Among those testifying at this afternoon’s hearing on school science standards:

Ed Wardwell of Boise, a teacher for more than 30 years, urged the Senate Education Committee to adopt the standards as-is, not deleting the five sections that reference climate change as the House Education Committee called for, saying they didn’t address positive in addition to negative aspects of climate change.  “That seemed to me like that there were positive aspects of not wearing a seatbelt,” he told the committee. “I really doubt that there are many out there. … I like the wording the way it is.”

Dr. Jen Pierce, a climate change scientist and mother of a first-grader and preschooler in the Boise schools, said, “They wanted to hear both sides of the story. The earth is warming and people are the cause, period. There’s not any debate about this in the scientific community. There is not any other side to this story. Even the oil and gas industry acknowledges the fact that humans are indeed causing climate change. So why are our elected leaders denying this?” She noted Sen. Dan Foreman’s widely publicized email calling climate change a “liberal scam” and “ridiculous nonsense,” and said, “Ice caps don’t have a political agenda, they just melt. Forest fires don’t have a political agenda, they just burn. Scientists don’t have a political agenda. We are just trying to educate the people about the state of our planet and what we are doing about it.”

Thomas Trotter, professor emeritus at the University of Idaho, said, “As far as climate change is concerned, there is no serious debate any longer. The jury is no longer out. ... I think the sooner we recognize this reality, the sooner we can get on with solution-finding. And who knows, the students we have in schools today may in fact be the problem solvers of tomorrow.”