along with over 1,000 other schools and organizations nationwide, Gallaudet will host a Focus the Nation (FTN) teach-in on January 31, bringing dozens of experts to speak about climate change and how Americans can face this challenge.

The students’ concerns are founded in strong evidence. “The rate at which carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are rising is quite alarming,” said Green Gallaudet advisor Dr. Caroline Solomon, an associate professor of biology. She also points out that the increase is clearly tied to humans’ fossil fuel consumption. And it is just recently, during the lifetimes of today’s college students, that the problem has become more severe and garnered more attention. “The rise in global temperatures is having a greater impact than we could have possibly imagined ten years ago,” Dr. Solomon said.

Remember, global temperature has not risen since 1998. And certainly you have the problem of bad temperature data from bad temperature monitoring stations that skews global temperature data upward.

Gallaudet University quietly removed themselves from the Focus the Nation organization (no longer on their map) quickly jumping off of the bandwagon as you can tell below.

Focus the Nation prided themselves with their own apocalyptic prediction back in 2007 at the height of the global warming scare.

"Focus the Nation is exploding because, across the country, educators and students at every high school, college and university understand that we have just a few short years to act decisively to hold global warming to the low end of 3-4 degrees F."

Few short years? Oh my. Their past bleating prediction has now been replaced with a mission statement with no mention of climate change or global warming:

 A just and prosperous clean energy future

I've quietly observed the changes at Gallaudet University over the years when I noticed how they quietly jumped off the climate change bandwagon which probably began around 2009. Bill Snape probably made his last push to turn the tide at a global warming presentation at Gallaudet University signing and talking to students and staff in 2008 as seen in this video commenting on cute polar bears and such.  He also discussed polar bears in a May 2008 interview.

Protecting the Polar Bear

May 2, 2008

Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act could force the government to take action on global warming and development in the Arctic. Host Bruce Gellerman talks with Bill Snape from the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs who sued the federal government to make a decision about the polar bear...

GELLERMAN: So what legal precedent, if any, does [this listing] set?

SNAPE: Well I think it's very significant that if the polar bear were to be listed, and I think eventually it will be listed, it will be the first major species to be listed as a result of global warming impacts. … Listings under the Endangered Species Act in general should follow a very logical, rational scientific process. It's the Bush administration that has convoluted that process as it relates to the polar bear, because global warming doesn't comport with their notion of truth...

GELLERMAN: So is this about the bears, or is this about prohibiting, you know, invasion of their habitat by oil drilling companies?

SNAPE: Well it's absolutely about the bears, because the bears are doing poorly biologically, but I think the polar bear really is the canary in the coal mine. You're seeing an Arctic ecosystem collapsing...

Polar bear as the canary in the coal mine? Even though polar bears have been around for hundreds of thousands of years even at a time when arctic ice wasn't around? Arctic ecosystem collapsing? What does that supposed to mean?   Polar bears do not always depend on ice for their livelihoods or survival despite their natural ability to swim hundreds of miles in a single swim.

And ignoring the fact that Arctic sea ice extent began its satellite photo size measurement beginning in 1979 which is a mere 30+ years worth of sea ice data of contraction and expansion against the backdrop when the Arctic ocean was ice free (here and here) during the Holocene (past ~11,000 years). Going back further they survived an even warmer period based on DNA from a 110,000–130,000-year-old polar-bear fossil that was successfully sequenced.  Polar bears were around during the Holocene period in abundance and survived man's hunting and changing climate condition which is believed to have caused the extinction of the Wooly Mammoth. Even today the population of polar bears continue to be stable or have increased over the last three or four decades and in no way appears to be endangered at all....certainly not from global warming, natural or otherwise.

Yet with the recent ruling in June 2011 that upheld the endangered species status for polar bears based on the assumption that the arctic ice (which floats on the Arctic ocean and not on land) is "melting away" (hardly the case as sea ice extent remains within the natural variability of ice contraction and expansion) due to anthropogenic global warming as being the main thrust and reason for the polar bears' endangered listing but in reality it's pure politics in play as commented by the Cato Institute.

This is a political, not a scientific act. Polar bears are at or near record population levels today. They clearly survived eras in the past where Arctic climate was warmer than it is now. For several millennia after the end of the last ice age, summer temperatures in the Eurasian Arctic were 4-13°F warmer than modern temperatures. As some summer sea-ice is lost at today's temperatures, it seems likely that it was probably absent during that era. Obviously the polar bear survived, as did the fledgling Inuit culture.

This marks the first instance of a species being listed based upon a computer model of future climate from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There has been no net warming in the last decade, and scientists recently discovered that it is likely there will be little if any for the next decade. Not one of the IPCC's models includes a two-decade hiatus in global warming. Consequently this listing is based upon obsolete science. This makes the listing of the Polar Bear obviously political and hardly scientific.

I pointed out more than a few times in my blog and elsewhere that Earth's climate is an incredibly complex, not entirely a closed system, and dynamic system involving the atmosphere, land and water whose climate change is at the whim of our nearest star which is our sun. Occam's Razor, what has been obvious all along as theories go has always been in our sun-burned faces.  And with the latest round of Climategate 2.0 where a cache of more than 5,200 email correspondences were made available to the public a few days ago showed collusions between the media, politicians and scientists to promote AGW.  An attempt to purposely deny data to people and scientists and at the same time deny people who question the AGW any necessary media coverages.  This round of emails will certainly help squelch any unnecessary claims of anthropogenic global warming, or in the words of Bill Snape, "catastrophic climate disruption."

Be sure to read Part II.

Thank you for participating. 

Gallaudet University gets bad grades on environment

Interesting report. Three years in a row Gallaudet University gets an average "D" grade from The College Sustainability Report Card. For 2011 an overall grade of "D-" was given. In 2010 an overall grade was a "D" and in 2009 they get an overall grade of "D."

A grade was given for each area of concern and how they deal with it on the environmental level on Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Building, Student Involvement, Transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities, and Shareholder Engagement.

For example, for 2011:

Administration

Grade: D 

A committee of faculty, staff, and students has been formed to assess the feasibility of Gallaudet joining the Presidents' Climate Commitment. The university has shifted to electronic distribution for one of its major publications.
===========

Climate Change & Energy

Grade: F 

The university participates in an energy conservation program run by a utility and went carbon neutral for the duration of Earth Day in 2010. The administration is working to develop a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Energy efficiency improvements are expected to save the university $500,000 in fiscal year 2010. A recent energy audit by Johnson Controls, which revealed $2 million worth of potential annual savings in energy efficiency improvements, is now under review by the administration.

============

Food & Recycling

Grade: C 

Dining services spends 7 percent of its food budget on local products, including produce, meat, and seafood. The majority of eggs served on campus are cage free, and most chicken and milk is hormone and antibiotic free. In order to reduce waste, used cooking oil is recycled for biodiesel production; discounts are offered to students who use reusable bags; and almost all meals are trayless. Fair trade coffee is available at all campus locations. Dining services has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent over the next three years and has set aside a Low Carbon Diet Day in support of Earth Day, pledging to use all low carbon impact foods.

See complete survey data

============

Green Building

Grade: F 

Gallaudet maintains one building that meets LEED criteria. The university only uses 100 percent organic fertilizers, and 20,000 used tires were used to create the turf of a new football field. Most cleaning products used in campus buildings are Green Seal approved.

============

Student Involvement

Grade: D 

An environmental intern works with the administration to address sustainability issues on campus. The environmental student organization Green Gallaudet has worked on a number of initiatives, including hosting Earth Day activities and a climate change awareness event, as well as raising awareness on sustainability improvements in the dining hall. The student government committed to using exclusively biodegradable dishware for all sponsored events on campus, and the student newsletter hosts a green column to spotlight environmental issues.

See complete survey data

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Transportation

Grade: D 

The university partners with a car-sharing program, and a free shuttle service provides transportation to local, off-campus destinations.

============

Endowment Transparency

Grade:F 

The university has no known policy of disclosure of endowment holdings or its shareholder voting record.

============

Investment Priorities

Grade: C 

The university aims to optimize investment returns and has not made any public statements about exploring or investing the endowment in on-campus sustainability projects, renewable energy funds, or community development loan funds.

============

Shareholder Engagement

Grade: F 

The university has not made any public statements about active ownership or a proxy voting policy.

Let's compare Gallaudet University's grades to that of nearby universities like George Washington University (nice school, I went there) where it received an overall grade of a "B" for 2011. 

American University in D.C. gets a B+ for 2011. 

Georgetown University in D.C. gets a B for 2011. 

Nearby University of Maryland gets an A- for 2011. 

George Mason University in D.C. gets a B- for 2011. 

Howard University in D.C. gets a C- for 2011. 

And Catholic University in D.C. gets a D+ for 2011 although in 2010 they got a "D" and in 2009 they had a bad grade of "D-."  You can see that Catholic University when you read the reports have slowly improved their standing. But for Gallaudet University they actually gotten slightly worse going from a "D" in 2009 to a "D-" in 2011. Of all the major universities in the District of Columbia, Gallaudet University turns out to be the worse one when it comes to grading on their sustainability for the environment.

What are they thinking? What's going on over there? Lack of enthusiasm? I wonder what their excuses would be?

ADDENDUM - An angry white blogger writes this:

No, this hearing impaired blogger sadistically enjoys writing about Gallaudet University with a negative perspective without any solution.

I dare this impaired blogger write the same about Howard University to a Black blogsphere.

Enough is Enough!….he needs to get a life and spend more time with his family.

John Egbert need to learn to be less angry instead of always talking about me and my family who has a history of making personal attacks against me by using a DBC site, for example. Very professional of him.  If Gallaudet University had gotten good environmental grades then it'd be a different story here. Unfortunately, for the third year in a row, Gallaudet University failed to improve their environmental stewardship. 

Al Gore to be investigated for misleading/lying in Congress on Global Warming claim?

Senator Inhofe is asking the Dept. of Justice to investigate global warming claims and the numerous examples of lying, misleading research papers, interference, intimidation and so on. He intends to ask for a probe of the embattled climate scientists for possible criminal acts.

This EPW Minority Report shows that the CRU controversy is about far more than just scientists who lack interpersonal skills, or a little email squabble," said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "It's about unethical and potentially illegal behavior by some the world's leading climate scientists.

"The report also shows the world's leading climate scientists acting like political scientists, with an agenda disconnected from the principles of good science. And it shows that there is no consensus-except that there are significant gaps in what scientists know about the climate system. It's time for the Obama Administration to recognize this. Its endangerment finding for greenhouse gases rests on bad science. It should throw out that finding and abandon greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act-a policy that will mean fewer jobs, higher taxes and economic decline."

Also, Senator Inhofe thinks Al Gore should be recalled to explain his prior congressional testimony which I think amounts to some sort of criminal negligence that occurred.

Are deaf people more prone to believe in global warming claims?

I couldn't help but think about this question. Are deaf people more prone or likely to believe in the global warming claim (as caused by man) when compared to hearing people? It'd be an interesting data to gather and collect but it would also mean a lot of time involved to come to this conclusion. Although I have formed my own "conclusion" if you don't mind. It's based on what I've read so far and how people responded to this anthropogenic global warming theory claiming that CO2 is the major culprit on causing Earth to warm up (btw, we haven't warmed up in over 11 years) despite the fact that the Earth's climate system is incredibly complex that is coupled closely with our ocean, the land, the sun and even cosmic rays. What I've seen and read so far it appears that Deaf people in general have a much greater tendency to believe in such a global warming claim than hearing people. Of course, I could be wrong since it's an observation of mine over many years. Though please note a recent poll on global warming concerns by people was shown to be dead last in 20th place with economy, jobs, and terrorism as the top 3 concerns. If impending doom is so great I'm sure global warming concerns would be a the top. But it's not.

Gallaudet University has been pushing this global warming theory (yes, it is a theory and not a fact, folks) for several years on campus to gullible students. Mind the fact that having clean water, air and land, and be good environmental stewards at the regional and local scale is what we all want but to mix it up with the global warming theory confuses the issue and message. And while I'm at it at I have not seen any evidence of Gallaudet University of ever setting up a forum debate between those who believe in the theory to those who do not or are very skepetic. I've addressed this students and Gallaudet question before a few years back in this blog but this time my question is bit different.

First off, one of the good reasons as why people shouldn't buy into this global warming theory is the continual use of fear on people who don't know any better about science. This is currently being done at a global scale in the effort to push this global warming theory. That alone should ring plenty of warning bells. Several clues were already apparent such as polar bears drowning because of lack of sea ice (not true since polar bears can swim for many miles for hours), fearful video ads (such as this little girl seen clutching a stuffed polar bear toy as sea water rushes in with her clinging to life on tree limb), rising sea water to hundreds of feet (like on Al Gore's book cover where sea water ate away many states shoreline even far back into the North Georgian mountains and with Cuba gone, too, even though they have mountains over 6,000 ft high), more frequent and intense hurricanes (already debunked), Himalayan glaciers retreating quickly with such unprecendency (quite false and unproven much to IPCC embarrassment and ineptitude), rising temperature (we've been warming up ever since the last ice age some 13,000 years ago but funnily enough we've been static for the last 11 years or so), and so on. When you see scare tactics being used then it's a warning sign that something doesn't pass the smell test.

Gallaudet Green is guilty of doing this as well.

Dear Student Organizations,

The Green Gallaudet Environmental Organization serves an emerging movement of globally conscious citizens dedicated to improving the condition of our earth. The earth is facing an imminent catastrophic ecological collapse if human civilization continues on its current course.

Imminent catastrophic ecological collapse? That dire warning reminds me of that weird guy on a city corner street holding a sign that says, "The end is near, repent!" Or maybe that would be Obama doing that? Exactly when will this happen? How imminent are we talking about? Years? Decades? Centuries? A few hundred thousand years from now? Can you, Gallaudet Green, explain exactly how this "ecological collapse" will occur? Or do you not have the proper science background and knowledge to spew that nonsense in the first place? I'd have more concerns over an all out nuclear or biological warfare than global warming or for that matter...cooling.

But back to my original question. Are Deaf people more prone to be influenced by this global warming claim (as caused by man)? Or is this related to their lack of understanding in the field of science? Or even critical thinking skills? Does Gallaudet University teach critical thinking skills when it comes to climate and Earth science? Or has Gallaudet University, the students, teachers and such allow themselves to be influenced by a climate theory that cannot even be validated out in the field?

Again, when scare tactics are used globally and scientists who have their hands in the cookie jars of government grants on global warming call names on other people like "deniers" are warning signals that something is wrong here. Something is fishy. People and leaders have been lying to the public for over a decade on this global warming claim.

Shame on them. Shame on Gallaudet University. Shame on those who think it's better to call people names than to debate on the merit of scientific knowledge.