Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, May 7, 2014
Higher education getting facelift
Black Hills State University and South Dakota School of Mines & Technology both will receive campus improvements as construction starts this summer on a technology center and new wellness center, respectively.
Jonas Hall on the BHSU campus will undergo renovation to become a center for science teaching. The Sanford Science Education Center will be included in the $4.2 million project, with philanthropist T. Denny Sanford donating $2.5 million toward the construction costs.
When completed, the science education center will be able to connect via videoconferencing with the Sanford Underground Laboratory Homestake Visitor Center in Lead that also begins construction next month. The $4.5 million project will be built overlooking the Open Cut and will include a visitors center for the Sanford Underground Research Facility at the Homestake mine, an education center for K-12 schools in South Dakota in partnership with BHSU in Spearfish, a visitors center for the City of Lead and museum of the history of mining in the Black Hills.
Meanwhile, the School of Mines held a groundbreaking ceremony last week on a new $8.9 million wellness and recreation center. The center will include two basketball courts, group fitness room, rock climbing wall, student locker rooms and cardio and weight training areas.
Mines students voted to increase fees three years ago to raise $6.7 million for the center and almnus Stephen Newlin donated $2 million. The
Stephen D. Newlin Family Student Wellness & Recreation Center will be built next to the King Center. Adding the wellness center is part of Mines President Heather Wilson’s focus on modernizing the Rapid City campus.
When completed in 2015, all three construction projects will improve education in South Dakota - math and science education in particular - and benefit both West River universities.
___
Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan, Yankton, May 6, 2014
Climate change: The time is now
The grim picture that came forth Tuesday from the White House regarding the effects of climate changes on the U.S. may have been “a landmark report,” as the Guardian of London characterized it, but no one can truly say it was a surprise.
In fact, the real surprise in all this would be if it has the kind of impact that is urgently needed on this issue.
The 1,300-page National Climate Assessment, which was written by more than 240 scientists and academic experts, declares that the impact of climate change is not some far-off, futuristic prospect but “has firmly moved into the present.”
It declares: “Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions, there are longer dry spells in between.”
We’re all familiar with the weather records and extremes. It was just announced, for instance, that the earth saw the fourth-warmest March on record (even though it was chilly here, but that’s part of the cause-and-effect nature of weather patterns), which continues a numbingly familiar pattern. Also, April marked the first time in recorded history in which the average amount of carbon dioxide - a major greenhouse gas - in the air exceeded 400 parts per million for the entire MONTH, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC-San Diego. This comes less than a year after the first daily average of 400 ppm of carbon dioxide was ever recorded.
We also know the impacts: increased droughts in the west, more flooding in the east, a rise in food- and water-borne diseases, greater risks of wildfires and decreasing air-quality standards. For farmers, it could mean lower crop and livestock production due to “weeds, diseases, insect pests and other climate change-induced stresses,” the report says.
The consequences are now showing up everywhere. A university economist told the Guardian: “One major take-home message is that just about every place in the (United States) has observed that the climate has changed. It is here and happening, and we are not cherry-picking or fear-mongering.”
This is troubling, because this is trouble.
But what’s even more troubling is the fact that a great many of us will wave it off. We have heard the warnings before. Skeptics will again deride it as “alarmist” propaganda, and cling to some outlier scientific theories that go against the opinions of an estimated 97 percent (according to NASA) of the world’s scientists. We will likely react to this the same way we reacted to a United Nations report a month ago assessing the global impact of climate change: We’ll yawn if we even bother to give it notice.
And yet, the general belief is that something can still be done to reverse the effects of climate change upon our planet. And even though we are now feeling the impact of this phenomenon, we can still do something to walk back from this bleak precipice.
But will we?
Or will we give it a pass as something beyond our control or years in the offing? Will we dismiss it as some environmentalist fantasy? Will we settle on the easy thing and do nothing - and ultimately reap what we sow?
It’s up to us.
And now is the time to decide.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.