Apologia and Global Warming....
Our policy: At this point Sonlight doesn't have a position on global warming, unless I'm missing an article John has written. Unless that changes we shouldn't be taking a position at all. If a customer asks us about global warming, our answer is that Dr. Wile's texts do present evidence that it does not exist. Period. We can't say that we don't necessarily support all of the teachings, because then they want to know which ones, why don't we sell something else, do we have research tools to present the other side, on and on we go. As always a parent is the most qualified to decide whether they should skip a particular section or not, but that is as far as I would be willing to go.
Sonlight believes Apologia's texts for high school are the best currently available or we wouldn't be selling them. We should not say anything that might instill doubt. If a customer wants more information on the position taken in the text, we can refer them to the publisher. And we can remind them about our guarantees.
This thread is located at https://www.sonlight-forums.com/showthread.php?t=121914
and add that while I do believe that we need to be able to answer the question as to whether or not Dr. Wile addresses this in the text, I don't believe we have to try to *support* his thesis in one way or the other.
On page 319 ... he defines global warming. Then he states ... Although the fear that too much carbon dioxide in the air could lead to global warming is based on sound scientific reasoning, reality is just a bit more complex than that. To see what we mean, take a look at the data presented in Figure 10.11 (the figure contains two tables ... carbon dioxide concentration between 1880 to 2000 (measured in parts permillion) and temperature derivation from "normal" between 1880 to 2000 (measured in Celsius).
On page 320 ... Now what do all of these data tell us? Well, the top graph tells us that there has been a steady increased in carbon dioxide levels in the air since about 1920. If you look at the bottom graph, however, you do not see a corresponding increase in the temperature of the earth. Instead, from about 1880 to 1920, the average global temperature increased in a very shaky pattern by about 0.5 degrees Celsius. After that, however, the temperature change varies up and down quite a bit, but continues to hover around zero. In other words, over the time that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased steadily, the average temperature of the earth, on average, did not change significantly.
Does this mean that the amount of carbon dioxide int he air does not affect the temperature of the earth? No. We know that the greenhouse effect is real, or we wouldn't be here. These data tell us that reality is more complex than theory. Remember, in order to see a change in the greenhouse effect, there must be a *significant* change in the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Unfortunately, scientists do not know what a significant change would be. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubled, would that be significant? From the standpoint of the greenhouse effect, we really do not know. What we know for sure, however, is that the sum total of all carbon dioxide produced by human activity is approximately3% of the carbon dioxide produced by the other processes that make up the carbon cycle. One could argue, then, that this amount of added carbon dioxide is simply not significant compared to all of the other processes that add carbon dioxide to the air.
Then on page 321 ... Although there are many things we do not know about the greenhouse effect, right now the reliable data indicate that the earth is not warming, at least not in any significant way. In addition, we know that the earth has been much warmer in the past. A team from Harvard University reviewed over 240 scientific studies on global temperatures in the past, and their research indicates that the earth was significantly warmer between the ninth and fourteenth centuries than it is today. As a result, it is awfully hard to believe that modern burning of fules is leading to any kind of global warming, as people did not burn nearly as much fuel in the Middle Ages as they do now!
He then goes on to discuss reasons why the media seem to say that global warming is happening. In a nutshell ... 3-4 reasons ... 1) most of the people who discuss the earth's ecosystems really do not understand them very well. Thus, they tend to use their own personal experiences and attempt to relate those to the earth as a whole. 2) people who have a political agenda to push can often distort the facts in order to make their point more persuasive (i.e. a large percentage of the global warming over the past 100 years occurred *before* the 1900s). 3) if you dig hard enough you can find *some* evidence that the earth is warming up as a whole (i.e. land-based temperature measures do show a slight warming trend, even over the past 20 years. But this data ignores that 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water where no warming is occurring. When the entire globe is measured by satellites, no warming trend is seen.)
Hopefully that gives you enough detail so that you understand what he says about the issue. Please excuse any typos ... I typed this fast!