Andy Wells – an Open Letter on Weather and Education

This is my response to your e-mail of August 19, 2013, "Good news/Bad News"

Mother Nature  These problems may have occurred only once in a thousand years but that was then, now we live in a world racked by weather patterns created by man’s continued pollution of the planet’s water, air and land.  Our weather has gotten bad and it is going to get a lot worse.  It is not “Mother Nature run amok”, it is mankind running without regulation.  It’s like a football game with no referees, the benches have already emptied, now the stands are emptying.  It is going to be a BIG deal.  And it is not going to be over in our lifetime.  We need to be ready for serious changes in the weather and we need to make serious changes in our government.

Government’s Role.  The State Department of Environment and Natural  Resources should have Boots on the Ground capabilities for these types of environmental issues to evaluate the problems while they are happening, to determine procedures and recommend immediate actions.  And they need the ability to enforce those decisions.  This would be a good piece of legislation for you and other representatives to prepare and implement.

Common  Sense:   You mentioned that phrase 3 times in your email and referenced it another time with your “emergency” comment.  We don’t need “common sense” to deal with these problems.  That’s what CAUSED them.  We need Expert Knowledge.  We need planning for the future while the event is still in progress, not just patchwork done here and there according to one’s abilities and finances. 

NCAE.  You called it a “union” three times in your email.  It’s not a union.  You really ought to know that.  Surely you DO know that.  Your use of the word “union” implies – to me and perhaps others – a attempt to denigrate NCAE.  The North Carolina Association of Educators represents the teachers and administrators who are now preparing our children and grand-children for a world that is already far different from the one you and I encountered when we were children. 

Budget:  Budgets are usually developed from the ground up by the agencies who know what they will need, not by elected bureaucrats, and they utilize as a starting point a Continuation Budget from last year.   The budget the Republican Legislature gave its citizens has already forced North Carolina Education into a major retrenchment.  You did NOT raise the education budget by $400 million – you cut the heart out of it – and if you don’t understand THAT then you have no business preparing or even talking about budgets.  Certainly, your comments about that reveal a total lack of understanding of how budgets are prepared.