Though not yet a proven fact, global warming needs to be discussed as a potential threat, not to scare kids, but so they will not be as ignorant of ecological dangers as earlier generations. If the threat fails to materialize, as least we are trying to "clean up our act" and that can't be bad. Better safe than sorry.

Consider for a moment the theory of relativity, or the theory of evolution, these things are taught in school, and evidence to support the theory being discussed is presented.

Global warming is in fact, a theory, and I suspect a good theory despite the nay sayers who say you cannot look at the loss of the ice caps which threaten the polar bears very existence as evidence in support of global warming since there could be other factors contributing to the decline of the ice caps.

Fine, what if global warming is not the cause of the greenhouse effects we contribute to every day with emissions? Perhaps there is no way to stop the melting of the ice caps, and save the polar bear.

Consider for a moment that global warming can be halted through being kinder to mother earth.

Now lets break it down, if there is no global warming, then we have lost nothing by reducing the carbon footprints we each leave on the earth. If we ignore the possibility of global warming and continue to fill the air with toxins, and it turns out that global warming is a fact not fiction, then we have denied future generations a green earth that we might have helped provide by simple acts of recycling and reduction of burning fossil fuels which are rapidly being depleted anyway.

It is by teaching theories that truths are learned in the long run. Think about when the theory that the world was round came up... if that theory had never been taught, no proof would ever have been found. Teaching global warming, and explaining it as the theory that it actually is, can only benefit society in the long run.

There has been a preponderance of those who would have us stop teaching the theory of evolution and in it's stead to teach creationism, which is counter-productive at best and hopefully will never get as far as it did in Italy in 2004 where a minister of education announced a ban on teaching the theory of evolution.

Outcry included this quote All this has provoked an uproar from the country’s top scientists, who wrote an open letter to the minister through the daily La Repubblica: “In the new program, established by legislative decree on February 19, 2004, there is no trace of the history of man’s evolution nor of the relationship between mankind and other species. Ignoring the theory of evolution is a cultural limitation sacrificing the scientific curiosity of youth. It’s unquestionably fair to point out that Darwinism, and the theories that derived from it show gaps and unsolved problems, but the link between the past and the present of mankind shouldn’t be completely ignored. We urge therefore the Italian Ministry of Education to review the secondary school’s programmes and to rectify an oversight which is detrimental to the scientific culture of the new generations.” [...]

That said, it is not just the crippling of scientific curiosity that we face if we do not teach the theory of global warming, but the consequences could be that the continued degradation of the planet's resources might continue past any hope of being able to reverse the effects mankind has had upon the planet.

I would rather err on the side of safety than risk a legacy of death and doom for future generations.