More Climate Change Leads To Less Guacamole

For those of us who live in the midwest, the reality of Climate Change can be a bit of a tough sell.  Just yesterday, in fact, while I was in the locker room at my gym, a whole group of severely underdressed men placed one leg up on the benches and proceded to scandalize the rest of us not only with body parts that should not be as obviously displayed as these were, but also with comments like, "Where's this 'global warming' I keep hearing so much about, and "Man - I'd take a little of that so called 'global warming' those scientists are always yammering on about."

Without a decent understanding of the facts of climate change, these comments are to be expected.  This is primarily due to the fact that, unlike other parts of the country, our recent weather has been somewhat mild.  I say that having just lived through what is most likely a climate change induced polar vortex for the past several months, but for some reason cold weather doesn't really conjur up images of climate change in most people's minds.  Our relatively cool summers and, until recently, the warmish winters have not given most midwesterners a good dose of what the rest of the planet has been experiencing.  The term "Global Warming" is still commonly used and, although it is true that many places on the planet will warm up, not all changes will be in the form of higher temperatures.  Some of the changes are going to be in the form of more severe weather, some in the form of droughts, and some in the form of colder than normal temperatures, at least for a while.

And if you are a fan of the fast food-ish restaurant Chipotle, some of the changes will hit us a little closer to home.

Chipotle recently announced that, “Increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients.”  What this is basically saying is that certain staples from the restaurant like guacamole or salsa might not be available should the price of those ingredients increase too much.  For the full story, check out Think Progress or Time  

***Update***

Chipotle is not saying that there will be a shortage of avocados this year due to climate change.  This statement made by Chipotle was part of a regular risk disclosure statement to the SEC.  All companies do this, and in these statements, companies disclose all of the possible risk factors that might affect business.  The Chipotle statement is unique in that it is the first to explicitly state climate change as a viable risk factor that could affect business.        

1:1 Computing - Data Analysis and Climate Change

I love this comic.  In the past few weeks I have heard at least 3 impromptu lectures, normally at top volume, on the general theme of "WOW IT'S COLD OUT!  SEE?  CLIMATE CHANGE TOTALLY ISN'T REAL!  STUPID SCIENTISTS!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!"  This comic does a great job of explaining why that sort of statement doesn't make much sense.

People, by their nature, are not normally very good at looking at long range problems.  If it isn't something happening right now then it probably isn't going to get much attention.  Because of this, humans are always going to struggle with concepts like Climate Change and Evolution because neither of them are happening right now.  Well, technically they are but the results aren't immediately visible.

Students, being people, also have this problem.  Students, being teenagers, also have additional problems like acne, the girl that sits in front of them in Algebra, soccer practice, prom dates, what to do on the weekend, who they hate this week and, of course, their parents.  With all of these additional problems it makes it incredibly unlikely that they will pay attention if you are telling them things unless those things will immediately impact them.  All teachers have experience with this to some extent.  "There is a test on Friday," isn't nearly as likely to drive the students to study as "There is a test tomorrow." Additionally, "There is a test in 6 minutes," is where you will see the most studying, mostly by students who ignored the first two statements.

It is for this reason that I have taken to not telling them about climate change.  Oh, it isn't as if the

subject isn't in my curriculum - it totally is and it takes up about 2 weeks of our time - but I don't normally lecture on it until the end of the unit.  It has been much more effective to have them look at the data for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

The activity I use takes one of two forms.  Before each student had a chromebook I would give the students printouts of actual data sets from NOAA, The Hadley Centre, the World Bank, and others and ask the students to make several different graphs of the data.  For example, one of the graphs would be from the Hadley Centre data on temperature anomalies of the past century while another graph was from the World Bank data on oil consumption since the 1960's.  The students make graphs, compare the data, and determine if there is a relationship between the two data sets.  This is repeated for the Hadley Centre data and the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from NOAA and for all of the other data sets.  I would then ask them to write up their conclusions on how the variables are related to each other.

Now that each student has a chromebook I share the data sets with them using Google Drive and ask them to make the graphs using Google Sheets.  They then transfer these graphs to Google Docs and then do their variable analysis there.  So much simpler!  Also,since I totally love using these computers in my classroom, I have modified this activity for my Advanced students so that after they have made the graphs from the available data sets they must then go find alternative sources to determine if multiple data sets match up.  This requires quite a bit more time and a lot more work from the students (and me!) but it is worth it.

Whichever method you use, it gives the students practice making and analyzing graphs which is a big part of the Next Generation Science Standards, and it helps them become familiar with real world data sets.  Also, hopefully the next time someone starts in on a grocery store checkout line lecture about cold weather and climate change, the students will have enough experience with the vast amount of data supporting the facts of climate change to know enough not to listen.