EDMONTON—An Edmonton public school board trustee has doubled down on her assertion that the science is “not settled” on climate change.

Trustee Sherry Adams, who unsuccessfully ran for a United Conservative Party nomination before this year’s provincial election, was the board’s lone opposing voice Tuesday when trustees decided they would allow students to attend Friday’s climate protest during school hours if they had permission from a parent or a guardian.

During the board’s debate, Adams expressed doubts about climate science, which she expanded on in a Facebook post late Wednesday night.

In her post, she writes that “when it comes to the climate change issue and the role of carbon dioxide in shaping our environment, there is credible research conducted and reported by more than a few reputable scientists from respected institutions of higher education who are proving that the science is not settled.”

Adams was not available for comment Friday.

Her Facebook post names a short list of academics who have questioned climate change — most of whom are not climate scientists — and links to a 2015 essay written by American businessman David Siegel declaring the science has not been settled.

University of Calgary climatologist Shawn Marshall said that while it’s valid to point out that about three per cent of climate scientists disagree with the consensus view that the climate is changing due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, some dissent is inevitable in any scientific community.

Marshall said climate science has more consensus than most areas of scientific research.

“There are still some people who say smoking is not bad for you … There’s still a couple of very prominent physicists that don’t believe in plate tectonics ... despite huge amounts of evidence,” Marshall said.

“There’s always going to be some scientific disagreement, but there is a huge 97 per cent consensus, which means that this is pretty well-established textbook science and we’re never going to go back to this day where there was any kind of debate about whether humans were influencing the climate system or not. We’re past that now.”

Edmonton Public Schools chair Trisha Estabrooks said Friday that the science on climate change is “settled” and “definitive,” but said she is not worried about tension on the board around Adams’ comments.

“That is her opinion. It’s an opinion and it is not fact,” Estabrooks said.

“As a board, we have lots of different issues that come up where we do agree to disagree. This one, certainly trustee Adams feels a certain way and the rest of us don’t. The rest of us are basing our beliefs in the science.”

Thousands marched through downtown Edmonton to the Alberta legislature Friday afternoon as part of a global chain of climate strikes.

Tuesday’s school board motion, put forward by trustee Michael Janz, also asked for the board to supply additional curriculum resources for schools where students couldn’t attend the protest, like the material offered by the City of Edmonton, which recently passed a motion to declare a climate emergency.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange denounced the move, saying the Alberta government “believes that parents and guardians — not activist school board trustees — can determine whether or not they want their children to miss class.”

Estabrooks said she heard from numerous parents and students looking for ways to express their concerns about climate change and who voiced their support for the motion.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I certainly heard loud and clear from the people that I represent that this is something they were in favour of,” Estabrooks said.

“At Edmonton Public Schools, we value student voice. We’re not organizing this, we’re not saying, ‘Do it,’ we’re not saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ But we’re not getting in the way of it. We’re simply saying to students, ‘If you want to add your voice, go for it.’”

With files from Hamdi Issawi

Read more about: