Unfortunately, some misuse science. Some of their intentions, are far from benevolent. They see science as a mechanism for political power and control. There is great danger from those who would use science for political control over us.

How do they do this? They instill, and then continuously magnify, fear. Fear is the most effective instrument of totalitarian control.

Chet Richards, physicist,

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/science_in_an_age_of_fear.html

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Apostasy in the Church of Climate Change: a leftwing radical rubbishes the alarmism

Activist Teacher: On the gargantuan lie of climate change science

A blog post by Denis Rancourt which I came across today (Hat-tip: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/) is based on a contribution by him to an event organised by the geography student association at the University of Quebec in Montreal.  He begins by listing in leftspeak such things as  

# 'the majority of service intellectuals (high priests) in each civilization was only created and maintained to support the hierarchy'
# 'the whole climate change scam is now driven by the top-level financiers newly eyeing a multi-trillion-dollar paper economy of carbon trading and that this is the reason it’s now a dominant mainstream media and corporate messaging presence'
#' the invention of the US-centered military-backed global finance structure of predation'
# 'establishment scientists are service intellectuals who virtually never diverge from supporting power, who at best look for sanitized and hypothetical “problems” that do not threaten hierarchy and who feed their false self-image of relevance'

But then, mercifully, he says:

'Never mind all that.'

And goes on to examine some aspects of climate science under  5 'story-elements'.   These are indeed key parts of 'the narrative' so loved by political activists and their spinners everywhere, but Rancourt is decidedly unimpressed by them:

Step-1: Combustion of fossil fuels produces CO2
Step-2: This large amount of CO2 from fossil fuel burning goes into the atmosphere
Step-3: Post-industrial atmospheric CO2 produces an increased planetary greenhouse effect
Step-4: The increased planetary greenhouse effect causes planetary warming
Step-5: Climate chaos and melting glaciers

The first of these steps he concedes as correct, albeit banal.  The second he deals with by noting the relative unimportance of the anthropogenic contribution to the great and still poorly understood fluxes and stores of carbon dioxide and carbon, and declares, somewhat vividly 'Environmental scientists working from the CO2 climate hypothesis want post-industrial atmospheric CO2 to be large for the same reason they want their penises to be large.'  For the third step, he notes many of the reasons why it is implausible that CO2 is a driver of climate, and highlights some of the controversy over its role in the atmosphere through the so-called greenhouse effect and the mythical positive feedbacks which form key pillars of the alarmist faith.
As for step four, he comments on and references papers with more technical background on such topics as the difficulty of defining a global temperature and the shoddy disregard of good forecasting practices by the IPCC, and concludes: 'These are the reasons that “global warming” became “climate change”. Model extractions and empirical evaluations of a mean global temperature were shown to be hog wash.'  On step five, he points to the fatuous, but required of the faithful, blaming of anything and everything bad on 'climate change': 'We pull climate chaos out of the non-linear physics hat and every weather event and habitat destruction observation on the planet becomes evidence for climate change.'  He describes this as a circus.


His final paragraphs draw overall conclusions which are also out of a radical playbook and are not at all to my taste as a ex-leftie.  However, I believe it is the case that many teachers veer to the left and so might lap it all up.  And that is the interesting point for this blog.  Is this a straw in the wind, a wind blowing from the left that will make climate change activism look so reactionary and harmful that it will be anathema for any self-respecting radical?  And will that mean less indoctrination in our schools?  We can but hope.

Note added  22 January 2013.  Rancourt was dismissed from his university in 2008, ostensibly because he refused to go along with the grading of students.  More details here: http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/Rancourt09.htm, where it is described as an example of academic 'mobbing'.


 

Monday 21 March 2011

Donna Kebabs the IPCC: play sycophancy-bingo with your school's materials

The IPCC is often portrayed as a trustworthy, authoritative, product of the world's top scientists' views on climate.  It is none of these things.  If you have references to the IPCC in textbooks, DVDs, presentations made by visitors, or posters on your walls, you might like to try to find exact or close matches to widespread misconceptions about the IPCC using a database of quotations compiled by Donna Laframboise.  In her words:

'A variety of claims are routinely made about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These have to do with:
  • the organization itself
  • its reports
  • its processes
Among the most common claims are these:
  • the IPCC is comprised of the world’s top scientists
  • it produces authoritative, trustworthy reports
  • its processes are rigorous and transparent
  • it cites only peer-reviewed literature
Such claims have been made by IPCC participants and spokespeople. They’ve been made by the highest government officials of some of the most respectable countries in the world. They’ve also been made by journalists, book authors, and activists.'

Now these claims have been refuted, not least by Donna Laframboise's carefully documented investigations.  So, if you have a class that has passed the relevant exams, or is good enough to be able to do so while at the same time also having a more realistic view of climate change, then here is a rich field for mini-projects:

(1) First find a matching phrase from materials/events in your school - the database is here
(2) Next do some investigation and write up a brief report or presentation on the veracity of the selected phrase.
(3) Rinse and repeat - it promises to be a lot of fun.

Your Pupils Could Be Lead Authors for the IPCC: just be sure to teach them 'right opinions'




































http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/

Background: http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/the-strange-case-of-sari-kovats/

Friday 11 March 2011

Something for the Climate Classroom Wall: insight from a physicist in east Germany

'What is happening with regards to the climate hypothesis today is that profound and far-reaching conclusions are being based on pure suspicions. That’s religion, and not science. There are also many other well-founded hypotheses on climate dynamics that allow completely other conclusions to be drawn. But strangely, they are being massively suppressed – simply because they don’t accommodate the political concept of rescuing the planet. That’s propaganda, manipulation, suppression of the freedom of expression and demagoguery. As ‘an educated citizen of former communist East Germany’, I’m experiencing grand déjà-vu.'
  
Prof. Knut Löschke, a solid state physicist, who conducted research until 1986, founded PC-Ware AG, and then turned it into a European IT company before leaving in 2009.


Hat-tip: http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/10/german-physicist-slams-climate-science-says-climate-politics-is-grand-deja-vu-of-communist-east-germany/
Visit the NoTricksZone for more details and links.

The words of Prof Löschke are also quoted here, with the additional apercu  'We are sawing the branch we are sitting on.': http://oekowatch.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/357-professor-knut-loeschke-wir-saegen-gerade-den-ast-ab-auf-dem-wir-sitzen

The quotation is taken from an interview published in the magazine 'Smart Investor'

Thursday 10 March 2011

Beginning to Teach on Climate? - let Jo help you keep on top of the propaganda avalanche

Teachers in geography, science, and current affairs have a particular responsibility to work at clarifying their own views as to the quality and credibility of the arguments, and of the players involved in the promotion of fears around carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  This is an arena in which many special interest groups in politics, in finance, in academia, in government agencies, in the UN and in the EU, and in business have spotted advantage for themselves, and so considerable diligence is required of anyone trying to make their way through the resulting avalanche of materials urging us to do this or do that to avoid catastrophe.  It is notable that children in schools are being deliberately targeted by some of these groups in order to produce 'little activists', pressurising their parents and others to take specific domestic, commercial, and political decisions.  The use of fearful images and narratives is commonplace, and is often accompanied by thinly veiled contempt for the achievements not only of their parents in providing, inter alia, comfortable homes and transport arrangements for them, but also of the tremendous progress made around the world since the industrial revolution.

Jo Nova has posted a handy overview of the sorry saga of the shoddy-science, devious politics, and historical ignorance which degrades so much of this 'CO2-based activism':

'Almost everything you thought you knew about man made global warming might be a worthless half-truth.'


Her 'Skeptic's Handbook' is an excellent place to start:

'Donors have paid for over 160,000 copies so far in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and soon in Germany. Over 60,000 copies have been downloaded from this site (and countless others from copies on other sites.) Plus volunteers have translated it into German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Danish, Japanese, Balkan, Spanish, Thai, Czech, Lao and Italian. The second Skeptics Handbook is available in French and Turkish.  (Versions in Dutch, and possibly Italian are on the way). Updates are placed here, along with translations, as well as places to read comments and links to the web-pages where each part of the handbook will be discussed.'

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Canadian Climate Campaigners: how to produce lots of 'little activists' in schools

'At the start of the afternoon, the grade 5 students in Mr. Bloom’s class at Bert Edwards Science and Technology School didn’t know much about climate change.  By the time they left school for the day, they were ready to enlist their families in the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.'
'The students were participating in the Climate Change Showdown, an educational workshop developed by the BC Sustainable Energy Association (BCSEA).  Jennifer Munro, City of Kamloops Environmental Educator, and BCSEA’s Sadie Cox came to the classroom to present the 80-minute workshop.  Students watched a video, played a board game and did skits illustrating how they’ll work on changing everyday actions to help solve climate change.  The students took a contest sheet home so they can recruit their families to help with driving less, eating local foods, taking shorter showers and turning off the lights.'

Chairman Mao would have been envious of such success.  It could have come from his advice:

'The young people are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking. This is especially so in the era of socialism. We hope that the local Party organizations in various places will help and work with the Youth League organizations and go into the question of bringing into full play the energy of our youth in particular. The Party organizations should not treat them in the same way as everybody else and ignore their special characteristics. Of course, the young people should learn from the old and other adults, and should strive as much as possible to engage in all sorts of useful activities with their agreement.'

Introductory note to "A Youth Shock Brigade of the No. 9 Agricultural Producers' Co-operative in Hsinping Township, Chungshan County" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. III.

For more details of the work of that Canadian 'youth shock brigade' at Bert Edwards Science and Technology School, see: http://thompsonenvironmental.net/2011/03/climate-change-heroes/

More tips and techniques for this kind of work can be found here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/classroom-climate-conditioning-at-work.html

Note added 30 October 2011 Here is evidence from the USA of a systematic initiative to manipulate children for general, no doubt leftwing political ends: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/teachers-union-offered-grant-to-create-activists-out-of-1st-2nd-graders/
Extract:
'The National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, offered a $5,000 Learning and Leadership Grant to two Wisconsin teachers who intended to use the funds to “help first and second grade students” become “activists.”
The description of the grant for teachers Andrea Burmesch and Tara Krueger of Muskego Elementary read:
Ms. Burmesch and a team of colleagues will develop a critical literacy inquiry based unit of study to help their first and second grade students understand the role that power plays in their lives. The teachers will learn how visual literacy and technology, particularly website and podcast development, can be used by students to create activist messages that make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others. The students will create their messages around issues important to their lives.
The grant description is no longer available on the NEA Foundation website as Muskego-Norway Superintendent declined to accept the grant given its dubious language and intent.'

Fortunately this one was nipped in the bud by a competent superintendent, but how many of them are there?

(hat-tip: Education Watch )

Sunday 6 March 2011

Teach Them about this Deeply Deceptive Statistic used by CAGW Spinners: the '97%'

The notorious, the fatuous, the misleading claim that  '97% of climatologists' believe in ('catastrophic' implied/stated/assumed) anthropogenic global warming has been rebutted many times.  Anyone with an elementary grasp of sample-survey techniques would have refused to publish the results, based as they are on a sloppy question, an imperfect frame, and a tiny subset of self-selected respondents of unknown qualifications.  But perhaps when you are saving the planet, the means justifies the ends, or more clearly, 'let's not let scientific integrity get in the way of political impact.'

The WUWT site has a post dated 4th March from Jospeh D'Aleo, a meteorologist, reacting to another meteorologist still trotting out that egregious 97% as if it were a clincher instead of an embarassment, as per:

'Of the climatologists, a staggering 97% agreed to the same question… It’s very difficult for me to understand the disdain for science that exists today.'  

Oh the ironing!  (as they say on the Daily Bayonet)

D'Aleo digs out an IceCap post from last December by Solomon, of the Canadian National Post, and reproduces part of it.  Here is an extract, referring to a crude online survey sent to 10,257 'Earth scientists', of whom only 3,146 chose to respond, and of them a subset of 77 was extracted to create the 97%:

'This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers - in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change.  The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.'

Of course, with a mass media largely supine and uncritical under the whirling deluge of alarmist press releases, soundbites, and sundry spins, the '97%' grew wings and became something with which to impress the public.  But the public is catching up.  Teachers can contribute by ensuring that their pupils see that '97% ' as well-worthy of their disdain.

An SPPI report on the '97%' is available here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/consensus_opiate.pdf


Hat-tip: The Climate Science blog.

Added 7 March: There is analysis at Climate Quotes of the two questions used in the survey, noting that they could readily be answered in the affirmative by those who do not see any convincing evidence or arguments that AGW is a major and urgent threat: http://climatequotes.com/2011/02/10/study-claiming-97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-flawed/

Added 19 July 2012.  Barry Woods provides a lot more information and insight into fatuous 97% and 98% claims: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/#more-60090
Amongst other things, he tracked down an MSc thesis that was the source of one of the most widely quoted 97% figures: 'As this MSc thesis was the original source of the oft cited Doran paper  97%  quote, I tracked it down (sometime ago now) and discovered in the appendi that there was a great deal of  email feedback and answers to write in questions from the scientists that actually participated in the survey, much of it critical and sceptical of the survey itself, the methodology and the questions asked. Additionally, amongst those environmental scientists that responded, were some very sceptical sounding scientists with respect to man made climate change being the dominant driver of climate change.'  
As well as the Doran/Zimmerman survey, he reports on the later Anderegg 'survey', and notes scathing critiques of it:
'Paul Matthews: “Scott Denning needs to be more careful if he and his fellow climate scientists are to be taken seriously by scientists from other fields such as myself. 
He loses credibility by referring to the ridiculous Anderegg et al study, in which the authors put scientists into two different pigeon-holes. '