A blog sharing information about materials presented to children on climate, highlighting those intended to frighten or mislead, and those which seek to inform and inspire rather than to recruit, even the very young, for an ill-founded political campaign around the threat of CAGW. A campaign which is irresponsible, destructive, divisive, and degrading.
"Behind it all lurks the overweening bureaucracy. Overpaid, overperked and underworked, insidious and international, they build their empires and extend their tentacles of control into the very heart of the lives of ordinary people. Research and educational policies are decided by people who think mathematics means arithmetic and have no conception of physics at all. Real research has all but come to an end, being largely replaced by populist surveys designed to catch the eye of the popular media. Mickey Mouse universities offer frivolous courses, while school children are subjected to a treadmill of continual testing between bouts of propaganda. In short, people are being deprived of the mental equipment to make a judgement of their own on any matter of importance. So Orwellian!" - John Brignell
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/zealots.htm
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Climate Scaremongering Antidote: turn green-grim into Grimm-fun
Now children, thanks to Mr Grimm and others, have long enjoyed scary fairy tales, and these can give them skills which help them spot fairy tales a mile off. Now General Circulation Models (GCMs) are rather expensive and elaborate devices for producing scary tales for adults. Maybe the skills of the kids can help those scared adults get a grip of themselves: it's just a fairy tale, Mum, Dad!
Back to ACM on GCMs:
'Anyway, I'd like to introduce this little fella to you (see photo). After many minutes of painstaking research, Australian Climate Madness has decreed that all unusual or severe weather events of whatever nature, anywhere in the world, are solely the mischievous work of the Green Climate Monster (he gets bored easily). The GCM is responsible for the shrinking Arctic ice sheet, the growing Antarctic Ice sheet, advancing glaciers, retreating glaciers, heatwaves, cold spells, mountains of snow, absence of snow, droughts, floods, hurricanes, absence of hurricanes, very windy days, calm days, sunny days, cloudy days, foggy days, El NiƱo and his twin sister, the seasons, thunderstorms, absence of thunderstorms, excess rainfall, less rainfall, extinction of frogs, discovery of new frogs, fewer polar bears, more polar bears, everything else listed at the Warmlist, and plenty more besides.'
I could see this in a current affairs class - just keep a picture of the Monster on the wall, and stick press-cuttings all around it as the pupils bring them in every month on whatever weather, or other, event is being blamed on 'human-caused global warming', or 'climate change' as it seems to be known for short in the media. Class discussions could serve to identify the most ludicrous of each crop.
