Is Online Education for K-12 Really Wrong-headed?
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Leave a Comment Online K – 12 education is receiving considerable attention from established media, and much of that attention is negative. Getting Smart published an opinion piece that I had written about the spate of media attention to online K – 12. The opinion makes the case for the use of data and sound science for the evaluation of online education. It questions the use of invective, unidentified “experts,” and veiled attacks on capitalism as a reasonable and fair foundation for its evaluation.
U. S. global competitiveness depends upon education, and an excellent foundation in K – 12 is essential. Without that foundation, high school graduates are neither ready for the workplace nor college, an argument well-made by the work of Achieve. Employers suffer from ill-prepared graduates with the requirement for additional training and poor performance, and colleges – that are able to offer remedial education – waste students’ and taxpayers’ money on readying ill-prepared students for real college-level work.
Online learning is increasingly accepted by many sectors of society for the value that it provides in flexibility for and adaptability to the needs of learners who are better able to respond to that environment. The potential that online learning offers is probably still unrealized. As we increase online learning’s adaptive capacity, it may well be able to individualize education in ways that raise substantially its potential to improve students’ learning. That was the reason that Apollo acquired Carnegie Learning, admittedly an example from tertiary education rather than K -12. But the point applies equally well to K – 12.
Let’s give online learning a chance, but we should hold it to high standards in terms of outcomes – the same high standards to which we should hold learning from traditional education.
Energy and Health-Related Technological Improvements
Energy and climate change became news again with the recent attention to the article by Drew Shindell and his colleagues, published in Science. The media’s attention has mostly focused on the scientists’ contributions to modeling the role of methane and soot on climate change. But I would like to draw attention to the role that new technology can play in improving our health in the face of global dependence on an increasing supply of energy and the particulates associated with the use of energy.
The issue of soot caught my attention, not because of its impact on climate change, but because of the ongoing scientific work associated with the impact of particulates on health. When I read the article I was reminded of my Mom’s requirement that I sweep the large soot particles from our front porch in Kingsport Tennessee nearly every morning. I grew up in that small industrial town in northeast Tennessee in the fifties and sixties when soot was a considerable nuisance.
Today, we increasingly understand the link between atmospheric particulates and a variety of health issues. In this case, particulates refer to a variety of microscopic substances, including solid bits of dirt, ash and soot. The impact of microscopic particulates comes from their ability to lodge deep inside our lungs. A reminder of the health issues of particulates came in the 2008 Summer Olympics with photos of the masked face of cyclist Mike Freedman as he arrived in Beijing with some apparent anxiety about the quality of the air there.
That air quality can have an effect on our health is drawing increasing scientific research attention. Scientists from the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University are finding a relationship between atmospheric particulates and a number of diseases, including ischemic heart disease. Scientists at Arizona State University have found similar relationships with the incidence of asthma. Maria Eugenia Monge and her colleagues from Lyon’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique reached the conclusion that soot photochemistry may well be a key player in urban air pollution. Light appears to prevent surface deactivation of soot.
In their recent Science article, Professor Shindell and his colleagues modeled a number of measures related to reducing the emission of soot. They included targeting emissions from incomplete combustion, the use of clean-burning biomass stoves, brick kilns, coke ovens, and high emission vehicles. Already there is considerable work in areas like cleaner burning stoves, primarily used in developing countries; Shell Foundation has partnered with Colorado State University’s Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory to introduce a new design for a simple cook stove. Exxon Mobil is taking serious the role that new technology can play in developing cleaner energy; Senior Vice President Andy Swiger addressed the company’s support for new technology in a speech he made in Dubai a little more than a year ago.
We are an energy-dependent 21st century society. We are also a society where science is increasing our understanding of the relationship between health and the particulates associated with incomplete combustion of fuels. While policy changes may well improve our health, it is the new technology on which we will fundamentally depend for solutions.
K – 12 Online Education
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Leave a Comment The Center for Education Policy just issued its updated report on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2010-2011. AYP is a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act, and the goal is 100% of students reaching proficiency by 2014. The report shows that public schools and are struggling; indeed they appear to be falling further behind. This report is instructive in light of recent criticism of online K-12 education.
There were several very important findings of the report:
- Approximately 48% of public schools did not make adequate yearly progress in 2011, an increase from the 39% which did not make AYP in 2010.
- The 48% failing to make AYP makes 2011 the worst year’s report since the No Child Left Behind Act took effect.
- States varied widely, e.g., Wisconsin with 11% failing to the State of Florida with 89% failing; in my own State of Arizona, 42% of schools did not demonstrate AYP.
The Center for Education Policy uses data from the Consolidated State Performance Reports that states submit to the U. S. Department of Education. The Center does not separate out AYP for charter schools or online schools that contract with for-profit curriculum providers. The online schools have been the object of a recent spate of critical newspaper articles, including ones from The New York Times and my local paper, the Arizona Republic with its series that began on December 10 2011. Perhaps such criticism of novel approaches that depart from traditional education should not be surprising. What is important is the carefully measured performance that comes from these novel approaches to education reform.
The New York Times quoted a forthcoming study from the National Education Policy Center, supported by the National Education Association, with estimates of only one-third of online schools having made AYP. Whether the comparison of AYP between online schools and traditional schools is valid is hard to judge, especially in light of what we already know about AYP comparisons for public schools.
The movement of states toward non-national standards for AYP in the future will make comparisons even more difficult. Already, the data make the concept of comparisons of AYP troublesome. For example, states may fluctuate from year to year on the basis of changing measures of AYP, changing goals, etc. Whether an online school is comparable to other schools within a given state is also problematic. A research report, State Policy Differences Greatly Impact AYP Numbers, details the source of fluctuations in the national data. This year, Massachusetts, long highlighted for its tough testing standards, reports that 81% of its schools did not made AYP, a rising trend from 41% in 2006. Of course, the national trend is one that Massachusetts is tracking with a national rising percentage of schools that do not make AYP.
That AYP is important need not be stated. Those who study public education are aware of the U. S. education shortfall relative to global standards. What is needed now is not retrenchment and defensiveness but additional work to raise standards at our schools – traditional, online and charter. What are also needed are careful, unbiased comparisons between different models for improving education. As I observed in The Growth in Education Reform and its Benefits, we are beginning to see solutions that make a difference. We only must have the will to adopt them in the face of pressure to continuing doing what we have always done.
Smart Grid – 2012
The onset of 2012 brings two new articles worth reading relative to the smart grid. The first is Links to the Future: Communication and Challenges in the Smart Grid and the second is Smart Grid – Safe, Secure, and Self-healing, both published in the January-February 2012 issue of Power and Energy Magazine, IEEE. Together they raise two very significant issues for the smart grid: (a) the additional R&D necessary for the viability of distributed power generation and (b) the need for increased security.
It is now seven years since I first went to Washington D.C. in my role as university president to promote more funding for the smart grid. At that time, I found the public and most members of Congress were unaware of what the term even meant; that has since changed. Still, the issues for which I sought research funding are still ones that are, for the most part, unaddressed. Yet, the advances in the distribution and use of natural gas engines for power generation, solar and wind generation and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles make smart grid-related issues more pressing today than they were a decade ago.
The smart grid is characterized by a two-way flow of electricity, customer-created and less predictable variability in power use, and very significant increases in data-related issues. There are immediate consequences for R&D and security of the grid. Among the R&D issues that should be addressed are the need for new communication protocols for data-routing from the billions of data points that are created by numerous system devices and new customer behavior. Data must move more efficiently for the effective functioning of control devices and a robust, large bandwidth communication structure will be required. While much of this R&D will occur at the private sector level, incentives can encourage its development. Moreover, a strategic focus of the government’s support for R&D in this area will contribute to more rapid advances, especially where research dollars are deployed for collaborative commercial development as in the request for proposal (RFP), Department of Energy – Smart Grid Data Access with a March 1 2012 deadline for application.
The security issues associated with the smart grid are also considerable as they encompass national security, the economy and our quality of life. The threats from a truly smart grid have already been identified by the Cyber Security Working Group of the U. S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). They include personal profiling, customer surveillance, identity theft, the potential for controlling and limiting specific uses of power, and data accuracy. It is likely that what we already know about data security will be required along with further enhancements that provide the ability to securely monitor data detection, that inhibit and prevent access to data, and that provide for sophisticated encryption of data. Additionally, the secure capabilities associated with deception are likely as well.
The dawn of the smart grid is often viewed as important only to utilities or perhaps only to those with a focus on and an interest in distributed power generation from renewable sources. Instead, it is an issue that is important to both of these interest groups as well as to the oil and gas industry, the car and truck industry and many others. In the end, the smart grid is of interest to our national security as well as a prosperous economy and the quality of life of our citizens. Issues associated with the smart grid are here to stay.
A Theoretical and Pragmatic Foundation for Raising Graduation Rates
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Leave a Comment In an earlier blog, I wrote about The Implications of UCLA’s College Completion Research for Coaching. What I did not address was the underlying rationale for the success of coaching and related recruitment practices in raising persistence from freshman to sophomore year as well as a student’s success. The foundation for the efficacy of such interventions in raising college persistence and graduation rates is likely the extent to which students have realistic expectations for their college experience.
In too many cases, the college experience is portrayed via websites, “view books,” and counselors’ advice in ways that are inconsistent with the reality, thereby leading to unrealistic student expectations. One of the more common examples is the extensive use of a disproportionate number of non-white students in group photos, thereby giving the appearance of a far more diverse student experience than the reality. Another example at many research universities is the portrayal of the opportunity to work directly with a faculty member on one’s own research project. By contrast, the freshman experience is characterized for the most part by large, lecture classes at public, research universities. The point here is not to dismiss the opportunity that students have to meet those who come from different backgrounds nor to argue that opportunity does not exist in the junior or senior year to work with a faculty member on one’s own research. Rather, it is to make the case that the portrayal is unrealistic relative to expectations for the freshman experience.
As a behavioral scientist in the area of organizational psychology, I have always been intrigued by the work on what has been referred to as the realistic job preview (RJP). More than 30 years ago, John P. Wanous drew attention to the topic of organizational entry from what was then a new perspective in organizational psychology – the perspective of the individual. In a ground-breaking publication in the Psychological Bulletin, Mr. Wanous contrasted the individual and organizational perspective. Whereas an organization is concerned with the competence of a new entrant to perform, the individual is concerned with whether the organization will satisfy personal needs.
Although the work of Mr. Wanous has been widely applied to organizational recruitment with the introduction of the RJP into the process, it is not used very frequently by college and university recruiters to introduce a realistic college preview (RCP) for the individual student. Coupled with the somewhat unrealistic portrayals that I have already described is the same organizational (university) concern with competence, i.e., ability to compete in the college classroom, rather than a concern with the prospective student’s needs. Much of what Mr. Wanous argued about the value of the RJP in raising retention and satisfaction for new employees applies to the student recruit as well, and this similarity makes the RCP an ideal vehicle for raising persistence and graduation rates.
Mr. Wanous stated, “The quality of information possessed by outsiders is an important issue because all the theories of organizational choice rely on individual expectations.” According to him, realistic information by the individual has three effects: (1) it increases organizational tenure, i.e., persistence from the freshman to sophomore year at a university; (2) it communicates honesty, increasing the individual’s commitment to the decision (in this case the decision to enroll); and (3) it lowers expectations such that they are more congruent with the organization (inoculating a student against the reality of large classes, increased competition, residence hall life, etc.).
Introducing the RCP will not be easy for many university and college administrators. It is likely to be derided as inconsistent with the approach of the competition, and it may be feared as limiting the achievement of recruiting goals and thereby tuition revenue goals. The theoretical foundation for its success, however, in raising persistence, graduation rates, and tuition revenue from returning students is evident from the work of Mr. Wanous and others. Introducing a RCP will, however, necessitate altering college preview materials like websites, and it will require newly deployed expenditures on retraining staff and adopting alternative interventions like pre-admission and post-admission coaching by existing staff or by outsourcing this work to professional organizations like InsideTrack. Nevertheless, the UCLA data are clear; there are pragmatic means to raising student persistence, and the theoretical foundation for these interventions can be found in the work of organizational psychologists.
The EPA and Good Science?
A little more than a week ago, the EPA released its report, Investigation of Ground Water Contamination near Pavillion, Wyoming. This draft research report offers an initial investigation into suggestions that local groundwater in Pavillion could have been impacted by migration of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluids. This report and other related investigations of fracking by the EPA depend upon good science for their contribution to policy, and the report, as it stands right now, fails to pass the test of good science.
It has been my view that we should support sound science as a fundamental solution to our energy security and energy independence, and that is why I have endorsed a carefully defined role for the Federal Government in R&D and why I have documented significant advances in energy research in areas such as energy storage. Good science matters for our energy future and our economic prosperity. That is why it is so essential that the EPA’s reports represent good science. The alternative is to foster bad policy with poorly done research that represents bad science.
Media coverage of this draft report erroneously assumed the EPA had confirmed evidence that, for the first time, fracking fluid was proven to have migrated out of a well because of the hydraulic fracturing process. It is important to understand that the findings only now are currently undergoing peer review; in its current state, the report offers only suspicions, not causes, of the groundwater issues at hand in Pavillion.
Like many in the media who got the story wrong, upon reading the EPA’s most recently released draft report, I found myself with more questions than answers. Those questions about a research report are normally issues addressed with either substantial revisions to the report or the rejection and disposition of a research report prior to its publication. The peer review process results in a procedure whereby experts in the field carefully read and evaluate a draft research report, providing the authors with challenges, questions and areas for clarification. The dialogue and background involved in initial peer review is essential to improving the quality of any research report that is finally accepted for publication, thereby increasing the potential for understanding an issue by other researchers, media, and the public. The process is an important one for science. It is the foundation of respected scientific journals. Where it fails, good science fails.
The questions that I asked myself upon reading the report were ones that could have been addressed in an appropriate peer-review process. For example, the draft report observes that some surface casings were “as shallow as 110 meters below ground surface.” The report goes on to state, “With the exception of two production wells, surface casings of gas production wells do not extend below the maximum depth of domestic wells in the areas of investigation.” Petroleum engineers in their review of the report could have addressed the extent to which any ground water contamination resulted from improper design and construction associated with the well bore or cement bond, thereby leading to the migration of fracking fluids into the ground water supply. If the design and construction were a probable cause, then the conclusions and the implications of the report could have been altered to provide better context for that possibility rather than leaving an apparent implication about the general role of the hydraulic fracturing process.
The report also raised questions that could have been addressed by peer review from geologists, for example, questions about the appropriateness of the Pavillion substrata for the sort of technology employed there. The EPA report notes that, “There is little lateral and vertical continuity to hydraulically fractured tight sandstones and no lithologic barrier to stop upward vertical migration of aqueous constituents of hydraulic fracturing in the event of excursion from fractures.” This area is known as the Wind River Formation, and it has been subject to previous research, e.g., a 1984 article by Osiensky et al., Monitoring and Mathematical Modeling of Contaminated Ground-Water Plumes in Fluvial Environments. Their work addressed contamination from uranium mill waste, and it made the following observation about the Wind River Formation, “The pattern of seepage migration suggests that zones of high hydraulic conductivity (i.e., buried stream channels) . . . are controlling the movement of contaminants.” It is possible, then, that the particular characteristics of the Wind River Formation may have led to natural seepage that could have contaminated ground water. It is also possible that the Wind River Formation is significantly disparate from areas such as Utica and Marcellus where hydraulic fracturing technology is also employed.
Questions arise as well about other areas of the draft report, including the chemistry used. For example, are the detected variances in the presence of certain chemicals reasonably linked to fracking, and is the failure to find similar results in different test wells realistic, given the methodology? In light of the questions raised already in just the first few days since release of the report, chemists or chemical engineers weighing in during the peer review process may well find other significant areas for further study, thereby limiting or circumscribing conclusions of this report.
To make the claim that contamination is “likely” prior to the scrutiny associated with a peer review process undermines the research, leaving its methodology and initial results open to questions about the extent to which this research represents good science. In the end, the draft report offers us little that is useful in addressing the questions that have been raised about fracking. Instead, the report implies unsubstantiated policy implications that risk our energy future and our economic recovery. We should expect more from any federal agency.
ExxonMobil Energy Outlook
Thursday morning, William Colton, ExxonMobil Vice President for Corporate Strategic Planning, presented the ExxonMobil Annual Energy Outlook. For many people, the most surprising aspects of the outlook are probably associated with three issues: (1) the decline in the energy use of light duty vehicles, (2) the drop in the role of coal in our global energy supply, and (3) the very significant impact of technology on the growth in the supply of tight oil and natural gas as well as renewables. The forecast also makes clear that renewables will become a larger part of our energy supply, rising the most rapidly at a 6% growth rate but still representing only 4% of our energy supply by 2040.
Mr. Colton forecast that the energy consumption of light duty vehicles will peak around 2015 and decline through 2040, despite the continued significant growth in the number of vehicles on the road due to both growth in population and rising standards of living in the developing world. The forecast is premised upon substantially higher fuel economies and declining average miles-driven per vehicle. By 2040, 40% of light duty vehicles are expected to by hybrid vehicles and substantial improvements in technology will also contribute to the increased mileage-per-gallon of gas.
While coal represents one-half of the generation capacity of electricity today, global demand for coal is expected to decline after 2030. While the reasons for this decline are complex, they are associated primarily with the extent to which coal is a source of greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions and the likely policy-driven limits on the number of new coal-generated plants that are built and the gradual reduction in coal-generated power plants taken out of electricity-production. The forecast also considers the potential impact of a widely accepted price of carbon factored into energy production, but it does not rely on this as the primary reason for the decline. The forecast expects a carbon price to be introduced slowly with relatively low prices per ton by 2040; it also considers the potential that nuclear, natural gas, and renewables such as wind and solar will be able to play in the mix of electricity production. For example, the forecast expects that between 2030 and 2040, natural gas will represent 30% of the share of energy production for electricity. Global gas reserves are massive, especially from non-conventional sources such as shale in places like the U. S. The forecast of the global supply of natural gas represents a 250 year supply.
The forecast depends upon the role of new technology as a foundation for its forecast. Economic growth theory (see, for example, the work of Paul Romer) makes new technology the primary source of economic growth, and this blog has discussed the impact of new technology with a variety of examples from the research of university-based faculty. Of course R&D from business is also a very significant source of new technology. In this ExxonMobil forecast, we are seeing the impact of technology in many ways – in terms of the decline in energy use by light duty vehicles, in the recent technology-related development of the capacity to extract natural gas from non-conventional sources like shale, and in the likely role of technology in the growth of the supply of tight oil.
The ExxonMobil forecast provides a pragmatic view of our energy future, one that continues to depend upon carbon based fuels but one where renewables and new sources of carbon-based fuels play an increasing role. This is a forecast that is complex in its foundation but clear in its predictions.
The Implications of UCLA’s College Completion Research for Coaching
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Leave a Comment UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute has just reported research associated with student completion of college. For any traditional higher education institution, it has very clear implications for interventions with students in order to create a successful college experience that leads to graduation. The challenge for colleges and universities in taking advantage of this research may be the will, the staff and the training of staff required to take advantage of the research results. The challenge may also be a culture that accepts that the implications of the UCLA research are essentially for the need for student coaches and student coaching.
The research implies two major time frames in which a college can intervene – (1) the pre-enrollment period after application and (2) the actual student campus experience. The first – the pre-enrollment period – may be the most challenging for intervention by traditional colleges and universities, as it will demand a change in behavior and redirection of resources.
Colleges already expend considerable resources during the pre-enrollment period, but those expenditures are not directed at the interventions implied by UCLA’s research. Instead, they are primarily focused on persuasion via self-promotion and pre-enrollment processing. Most colleges spend a great deal on very high quality, glossy brochures and recruitment staff whose task is to persuade high school students to attend the college. They also put resources behind revision to university websites with the intent of promoting the college with positive stories about the faculty, students and campus experience. But once a student is accepted, primary contact with the student consists mostly of email or physical mail associated with the details of matriculation with the possible exception of some colleges’ use of an alumni-hosted “send-off” party.
The UCLA research results point to a number of interventions for which universities could deploy resources. Most of these pre-enrollment interventions will demand that the university employ a “coaching” model in (a) encouraging a pre-campus visit, highly associated with graduation within four years; (b) building realistic expectations of what it is like to attend this university in this environment with its urban or rural characteristics, its heat (e.g., Arizona) or its snow (e.g., Colorado), etc.; and (c) promoting specific student goals for the educational experience as a means of encouraging the drive to achieve.
The second area in which UCLA’s research indicates the potential for successful intervention through coaching is the on-campus student experience. While one of the strongest negative factors for graduation is living off-campus in the UCLA research, there are positive interventions that matter. Most of those highly depend upon human interaction with the student in encouraging, coaching, if you will, positive student behaviors. Among them are maintaining the student’s drive to achieve with advice and counsel that supports goal-setting. They also include supporting the student in his/her engagement with clubs and on-campus activities like intramural sports, band, forensics, etc.
The surprise for many in the UCLA research is the extent to which coaching students seems to matter for their success. Most of us have never thought that coaching was something that students necessarily needed. Instead, they needed a sound preparation for college, a commitment to study, and the will to learn. We don’t question an athlete’s need for a coach despite ability, commitment and will; why should we question the need for coaching for the non-student-athlete? But we do. Nevertheless, the results of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute’s work makes clear the value that focused coaching can have on student success. The challenge for colleges and universities is to commit to the change in approach, the redeployment of resources around the research’s implications and the staff training necessary to implement coaching – or to outsource coaching to a group that is professionally trained to do exactly what the UCLA research implies.
Completing College: Assessing Graduation Rates at Four-Year Institutions
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Leave a Comment The release today of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute report deserves the attention of educators for a variety of reasons. Perhaps foremost among them is the attention it brings to the need for a felt responsibility by boards and administrators to improve retention and graduation rates of all students, Hispanic and African American as well as White and Asian. But certainly a secondary reason, unexplored by the UCLA study, for attending to this report is its implications for for-profit colleges and universities which disproportionately enroll students with characteristics that this report identifies with failure to complete a degree.
All of us are aware of the challenge that the U.S. has in raising its percentage of adult college graduates; the percentage stands at little more than 27%. Of particular concern should be the very low rate of college graduation of Hispanics; for those between 25 and 29, the report notes that the graduation rate is just 12%. While the 19% rate for African Americans is higher, like the record for Hispanics, both are well below the 37% rate for Whites. The growing number of Hispanics in the U.S. makes their very low graduation rate a particular source of concern for our prosperity.
The report’s fundamental purpose is to challenge higher education to, not just put into perspective the issues associated with raising the graduation rates of different demographic groups, e.g., Hispanic males, but to set goals based on the characteristics of the various demographic groups. In order to do so, however, university boards must maintain consistent attention to a university’s retention and graduation rates by setting goals at the board level and holding university administrators responsible for those goals. With so many complex issues being addressed by our universities, it is very tough for boards to maintain that focus with a felt responsibility at its level, but boards have that responsibility, and they should seize it with laser-focus consistency in light of this new research.
In addition to the attention that the UCLA report brings to retention and graduation, it has unexplored implications for the growing proportion of higher education represented by the for-profit sector. For-profit institutions have been castigated for their low rates of graduation, but the implication of the UCLA report is to consider the expected graduation rates for these institutions based on the characteristics of their students. Those characteristics include several that the UCLA report identifies as producing lower graduation rates.
For-profit colleges and universities disproportionately enroll more African Americans, more students who have transferred from other colleges, more students whose education has been disrupted, etc. All of these characteristics are associated with lower graduation rates. That should not absolve for-profit institutions from their responsibility to raise graduation rates, but it should cause all of us to put into context the expectations we have for a sector of higher education that is serving some of the most challenging students from the perspective of expected graduation rate.
Pragmatism With Regard to Climate Change and Energy
The OECD’s release of its report, OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, late last week has the potential to reignite the discussion of the role of fossil fuels in our energy mix and climate change; I hope that is the case. This blog, when it has addressed energy issues, has maintained a pragmatic view toward our energy supply. I know that pragmatism is eschewed by many today, but pragmatism leads many of us to accept that the development of fossil fuels is essential to our economic prosperity. It also leads many of us to accept that growth in the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas will continue for many years and to support increased investment in energy-related R&D. That pragmatism is why this blog has argued for the exploitation of shale beds for natural gas while supporting more R&D associated with renewable energy sources like solar or algae.
Although the full report will be released in March 2012, the OECD has already presented its key findings. I believe that a knee-jerk dismissal of this report would be a real error. Pragmatism about the role of fossil fuels and the potential role of renewables in our energy mix should lead us to embrace science, including climate science. But science will not give us definitive answers. The preliminary report, while containing policy implications about which there should be reasonable debate, states its conclusions in probabilistic terms that are associated with a sound scientific model.
Without more ambitious policies, the Baseline projects that atmospheric concentration of GHG (greenhouse gases) would reach almost 685 parts per million (ppm) CO2-equivalents by 2050. This is well over the concentration level of 450 ppm required to have at least a 50% chance of stabilising the climate at 2 degrees (2°C) global average temperature increase . . .
Our reaction to this 50% probability should be one that is pragmatic, neither leading us to adopt policy measures that stagnate economic recovery and growth nor ignore what some have labeled as the catastrophic potential of human-induced climate change from our use of fossil fuels.
The work that is being done in materials science has, as this blog has observed before, significant potential for our energy future. While I have primarily focused in the blog on R&D associated with solar energy, there is much work that is being done on increasing our capacity to capture and sequester carbon that is released from the burning of fossil fuels. This work in materials science contrasts starkly with the more widespread discussion of geologic sequestration of CO2. For example, one article published this past year in Applied Energy examined the fabrication and characterization of superhydrophobic polypropylene hollow fiber membranes. The science reported in this article addresses the potential for making modifications in a membrane for use in CO2 absorption.
Like related materials research, this work offers optimism about our potential capacity to mitigate atmospheric carbon release while continuing to use fossil fuels. The OECD report is good news, especially if it leads us to pragmatic action like that associated with the increased recovery and use of cleaner natural gas, the investigation of means to mitigate the release of carbon with fossil fuel use or the development of renewable alternatives to fossil fuels.
