U.S. College Professors Tell Students: ‘Climate Skeptics Verboten!’

Three U.S. professors teaching an online course called Medical Humanities in the Digital Age at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs have told students that the “science” of climate change is not up for debate and have asked anyone who thinks otherwise not to join the course.

According to an email provided to Kate Hardiman of The College Fix by a student on the course:

The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course.

Opening up a debate that 98% of climate scientists unequivocally agree to be a non-debate would detract from the central concerns of environment and health addressed in this course.

… If you believe this premise to be an issue for you, we respectfully ask that you do not take this course, as there are options within the Humanities program for face to face this semester and online next.

Nor, reports Hardiman, does the alarmist zealotry end there:

The professors also note this ban on debate extends to discussion among students in the online forums. Moreover, students who choose to use outside sources for research during their time in the course may select only those that have been peer-reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the email states.

One section of the course deals with the subject of “fracking” but again, from only one side of the argument:

The reading assignments in the fracking section focus on only its negative impacts and fail to present the other side of the issue, namely the possible benefits of fracking.

The three professors are:

Wendy Haggren, who specialises in the genetic engineering of yeast for the production of biofuels

Rebecca Larouche, a literature professor, specialising in early modern recipe collections

and

Eileen Skahill, whose “area of inquiry is the Sociology of Climate Change with an emphasis on environmental justice and social justice movements and the importance of indigenous ways of knowing the natural world.”

So: no magna cum laude for guessing which of the three profs is most likely behind this ban.