Russell Philbrick: Critical thinking needs upgrading

We all should give thanks to The News & Observer for its excellent reporting, analysis and descriptions of candidate qualifications during the run-up to the elections. It is a real shame that the paper does not reach a wider circulation of people to educate them on critical issues, and that more of our population did not follow the recommendations they gave.

We certainly need to improve our education throughout the state and nation, because it is both fundamental and necessary to have an educated population, who are capable of some degree of critical thinking, for a free democracy to work. We have witnessed the fact that this condition does not exist in North Carolina and in many regions of the country.

It is difficult to believe that we could have put ourselves in such a position where decisions are likely to occur which will threaten our country's positive role in the world, the educational system for our children, our tolerence for all ethnic groups, the progress made on health care, the rights and respect for women in our society, and the welfare of many other countries around the world as we become isolationists.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that the proposed course of doubling down on our global carbon footprint, and breaking our initial commitments to the rest of the world's countries, will certainly put into jeopardy the very existence of life on planet Earth because of this even more disastrous idea, while disregarding the scientific facts and neglecting the threats that we know we already face from climate change.

This story was originally published November 16, 2016 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Russell Philbrick: Critical thinking needs upgrading."