Recently, on their opinion pages in a piece titled “Notable & Quotable: The Campus Climate” (February 12, 2016), The Wall Street Journal exposed a curious curriculum program offered by the University of California, Irvine.  The overall goal of the curriculum program is to “boost climate change/sustainability education at UCI, especially targeting those students for whom climate and sustainability may not be a focus.”

Turns out such programs are not that unusual on college campuses across the U.S.  Whether through standalone seminars, integrations into the general catalog of courses, or more intensely focused for environmental science majors, students are “educated” to be activists for the atmosphere.

Yet the most calamitous climate is the one sustained in the echo chamber of college campuses, resonated by leftist groupthink.  Instead of targeting students for indoctrination in foregone conclusions about the Earth and its future climate, educators should be expanding students’ objective knowledge of the complexities of the ecosphere and atmosphere.  Maybe then an uncoerced understanding by enough intelligent students will lead to more careful and beneficial use of Earth’s abundant natural resources for the good of people and the planet.

Anthony J. Sadar is author of the new book In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail (Stairway Press, 2016).