Welsh Schools to be sent a 'Scare them Witless' pack on Climate

Leo Hickman in a Guardian blog (hat tip Justin Ert) has alerted his readers to a new danger facing children in Welsh schools: scaremongering climate propaganda developed:

'...during 2011 as a result of being awarded funding from the Beacons Programme (an engagement fund supported by Cardiff University, University of Glamorgan, BBC Wales and Techniquest).'

Here is the front cover of their materials:

Notice the central pictures, enlarged below:

What were they thinking?  'This should get their attention'?  'This should scare them witless'?  'This should help get us even more funding'?

The above document can be downloaded from here.

I want to find time to go through this document in detail.  In the meantime, I note this nonsense from page 7:
“Greenhouse Effect”
The sun shines down on the surface
of the earth. About half the heat
naturally reflects back out into space.
When greenhouse gases such as
carbon dioxide and methane are
released into our atmosphere, they
trap heat and stop it reflecting back
out into space. This causes additional
warming of the earth surface,
ocean and atmosphere… just like a
greenhouse!
Now of course it has long been established that this not how a greenhouse works - so the grand conclusion is nonsense.
Furthermore, the gases do not 'trap' heat and stop it getting back to space, nor is the infra-red radiation involved reflected from the Earth so much as generated by it - so the third sentence is also wrong.  The second sentence is also wrong, if by 'heat' they mean the solar input - the Earth's albedo is more like 0.3 and of course all the energy received from the sun and absorbed by the earth is in fact re-emitted.  Only the first sentence survives:

'The sun shines down on the surface of the earth.'

Even that is a bit of an over-simplification since at any time half of the earth does not have the sun shining down on it.

My preliminary study of this document is not at all encouraging.  It does seem intended to produce alarm.  Alarm that is not, in my view, justified.  If this initital impression is confirmed further, then I will be sure to accuse the authors of gross irresponsibility, of dereliction of their basic duty as adults to protect the young from scaremongering.

Note added 26 October 2011.  Mostlharmless has more criticisms of the Cardiff Concoction here: http://mostlyharmless-room-101.blogspot.com/2011/09/education-or-muddled-disinformation-and.html#more
I am still hoping to find time to work through the materials, but so much else is going on just now.

Candid Calor's Climatological Confessions

An insightful interview of a Dr Calor reported by Dr Briggs (Hat tip: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/)  Hot stuff.  This could be a breakthrough for providing insight into the previously more mysterious thought processes of climatologists.  Perhaps the less virtual of them might see something of their own 'reality' here?  The words of Burns spring to mind:

 O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion

  Here is an extract from the interview:

'But satellites don’t directly measure temperature. Isn’t it so that they measure radiation and through a physical-statistical algorithm estimate temperature?
This is natural, yes.
This implies that there is uncertainty in that estimate: another plus and minus. Do you account for that in your estimates?
These satellites are calibrated by very complicated computers, a very expensive process. We are confident in the data they produce.
Taken in all, we are as sure as we are about anything that the temperature has increased a few tenths of a degree and that most of this increase is due to the activity of mankind.
How do we know that?
We build very beautiful, extraordinarily complex computer models which prove this. Although they are difficult to fully comprehend, at base they are very simple.
We know that carbon dioxide captures heat in the lower reaches of the atmosphere. The more CO₂ there is, the more heat captured. We also know that a doubling of pre-industrial levels of CO₂ will only raise the temperature an insignificant amount. Yes?
So we build into these models a feedback mechanism that says as more CO₂ is added, the temperature increases non-linearly. We then run these models and we find exactly what we expected to see: increasing CO₂ leads to a positive feedback in temperature!
But aren’t you just seeing what you put into the model? It’s not quite an independent verification of the theory.
You forget that we also have evidence that these models have produced simulations that look, after some processing, like actual observations. That should be enough proof that our theory is correct.
Perhaps. But aren’t there literally hundreds of knobs and dials that you need to tweak to “tune” the models so that they first produce those simulations? Do you have independent evidence that these models predicted new data better than predictions based on the assumption that your theory is wrong?
Look here, young man. I hope you are not going to take the denialist position. If we don’t do something now, by the time we confirm everything, it may be too late.
You can’t argue with that. Thank you for talking to us, Dr Calor.'

Albert Gore: how much harm can one man do?

Today sees some kind of last-ditch fundraising effort by Al Gore, a profoundly unpleasant man whose movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth' is full of untruths and should never in a month of Sundays have been issued to schools in the UK.  The harm from it must include the needless and shameless frightening of children, and probably a great many teachers as well.  Further harm will arise from the misleading information presented.  Further harm will come from the cynicism about science and politics and teachers that must follow as the nonsense about climate is, as is happening almost daily, more widely exposed for what it is: non-sense.  Harmful nonsense that has helped bring about increased famine through bio-fuels, increased energy prices through windfarms and the like, increased pollution through relocation of industries, and general distortion of the commerical and political 'marketplace' through excessive and sometime corrupting obsessions with 'carbon'.

But amidst all this gloom and the ongoing tawdry schemings of 'environmentalists' such as Gore, we have some sparks of humour to help cheer us up.  Please visit Bishop Hill's site to see more of Josh's cartoon series to mark this day:

Talking Points for Discerning Pupils Faced with CO2 Alarmism in the Classroom

One of the ways in which the facile alarmism about CO2 being pushed at and within schools can be undermined is for the more able pupils to raise discussion points during classes.  A recent article in the Canada Free Press site gives a few good questions which look well worth trying.  See the original article here to get background and backup on each of the questions. (hat tip: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/)

How do you explain that global temperatures according to UN data have not increased since 1998 and there has been no significant warming since 1995?

 

Are you aware that even the UN IPCC does not consider climate models to be “predictions” or “forecasts” but merely emission scenarios?

Are you aware of multiple scientific studies showing the medieval warm period (before SUV’s and human emissions) to be warmer than current temps?

How do you explain that CO2 levels have been much higher in the Earth’s history, but have not coincided with human or animal extinction?

Can you explain why Greenland has cooled since the late 1930’s and 1940’s?

Can you explain why Antarctic sea ice has expanded to record levels in recent years?

Are you aware that Arctic Sea ice has EXPANDED in 2008?

Are you aware of the multiple peer-reviewed studies blaming Arctic sea ice reductions on many factors not related to man-made carbon emissions?

Are you aware that the Earth is currently in one of the coolest periods in its geologic history?

Are you aware that a recent U.S. Senate report features more than 500 scientists dissenting from man-made climate fears—more than 10 times the number (52) of UN IPCC scientists who signed off on alarmist (and media hyped) Summary for PolicyMakers in 2007.

Are you aware that many solar scientists and geologists are now warning of a possible coming global cooling? 

 

How do you explain that an analysis in peer-reviewed journal found COLD PERIODS – not warm periods [..were associated with the greatest climate-related disasters such as major floods, and droughts] ?

How do you explain the recent U.S. government report which found Hurricanes declining, NO increases in drought, tornados, thunderstorms, heat-waves?