[MCN] Wall Street Journal on liberal arts

[Lance Olsen]

1st paragraph: In the ongoing debate about the 
role of higher learning in today's digital 
economy, some critics question the value of a 
traditional liberal arts education, especially 
when compared to skills learned through the STEM 
disciplines - science, technology, engineering 
and math. In truth, a good education should 
include soft as well 
as hard competencies. Technical and business 
skills can get graduates get in the door, but an 
ability to think critically and 
communicate effectively can play an equal, if not 
larger, role determining success.

Concluding paragraph: In the end, it's all a 
matter of balance.  As Lisa Dolling, 
Manhattanville College Provost,  recently wrote: 
"Among the many false dichotomies fostered by the 
continuing debates surrounding higher education, 
one that I find especially disconcerting is that 
which pits the professional against the personal. 
While it is expressed in a variety of ways, it 
boils down to this: Either you believe the 
purpose of going to college is to be able to 
secure a (preferably high-paying) job, or you 
think there is something more intrinsically 
valuable to be gained from the years spent 
earning a degree. My question is: When did these 
become mutually exclusive?"

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/03/04/whats-the-value-of-a-liberal-arts-education-in-our-21st-century-digital-economy/
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"Šthe proportion of the land surface in extreme 
drought is predicted to increase from 1% for the 
present day to 30% by the end of the twenty-first 
century." 

Eleanor J. Burke et al. Modeling the Recent 
Evolution of Global Drought and Projections for 
the Twenty-First Century with the Hadley Centre 
Climate Model. JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY 
OCTOBER 2006
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"Under RCP8.5, droughts exceeding 40% of analyzed 
land area are projected by nearly half of the 
simulations."

Christel Prudhomme et al. Hydrological droughts 
in the 21st century, hotspots and uncertainties 
from a global multimodel ensemble experiment.
PNAS vol. 111 no. 9 March 11, 2014
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1222473110
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3262.abstract

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1.5C 
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"While it is quite legitimate for the UNFCCC to 
ask the IPCC to evaluate the implications of a 
1.5 °C warming target, climate researchers and 
the IPCC need to understand the political reasons 
for such a request. They should be cautious and 
not naively be drawn into undertaking new cycles 
of studies in the expectation that they will make 
a difference to the world of politics (12-14).

Nature Climate Change VOL 6 | MARCH 2016
COMMENTARY:
1.5 °C and climate research after the Paris Agreement
Mike Hulme, Department of Geography, Faculty of 
Social Science and Public Policy, King's College 
London, London WC2R 2LS, UK.

References
1.Climate Action Tracker (accessed January 2016);
http://climateactiontracker.org
2.Edenhofer, E. & Kowarsch, M. Environ. Sci. Pol. 51, 56-64 (2015).
3.Carraro, C. et al. Science 350, 34-35 (2015).
4.Hulme, M. & Mahony, M. Prog. Phys. Geogr. 34, 705-718 (2010).
5.Smith, P. et al. Nature Clim. Change 6, 42-50 (2016).
6.Lee, H. Science 350, 1007 (2015).
7.Future Earth (2016); http://www.futureearth.org/projects
8.Beck, S. et al. GAiA 23/2, 80-87 (2014).
9.Edenhofer, O. & Minx, J. Science 345, 37-38 (2014).
10. Hulme, M. Nature 463, 730-731 (2010).
11. Geden, O. Paris climate deal: the trouble with targetism.
The Guardian (14 December 2015); http://go.nature.com/q9TRFV
12. Geden, O. Nature 521, 27-28 (2015).
13. Geden, O. & Beck, S. Nature Clim. Change 4, 747-748 (2014).
14. Anderson, K. Nature 528, 437 (2015).
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