What We Don't Know CAN Hurt Us

Saba and I traipse through the Florida waters over a decade ago. Photo Credit: Penny Glaser

Friday night, I sat amongst my mother, maternal grandparents, and their friend for what promised to be an eventful Shabbat dinner. For one reason or another, my grandfather (whom I lovingly refer to as Saba—the Hebrew word for grandpa) and I engaged in a semi-peaceful discussion as to whether or not global warming is really happening. As you may have guessed by this point, my 90-year-old grandfather is Republican and, more to the point, does not believe in global warming.

I offered the facts I have: the California wildfires. The glaciers. The topsy-turvy weather conditions plaguing the world. He dismissed it all as liberal propaganda. So it goes.

My grandfather was born in Belgium and grew up in the trenches of World War II. As a young Jewish boy living in Europe, he constantly fought for his life. I grew up hearing his stories of bartering for bread and watching his parents be taken by trains to concentration camps. He's certainly lived a lot of life and I'm proud to be his granddaughter. He knows many things I'll never know.

But the things he went through kept him from being able to earn a valid education, which I strongly believe is the cause for his negligence in regards to new ideas, be that global warming or the ability to learn new technology. Thus, I know many things he'll never know, and my world of knowledge will continue to expand, while his will remain stagnant.

Amidst our discussion, Saba asked me how I knew these things to be true, and I told him plain and simple: I don't know the scientific principles nor the mathematical formulas used to calculate the "climate clock." I am a freshman in college right now, and I study music and writing, so admittedly, science is not my strong suit. However, I don't think the main point of education is to learn something specific: I think it's to learn the ability to, well, learn and furthermore to keep learning. So while I don't know everything about the climate, my education has allowed me the ability to educate myself on as much as possible and to respect the findings of scientists far more educated than myself on this specific topic.

My mother received a bachelor's degree in business before pursuing her law degree. She and I disagree on many things, but we agree on the fact that global warming, among other things, is something you cannot dispute. It is something that is happening, whether you deny it to be happening or not (just as you can argue about whether women deserve equal wages or not, but you cannot deny that in many fields, women do not earn a salary comparable to their male counterparts). Though my mother is long out of school, she hasn't stopped learning. She frequents museums and loves travel. She reads long works of historical fiction and watches films on her favorite moments in history (currently: the sinking of the Titanic and the Civil War). She, too, has tried to explain to her father that global warming is not a topic for debate, emphasizing that which particularly made her understand the phenomenon: a trip in which she visited Iceland and saw the melting glaciers for herself.

Not everyone is so lucky as to be able to receive an education, and I count my blessings every day that I possess a high school diploma, will earn my bachelors, and will likely earn my masters, too. The world will keep changing, and what I learn in college now will likely not be what my children or grandchildren will learn in several decades from now. However, it goes to reason that if you go out of your way to learn in your early days, you will inherit the ability to keep learning as you age.