Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Email or message me and I'll send write-ups of the approach and outcomes!

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

I do a lot of adaption focused research and we have been doing scenario planning workshops to help communities and planners understand how plausible scenarios challenge future planning and operations.

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

But what if the research actually says that providing more or even better information doesn’t actually improve decision making? Because that is what the social psychology research shows. And when it comes to climate, the climate part of the problem is often the most certain part of the problem.

13

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Most climate scientists strongly believe our mission is to provide better climate information for decision making. The mantra at every meeting is let’s reduce uncertainty and provide full probability distributions!

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 3d

My soapbox for today is that physical climate scientists need to be exposed to qualitative methods.

2 1 8

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Universities are messy, inefficient and have never been a bastion of courage. But let's be honest about what is going on here because it has nothing to do with "fixing" higher-ed. This is about controlling who gets into elite universities and restricting the knowledge we produce. 12/

3 6

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Instead of a new university designed to make education affordable all we got is the University of Austin, whose academic mission seems to be primarily about making slurs acceptable again. Whatever the fuck is going on at University of Austin, it has nothing to do with merit or access. 11/

1 2

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Not a fan of outsourcing public policy to the billionaires, but at least those dudes actually did something and didn’t just write whiny letters to the NYT. 10/

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

In 1859 Peter Cooper founded the Cooper Union as a free university open to all irrespective of gender, religion or race. Andrew Carnegie founded what would become Carnegie Mellon in 1900 as an institution of higher learning targeting the working class. 9/

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

If these bros really thought that higher education was failing students, they would fund and create their own university with a charter designed to appeal to their ideals. 8/

1 2

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Then there is the usual drivel about archaic governing models. What dude means is that students, faculty governance and democracy can be rather inconvenient when trying to dictate what universities can teach and what grades we are allowed to give. 7/

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Any credible discussion of affordability needs to actually address the real reasons why higher-ed costs have skyrocketed. Spoiler: this has nothing to do with inclusivity. 6/

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

So what we are really talking about is the ~10% of students that attend highly selective universities. Foreign enrollment in flagship public universities has increased, but foreign students pay higher tuition and this can help offset the decreased state funding. 5/

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

Then we get the standard xenophobic lines about foreign students taking American spots at Universities. Actually, about 84% of students attend what are considered “non selective” colleges and universities. These are programs that accept anyone who meets the admission requirements. 4/

1 2

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

How restricting academic freedom would help with costs is unclear because higher education was much more affordable when it was subsidized as a public good. Education stopped being affordable when it was treated as a business. 3/

1 2

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

This piece uses standard misdirection. To start, the author correctly claims that universities are facing an affordability crisis. But the reason that education has become so much more expensive is that the federal and state governments have stopped subsidizing public education. 2/

1 3

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 1d

It should be obvious to everyone, but for the hedge fund managers at the back, a compact that restricts academic freedom isn't about merit or access. The goal is control and a return to a segregated system where elite institutions solely serve the interests of the wealthy. 1/

Opinion | Academia Is Broken. Trump’s University ‘Compact’ Can Help Fix It.

www.nytimes.com

1 3 8

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 3d

My soapbox for today is that physical climate scientists need to be exposed to qualitative methods.

2 5

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 3d

This is kind of how universities work. Upper level leadership gets excited about something after talking to donors (or each other). But at big universities, the leadership doesn't necessarily know everything happening in each of the siloed departments. So we end up here.

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 4d

Actually occurred. More than once.

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 5d

The University: We need to become leaders in climate and sustainability and there is an urgent need to develop climate science courses.

Me: Our department has climate in the name and we already offer courses on climate science at every level.

The University: Who invited you to this meeting?

4 6 52

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 9d

Years ago I used to teach a Climate and the Media course. The highlight was bringing in science reporters to talk to the class. Those reporters played a crucial role translating science and filtering out cranks. Now the cranks have the megaphone and the local reporters have been laid off.

1 5

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 9d

One of the things that I have looked at is how the Earth got into these global glaciations called snowball Earth where billions of years ago ice covered the entire planet. Or we have applied our climate models to other planets. Interesting climate problems, but not necessarily sustainability?

1 2

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 10d

There is overlap and intersection, but not all climate information is useful for sustainability and not all sustainability work impacts climate or even needs climate information.

1 1

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 10d

This isn't important, but I'm getting tired of academics using "climate" and "sustainability" interchangeably. There is overlap between climate and sustainability work. Conflating the two and not being precise about what you mean creates confusion.

2 10

Jeremy Bassis @bassisjeremy.bsky.social · 10d

There is also growing awareness of a cognitive penalty. Using generative AI means you don’t learn or retain information. Sure, you might be able to code or prepare a presentation faster (although the evidence is ambiguous), but there is little to no retention of information. No learning. 2/

1 1