The
flood of materials about climate that comes out every week is liable
to swamp anyone trying to keep up. The Science and Environmental
Policy Project (SEPP) does a weekly email highlighting scientific
papers, blog posts or materials in the mass media. You can scan this
to find items of particular interest. For example, this week there
is an item about the insertion of climate alarmism into English
comprehension tests in the new and controversial 'Common Core'
curriculum in the United States ( I have added the italics and bold):
'The
eighth grade English test
included
several short written pieces that students had to read and respond to
in order to demonstrate English mastery. One such piece was an
article originally published on NASA’s website,
“The
Summer of 2012 –Too Hot To Handle?” The
article discusses the high temperatures and drought during the summer
of 2012 and looks at whether ordinary weather fluctuations or
CO2-driven global warming are to blame.
After
reading the article, students were asked to cite the article to
describe the overall effect of increased CO2 emissions on the
planet’s atmosphere. While the article included input from climate
scientists John Christy, a climate change skeptic, the students’
answers were directed to focus exclusively on claims in favor of
CO2-driven climate change.
“A
response receiving full credit will describe the effect of increased
CO2 emissions by explaining the relationship between higher
temperatures and increased CO2 in the atmosphere,” says an
annotation provided for teachers afterwards. Several sample answers
were included, with top-scoring answers describing CO2′s effects as
including rising sea levels and higher surface temperatures.
“The
effect of increased CO2 emissions is that the atmosphere becomes a
heat source itself… Also the average surface temperature of the
entire Earth increases,” reads one answer that was awarded a
perfect score.
Common
Core standards cover only math and English, and do not concern
science standards. Nevertheless, critics of the standards have
frequently asserted that the standards will be used to push liberal
political causes, and questions like that on the New York
exam are unlikely to appease them.'
[In
the US, the word 'liberal' has been hi-jacked and now denotes
'left-wing' - and, given left-wingers' determination to control the
lives and thoughts of others, that is quite a switch.]
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