A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All Who Like Coming Here

https://sites.google.com/site/susansharpsongs//home/sheet-music-1/suantrai

The beautiful music and sentiments generated by people inspired by Christianity are wonderful to behold.  A non-religious person like me can still be bowled over by them.  This is a good time of year to note that while so many people take a break from their routine to have joyful celebrations.

Shameful for Oz: the AAS goes Full Recruiting Sergeant for CO2 Derangement Activism in Schools

Picture credit

Jo Nova has a guest post up from Tony Thomas on the materials being provided for Australian schools by the Australian Academy of Science.  You might have thought that the Royal Society in London had been scraping the bottom of the barrel on climate, but they are being left behind down-under in getting to the children.  Jo introduces her own comments on the post with
'Wow. Just wow. Tony Thomas has uncovered the material the AAS provides to thousands of Australian teachers and students under the guise of science education resources.  As far as climate science goes, they might as well have hired Greenpeace. '

Here are some extracts from Thomas' work, under headings which I have added in bold:

Blatant Recruitment

There’s a special Activity 6.6 Climate change and Politics. “Lesson outcomes: At the end of this activity students will …  appreciate the need to lobby at all levels of government to ignite and lead change – even if it is unpopular with the voters.”

The young climate zealots are  to pester politicians: “Encourage students to engage with a local MP or councillor about science policy, environmental concerns and action. Do they have a voice? How would they vote in light of current policy and action?”

And yet more. Teens are to invite local community environmental campaigners and champions into the class, “with your teacher’s permission”, to “discuss their cause and the science behind their campaign.” 

The   Climate Change Champions guide for teachers explains,

“Step 1: Start with a broad discussion on local champions and heroes – who are they?”

And   “Students learn more about climate change action by studying environmental champions and campaigns in their local areas. What cause would you stand up for?” 

Occupy Highpoint Shopping Centre, perhaps?

Junk Science

To really catch the teenagers’ interest, the Academy transposes climate instruction into song bymelodysheep,   “A musical investigation into the causes and effects of global climate change and our opportunities to use science to offset it. Featuring Bill Nye, David Attenborough, Richard Alley and Isaac Asimov.”

The song’s lyrics go:

Climates all start in the sky/

When the C02 is high/

the temperature is high/

Moving together in lock step/

When the C02 is low/

the temperature is low/

Moving together/

We can change the world.

(The song  is wrong. Even the orthodox climate crowd  accepts ice core evidence that CO2 has lagged  temperature by 800 years or so.).

“Hottest summer EVER” shouts a sign about Australia’s 2012-13 summer, a big fib to children doing the “Big Scale” module as the Academy has no idea what temperatures got to in the pre-1900 millenia. Indeed the 1890s peak could well have been hotter than any in the 2000s – the Met Bureau  trashed all of its temperature data  pre-1910. Also odd is the Academy claim here that “climate” involves a 20 year span of weather[7]; the convention is 30 years. That’s an own-goal: the warming halt is now nearly 20 years and hence significant on the Academy’s definition of climate.

Irresponsible Stupidity

In “The Experts Speak”, 16 year old students are advised to “Click here to hear some scientific points of view.” What they get is videos of conspiracist Naomi Oreskes  (warming sceptics = tobacco lobbyists); Greenpeace Australia/Pacific ex-CEO and Gore-worshipper Linda Selvey; US alarmist teacher Greg Craven (caution: not our ACU vice-chancellor Greg Craven); and a producer of alarmist videos James Balog. Alongside them is a suffering earth-globe holding a sign, “Act Now”.

Oreskes should be the  front-running joke with her fiction about a mass climate extinction of kittens and puppies in 2023 (not cited in any Academy material). But Craven takes the cake:

“The worst case – this is sea level rising 10-20ft, entire countries disappearing, hundreds of millions of people displaced, crowding in their neighbours causing widespread warfare over scarce resources and longstanding hatreds. Entire forests dying … a world that makes Al Gore look like a sissy Pollyanna with no guts, sugar coating the bad news.”

The Teachers’ Guide says:   “As a class watch the video by Greg Craven and have a class vote on whether action is warranted.“

Fanaticism

Other videos feature  Gore himself in another of his error-riddled rants. This time (2009), he  claims that worrying climate trends are even worse than scientists predicted,  and agonises about polar ice shrinkage –the Academy does not alert kids that Arctic sea ice has recovered strongly and global sea ice trends show nothing abnormal.  ( Arctic sea ice extent is now at its highest level for November since at least 2005). The Antarctic, Gore says, “is now in negative ice balance” –   it’s actually positive,  says NASA .

In yet more  inaccuracy, Gore claims weather disasters “have been increasing at an absolutely extraordinary and unprecedented rate.”

Fantasy

At the end of term, students are invited to select a (green) world conference  to hypothetically attend, including (by backward time travel) the June 2012 Rio+20 Agenda-21-touting jamboree. Links lead them to the preliminary conference on “Degrowth in the Americas” in May 2012 in Montreal, run by and for  certifiable  eco-lunatics. Aiming for a  “post growth healing earth” they want to send Western economies backwards to “avert ecological collapse while enhancing social justice and improving life’s prospects… and build towards a truly prosperous world.” A click away, kids can browse  a paper on eco-friendly and humane policies of the Cuban government.

Nonsense 

At Year 9 (age 15) level, kids are shown an ABC video about Arctic sea ice disappearing, with plenty of spooky music and shots of melting ice. An unnamed scientist intones, “There is a group that makes a very strong case that in 2012 or 2013 we will have an ice-free Arctic – as soon as that!” Reality: the 2013 minimum  figure was about  5.1 million square km of ice. Have science teachers been pointing that out – or might such objectivity hurt their careers?

Excuses?

It may seem  a  wonder that none of 9000 high school science teachers (let alone Academicians of integrity) has had the wit or integrity to complain to the Academy about force-feeding climate-activism to students. Those with qualms may be relying on the Nuremberg defence – “I was following union orders”. The all-powerful teachers’ unions have not only endorsed  “action on climate change” and “lobbying in support of a sustainable low carbon economy” but proffered to teachers their own “Environment Resources and Action kit” and backed a Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) climate campaign based on “a union perspective”.

Note added 17 Dec: Tony Thomas has done a lot of research this year into those who wish to recruit children as footsoldiers for their cause.  As well as the post linked to above, there are these:

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/05/attack-climate-cult-kiddies/

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/05/climate-cult-kiddies-part-ii/

http://joannenova.com.au/2015/08/merchants-of-doubt-insidious-propaganda-in-schools/#more-44028

http://joannenova.com.au/2015/09/oxfam-running-climate-propaganda-into-classrooms/

Britain's schools are force-feeding pupils politically correct dogma about sexuality, climate change and British history

The title is from a typically lively and hard-hitting article by James Delingpole, concerning the extent of brainwashing in British schools.

Brainwashing techniques included removing previous sources of support for an individual, and for children this generally means parents and close family members.  By rubbishing them through rubbishing our history, blaming them for global warming, and causing utter confusion about sexuality, the children are made more vulnerable to the imposition of the preferred dogmas.  The addition of scaremongering brings another technique into play, that of fear - fear of the future, fear of what happen if these preferred dogmas are not adopted.

"Nowhere, perhaps, is the march of the Mind Police more evident than in the way virtually the whole curriculum has been hijacked by environmental issues.

A popular revision guide for GCSE English gives this example of a ‘boring’ sentence that may receive ‘zero marks’: ‘Global warming is a bad thing.’ And this as a ‘much better sentence’: ‘Global warming is a very serious and worrying issue.’

Even foreign languages are not immune. A Heinemann textbook for A-level French invited pupils to study an open letter by a French environmentalist warning schoolchildren that on global warming ‘scientists are unanimous’, and ‘never in the history of humanity have the dangers been so great’.

Then there’s the Climate Cops initiative in schools — sponsored by energy supplier npower — in which children were given police officer-style notebooks so that they could ‘book’ themselves, their friends or family members if they saw them wasting energy or performing ‘climate unfriendly’ acts."

He ends with these words:

"Some people might think I am overstating the case. But there is a deadly serious point to all this, and I passionately believe that the way our children are being inculcated should give us all pause for thought.

If every child leaves school believing that Britain’s imperial history is evil, that open-ended human rights must be extended to everyone, including the wicked and the criminal, and that the world is getting catastrophically hotter, then eventually everyone in Britain will hold those views.

And, crucially, anyone who dares to challenge them will be a social outcast. If that happens, with every passing year a country with a long and proud history of liberalism will, ironically enough, become a bastion of intolerance."

The disgraceful promotion of climate scaremongering in our schools seems to be but a part of a far wider campaign to wreck our society.  Well done James Delingpole for giving us so many powerful examples of this.

Good News! Another Blog to Resist Entrenched CO2-Alarmism

A small group of solo-bloggers on climate topics in or from the UK has launched a new blog called 'Climate Scepticism':

Yours truly played a minor role in this, mainly just encouraging the others and promising to do more in the future.  Theirs was the original idea, and theirs the energy that got it launched.

Earlier this year (27 April post), I said I was going to post less often here, but that I would maintain the blog - especially the reference Pages - when I came across relevant material.  I also mentioned a couple of posts I had mind to publish soon.  I have not done those yet, but instead I have put up a few easier-to-do reactions to or reports on other people's work.  I still hope to do the promised posts, and others from time to time.

This new blog suits me, and the others behind it, in that by sharing the work, we hope to keep it lively and frequently updated so that it becomes a popular place to visit.  How dull, after all, is a blog where new posts are few and far between.

From the 'About' page of the new blog, some further explanation:

'The climate sceptic blogosphere is becoming crowded to the point that it’s difficult to keep up. Several of us (all British or UK based so far), are getting weary of the effort of grinding out several articles a month simply in order to remain visible. It’s not that we haven’t got something to say – rather that we’d like to take the time to say it as audibly and as clearly as possible.

Our thinking in launching this new blog (called – very originally – Climate Scepticism) is that a joint site, with more frequent and more varied articles, would be more visible and possibly more useful. 
We don’t aim to compete with Bishop Hill or WattsUpWithThat on the news-gathering front, but to assemble a number of disparate voices in a joint venture. There’s no “party line” or rulebook, and certainly no 97% consensus about anything.'

I hope that those who drop-in on Climate Lessons will find Climate Scepticism a congenial and informative and lively blog to visit, and that they will consider posting comments there to help keep the ball rolling.  Guest posts are also welcome - one has appeared there already.

If you are a blogger yourself, please also consider adding http://cliscep.com/ to your list of links.

Researching the Scares and the Spins: what made one man change his mind about rising CO2 being a crisis

The harm being caused by so many people's naive acceptance of the crisis-PR put out by the IPPC, sundry 'academics', and no end of financially-interested NGOs, is dreadful.  Their spins have dominated the press and airwaves and school and university curricula for decades.  It is likely that most of the general public have never actually read or listened to the counter-arguments. When major institutions such as the BBC and the Royal Society have been corrupted by their leaderships to promote climate alarm as unassailable dogma, who can blame that public for knowing no better?

One man has recently written about his journey from 'true-believer' to having a calmer and more balanced view of CO2 and climate (hat-tip: WUWT).  He is David Siegel:

'Over the years, I built a set of assumptions: that Al Gore was right about global warming, that he was the David going up against the industrial Goliath. In 1993, I even wrote a book about it.
Recently, a friend challenged those assumptions. At first, I was annoyed, because I thought the science really was settled. As I started to look at the data and read about climate science, I was surprised, then shocked. As I learned more, I changed my mind. I now think there probably is no climate crisis and that the focus on CO2 takes funding and attention from critical environmental problems. I’ll start by making ten short statements that should challenge your assumptions and then back them up with an essay.'

Here are his 10 points:

1Weather is not climate. There are no studies showing a conclusive link between global warming and increased frequency or intensity of storms, droughts, floods, cold or heat waves.

2Natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous. Most of what people call “global warming” is natural. The earth is warming, but not quickly, not much, and not lately.

3There is tremendous uncertainty as to how the climate really works. Climate models are not yet skillful; predictions are unresolved.

4New research shows fluctuations in energy from the sun correlate very strongly with changes in earth’s temperature, better than CO2 levels.

5CO2 has very little to do with it. All the decarbonization we can do isn’t going to change the climate much.

6There is no such thing as “carbon pollution.” Carbon dioxide is coming out of your nose right now; it is not a poisonous gas. CO2 concentrations in previous eras have been many times higher than they are today.

7Sea level will probably continue to rise, naturally and slowly. Researchers have found no link between CO2 and sea level.

8The Arctic experiences natural variation as well, with some years warmer earlier than others. Polar bear numbers are up, not down. They have more to do with hunting permits than CO2*.

9No one has shown any damage to reef or marine systems. Additional man-made CO2 will not likely harm oceans, reef systems, or marine life. Fish are mostly threatened by people, who eat them.

10The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others are pursuing a political agenda and a PR campaign, not scientific inquiry. There’s a tremendous amount of trickery going on under the surface.'



His blog contains a great deal of material to back up his claims, and he is also intent on campaigning to 'educate influential liberals'.  The term 'liberal' in the United States is used these days to denote 'leftwing', and that may well include the majority of schoolteachers and academics.  Here on this blog we hope that in due course there will be massive efforts to help repair the damage that has been done to the minds and spirits of wave after wave of schoolchildren from recent decades.  David Siegel's campaign may well be a crucial early step towards such a pastoral effort actually taking place.

PS Paul Matthews has compiled a list of relatively prominent people who have 'recovered their senses' about climate:  https://ipccreport.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/converts-to-scepticism/

Climate Scaremongering Antidote: resisting the demonisation of CO2

While the search for a cure-all for CO2 alarmism continues, we shall, in the meantime, have to make do with piecemeal treatments to help young people cope with the deluge of woefully inadequate information relating to climate.

The problem is sometimes the information is wrong, but perhaps more common is a severe lack of balance.

The fact that the gentle overall warming of the last 150 years or so is generally very beneficial is not acknowledged,  whatever combination of factors has caused it.  Nor is the positive impact of higher ambient CO2 levels on agricultural productivity often recognised.

When your goal is to scare people to get their attention, I guess you don't want to dilute your messaging.  But we who don't care for their tactics nor their cause, need to be ready to respond to them, or at least help reduce the harm they must cause.

A new report from the GWPF provides parents and teachers with help to do that by providing an excellent background briefing on the benefits of CO2.

Image: GWPF

From their press release:

'... former IPCC delegate Dr Indur Goklany calls for a reassessment of carbon dioxide, which he says has many benefits for the natural world and for humankind.

Dr Goklany said: “Carbon dioxide fertilises plants, and emissions from fossil fuels have already had a hugely beneficial effect on crops, increasing yields by at least 10-15%. This has not only been good for humankind but for the natural world too, because an acre of land that is not used for crops is an acre of land that is left for nature”.'

There is also an excellent foreword from the extremely distinguished physicist, Freeman Dyson, who concludes (my italics, bolding and layout):

'Indur Goklany has assembled a massive collection of evidence to demonstrate two facts. 

First, the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide are dominant over the climatic effects and are overwhelmingly beneficial. 

Second, the climatic effects observed in the real world are much less damaging than the effects predicted by the climate models, and have also been frequently beneficial. 

I am hoping that the scientists and politicians who have been blindly demonising carbon dioxide for 37 years will one day open their eyes and look at the evidence. Goklany and I do not claim to be infallible. Like the climate-model experts, we have also evolved recently from the culture of the cave-children. Like them, we have inherited our own set of prejudices and blindnesses. Truth emerges when different groups of explorers listen to each other’s stories and correct each other’s mistakes.'

 

The report can be downloaded free of charge from this link:  http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf

PS
For those who may want to keep up to date on this topic, or to find out more from the scientific literature about it, this site is invaluable: CO2 Science.

Note added 15 Oct 2015.  The reformed ex-Greenpeace leader, Patrick Moore gave the GWPF Annual Lecture last night arguing we should 'celebrate CO2'.  Details via this link: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/10/15/should-we-celebrate-co2-cartoon-notes-by-josh.html

Can It Be This Easy? Helping young people learn about climate reality

Screenshot from the video

'Watch the double take students do when confronted with the straight facts that there has been no dramatic global warming as they’ve been led to believe.

The good news?  Students got it.  Some were upset. Virtually all were surprised. The only thing they needed was access to the truth.

You’ll be heartened to see these bright youngsters casting aside the politically-correct hype they’ve been fed and forming valid conclusions based on sound scientific data.'
Source: http://www.cfact.org/2015/08/20/watch-students-wake-up-about-warming/

Here is the video from CFACT: 

Note added later on 28 Aug. I think it likely that the young people in the video are amongst the brightest of recent high school leavers, and probably typical in their condition of being very poorly informed about climate change.  An official, well-designed sample-survey of senior high school pupils is long overdue to estimate the scale of the damage being inflicted upon them by climate scaremongers.

Second note on 28 Aug.  Here is a copy of the temperature plot shown in the video.  Why not print out your own copy and try it out on your friends and acquaintances, especially if they happen to be parents of high school pupils?

Source details and further commentary can be found here:  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/06/the-pause-draws-blood-a-new-record-pause-length-no-warming-for-18-years-7-months/

Alarming Climate Predictions: an informative cartoon for the classroom wall

(Ht: http://www.weatheraction.com/)

One thing anyone concerned about the harm being done to schoolchildren by climate alarmism must do is help them see how incompetent so many of the prominent pushers of alarm are when it comes to science.  The above cartoon would help encourage the youngsters to take the fear-mongers' confident assertions with a pinch of salt, and perhaps just a hint of amused contempt.

Some resources for project work by pupils, parents, or teachers , on the inability of the climate alarm 'community'* to give useful guidance about the future:

1. http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/
2. http://climatechangepredictions.org/
3. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions/
4. http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=predictions
5. http://notrickszone.com/climate-scandals/
6. http://notrickszone.com/category/stupid-predictions/
7. http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/01/warmists-take-hardest-hits/
8. http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/24/laughing-stock-met-office-2007-peer-reviewed-global-temperature-forecast-a-staggering-failure/
9. http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/only-bourgeois-science-compares-facts.html
10. http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/background-briefing-for-climate.html
11. https://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/james-hansen-1986-within-15-years-temps-will-be-hotter-than-past-100000-years/
12. http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/30/robust-science-more-than-30-contradictory-pairs-of-peer-reviewed-papers/,
13. http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/ten_major_failures_of_so_called_consensus_science/
14. http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/index.php/global-warming-audit
15. http://www.kestencgreen.com/statedeptclimate2010.pdf
16. http://www.climatedepot.com/2010/05/05/team-of-scientists-counter-us-govt-report-global-warming-alarm-will-prove-false-climate-fears-based-on-faulty-forecasting-procedures/
17. http://www.thegwpf.com/climate-forecasting-models-arent-pretty-and-they-arent-smart/
18. http://www.c3headlines.com/predictionsforecasts/
19. http://www.lowerwolfjaw.com/agw/quotes.htm
20. http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/tag/predictions-that-failed/
21. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/climate-scientist-73-un-climate-models-wrong-no-global-warming-17

*Note added 26 August: I think 'industry' would have been better.  It is a very lucrative sector - with fear and alarm essential for continued income.

Note added 26 August: the emotive mess and fatuous prophecies of alarmist personalities is exemplified by the Australian climate clown Tim Flannery.  In 2005, he expected the Warragamba catchment and Dam would suffer permanent drought.  Then what happened?  In 2012, it overflowed.  In 2015, it has just overflowed again.  See: http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/australia-s-chief-climate-alarmist-fails-in-another-of-his-predictions-after-just-7-10-years.html

Note added 28 August: trying to ride on the back of destructive weather is a hallmark of junk scientists and their followers intent on climate scaremongering, so their claims about hurricanes provide a rich seam of their machinations:  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/27/throwback-thursday-5-failed-global-warming-driven-hurricane-predictions-10-years-after-katrina/

Note added 01 September: the UK Met Office has long been a prominent rider on the scaryglobalwarming bandwagon, and has a correspondingly poor record when it comes to forecasting the implications of it for the UK:  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/01/another-bbq-summer-fiasco-met-office-gets-it-wrong-again/

Note added 31 October.  A handy compilation of 'last chance' forecasts on 'saving the climate' on the Climate Predictions site: :

2001, Bonn    2005, Montreal   2007, Bali    2008, Poznan
2009, Copenhagen   2010, Cancun    2011, Durban     2012, Doha 
2013, Warsaw    2014, Lima     2015, Paris

Typical drivel ahead of each of these meetings: 'The scientists are telling us that this is the world’s last shot at avoiding the worst consequences of global warming.'
(hat-tip: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/10/30/the-last-chance-saloons.html )

Note added 13 November.  Anthony Watts has noted that The Independent newspaper has removed their report of the notorious David Viner's ex cathedra prediction that children would not know what snow was: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/12/one-of-the-longest-running-climate-prediction-blunders-has-disappeared-from-the-internet/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-the-independent/
He had, fortunately for benefit of the record of all this sort of drivel over the years, kept a copy of the original article: https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-the-independent.pdf

Climate Scaremongering in 2009. Followed by 6 Years of Negligible Climate Change, Just Like the 10 Years Before Them

Six climate headlines from 2009 that tell us something important ...

An extract from a guest post at WUWT by Larry Kummer:

'The following snippets show one theme from that massive bombardment of stories intended to arouse people’s fear and so create a stampede for far-reaching public policy measures to save the world. These headlines warned that the end was near and time was running out.

(1) “President ‘has four years to save Earth’” says climate scientist James Hansen in The Guardian, 17 January 2009.

(2) “Global warming has reached a ‘defining moment,’ Prince Charles warns” in The Telegraph, 12 March 2009. “The world has “less than 100 months” to save the planet.

(3) “‘We have hours’ to prevent climate disaster” by Elizabeth May (Member of Parliament and leader of Canada’s Green Party) in The Star (Toronto), 24 March 2009. This was run as news, not an op-ed.

(4) “Just 96 months to save world, says Prince Charles” in The Independent. 9 July 2009. “If the world failed to heed his warnings then we all faced the ‘nightmare that for so many of us now looms on the horizon’.”

(5) “Five years to save world from climate change, says WWF“, Australian Broadcasting Company, 18 October 2009 — Excerpt…

“Karl Mallon, a scientist with Climate Risk and one of the key authors of the report, says 2014 has been calculated as the point at which there is no longer enough time to develop the industries that can deliver a low carbon economy. ‘The point of no return,’ he said.

“’If we wait until past 2014 or that’s what modelling shows, then simply put, it will be impossible for industries to grow to the scale that has to be achieved in the time that is available.’”

(6) “Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the “impasse”.“, BBC, 19 October 2009. Brown was the UK PM.'

End of extract

Enjoying the Bandwagon

Well, the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009 that these stories were softening us up for was a dramatic failure, thank goodness.  But the fearful headlines were but the tip of an iceberg of propaganda that was already working its way into schools around the world.  The reasoning seemed to be this: scare the children to scare the parents to get them to tolerate our policy goals.  Since such goals often involve much destruction and needless suffering, some special strategy was obviously required.  See for example the UK's Climate Change Act of 2008, and all that followed it.  Or the suffering caused by the forced adoption of bio-fuels.   Meanwhile, we have had cohorts of children leaving school with at best a cynical view of their teachers, and at worst with a dreadful view of the world and their future in it.  And by the way, those now younger than 20 years of age, have seen no sustained global warming in their entire lives.

Note added 9 August 2015.  It is hard to keep up with the junk being exposed month after month in the scientific, let alone the political, work of climate scare merchants.  Here is a recent one about ocean pH. (hat-tip: http://climatescience.blogspot.co.uk/).

For the Climate Classroom Wall: let a kangaroo in the snow replace that photo-shopped polar bear on an iceberg.

Source

Never mind the thriving polar bears of the northern hemisphere, take a look at that kangaroo in the southern one!  Is this what children steeped in climate alarmism since birth, and who have seen no global warming in their entire lives, have been led to expect by the climate scaremongers like Gore?

Record levels of snow in Australia, and elsewhere.  People who have never seen snow in their lifetimes in their location have now.

More on it here and here.

A pupil project: find out what the notorious climate clown David Viner had to say about snow, and then how later he headed up climate propaganda efforts at the British Council around the world.  How many children must have thought he deserved to be taken seriously?  Even adults were fooled by him.  Help your pupils avoid such a fate.  Here's a starter link to get them going.

Added 12 Aug.  More unusual snowfalls in Australia: http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=3916
'From the cities to the bush, this has been one of the coldest, snowiest, miserablest winters anyone can remember.'

Added 08 March 2017: Readers can get updated snow cover charts at http://www.climate4you.com/
For example, this one:

Child Protection Resources: debunking climate scares can help your children shrug off the propaganda

Picture source

So-called environmental organisations can get wealthy by scaring their members and the general public with lurid tales of doom and disaster.  But with what respect to the truth and the limitations of our knowledge?  Next to none, according to James Taylor of the Heartland Institute who has reacted to a recent fund-raising letter from the US Environmental Defence Fund, or EDF.

Below is a long extract from his recent article reacting to their 10 'deplorable'assertions, each highlighted in italics here by me.

There can be little doubt that campaigners will try to scare your children with any or all of them in due course.

Don't let them succeed,  Get better informed than they are:

(extract begins)
'EDF has assembled what it believes to be the 10 most powerful global warming assertions in the alarmists’ playbook. Each assertion either backfires on alarmists or has been proven false. While reading how flawed EDF’s assertions are, remember these are the very best arguments global warming alarmists can make! Open-minded readers should have very little difficulty dismissing the mythical global warming crisis after examining the top 10 assertions in the alarmists’ playbook.

Alarmist Assertion #1

“Bats Drop from the Sky – In 2014, a scorching summer heat wave caused more than 100,000 bats to literally drop dead and fall from the sky in Queensland, Australia.” 

The Facts

Global warming alarmists’ preferred electricity source – wind power – kills nearly 1 million bats every year in the United States alone.[1] This appalling death toll occurs every year even while wind power produces just 3 percent of U.S. electricity. Ramping up wind power to 10, 20, or 30 percent of U.S. electricity production would likely mean annual bat kills of 10 to 30 million. Killing 30 million bats every year in response to dubious claims that global warming might once in a great while kill 100,000 bats makes no sense.

Just as importantly, alarmists present no evidence that global warming caused the summer heat wave in a notoriously hot desert near the equator. To the contrary, climate change theory and objective data show our recent global warming is occurring primarily in the winter, toward the poles, and at night. 

Australia’s highest recorded temperature occurred more than half a century ago, and only two of Australia’s seven states have set their all-time temperature record during the past 40 years.[2]

Queensland’s 2014 heat wave paled in comparison to the 1972 heat wave that occurred 42 years of global warming ago. If global warming caused the 2014 Queensland heat wave, why wasn’t it as severe as the 1972 Queensland heat wave?

Blaming every single summer heat wave or extreme weather event on global warming is a stale and discredited tactic in the alarmist playbook. Objective science proves extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and droughts have become less frequent and less severe as a result of the Earth’s recent warming.[3]

Alarmist Assertion #2

“Lyme Disease Spreads – Warmer temperatures are contributing to the range expansion and severity of tick-borne Lyme disease.” 

The Facts

Lyme disease is much more common in northern, cooler regions of the United States than in southern, warmer regions.[4] Asserting, without any supporting data or evidence, that a disease that prospers in cool climates will become more prevalent as a result of global warming defies objective data and common sense.

Moreover, a team of scientists extensively researched Lyme disease climate and habitat and reported in the peer-reviewed science journal EcoHealth, “the only environmental variable consistently associated with increased [Lyme disease] risk and incidence was the presence of forests.”[5]

Granted, alarmists can argue that forests are thriving under global warming, with the result that forest-dwelling ticks will also benefit. However, expanding forests are universally – and properly – viewed as environmentally beneficial. Alarmist attempts to frame thriving forests as harmful perfectly illustrate the alarmists’ proclivity to claim anything and everything – no matter how beneficial – is severely harmful and caused by global warming.

Moreover, even if global warming expanded Lyme disease range, one must look at the totality of global warming’s impact on the range of viruses and diseases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports Lyme disease “is rare as a cause of death in the United States.”[6] According to the CDC, Lyme disease is a contributing factor in fewer than 25 deaths per year in the United States. During a recent five-year span examined by the CDC, “only 1 [death] record was consistent with clinical manifestations of Lyme disease.”

Any attempts to claim global warming will cause a few more Lyme disease deaths must be weighed against the 36,000 Americans who are killed by the flu each year.[7] The U.S. National Institutes of Health have documented how influenza is aided and abetted by cold climate.[8] Any attempt to connect a warmer climate to an increase in Lyme disease must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of a warmer climate’s propensity to reduce influenza incidence and mortality.

The net impact of a warmer climate on viruses and diseases such as Lyme disease and influenza is substantially beneficial and life-saving.

Alarmist Assertion #3

“National Security Threatened – The impacts of climate change are expected to act as a ‘threat multiplier’ in many of the world’s most unstable regions, exacerbating droughts and other natural disasters as well as leading to food, water and other resource shortages that may spur mass migrations.” 

The Facts

The alarmists’ asserted national security threat depends on assertions that (1) global warming is causing a reduction in food and water supplies and (2) migrations of people to places with more food and water will increase risks of military conflict. Facts refute both assertions.

Regarding food and water supplies, global crop production has soared as the Earth gradually warms.[9]

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is essential to plant life, and adding more of it to the atmosphere enhances plant growth and crop production. Longer growing seasons and fewer frost events also benefit plant growth and crop production. As repeatedly documented in my Forbes.com columns,[10] global crops set new production records virtually every year as our planet modestly warms. If crop shortages cause national security threats and global warming increases crop production, then global warming benefits rather than jeopardizes national security.

The same holds true for water supplies. Data show there has been a gradual increase in global precipitation and soil moisture as our planet warms. Warmer temperatures evaporate more water from the oceans, which in turn stimulates more frequent precipitation over continental land masses. The result of this enhanced precipitation is an improvement in soil moisture at almost all sites in the Global Soil Moisture Data Bank.[11]

 If declining precipitation and declining soil moisture are military threat multipliers, then global warming is creating a safer, more peaceful world.

Alarmist Assertion #4

“Sea Levels Rising – Warmer temperatures are causing glaciers and polar ice sheets to melt, increasing the amount of water in the world’s seas and oceans.” 

The Facts

The pace of sea level rise remained relatively constant throughout the twentieth century, even as global temperatures gradually rose.[12] There has similarly been no increase in the pace of sea level rise in recent decades. Using twentieth century technologies, humans effectively adapted to global sea level rise. With twenty-first century technologies, humans will be even better equipped to adapt to global sea level rise.

Also, the alarmist assertion that polar ice sheets are melting is simply false. Although alarmists frequently point to a modest recent shrinkage in the Arctic ice sheet, that decline has been completely offset by ice sheet expansion in the Antarctic. Cumulatively, polar ice sheets have not declined at all since NASA satellite instruments began precisely measuring them 35 years ago.[13]

Alarmist Assertion #5

“Allergies Worsen – Allergy sufferers beware: Climate change could cause pollen counts to double in the next 30 years. The warming temperatures cause advancing weed growth, a bane for allergy sufferers.”

The Facts

Pollen is a product and mechanism of plant reproduction and growth. As such, pollen counts will rise and fall along with plant health and vegetation intensity. Any increase in pollen will be the result of a greener biosphere with more plant growth. Similar to the alarmist argument, discussed above, that expanding forests will create more habitat for the ticks that spread Lyme disease, alarmists here are taking overwhelmingly good news about global warming improving plant health and making it seem like this good news is actually bad news because healthier plants mean more pollen.

NASA satellite instruments have documented a spectacular greening of the Earth, with foliage gains most prevalent in previously arid, semi-desert regions.[14] For people experiencing an increase in vegetation in previously barren regions, this greening of the Earth is welcome and wonderful news. For global warming alarmists, however, a greener biosphere is terrible news and something to be opposed.

This, in a nutshell, defines the opposing sides in the global warming debate. Global warming alarmists claim a greener biosphere with richer and more abundant plant life is horrible and justifies massive, economy-destroying energy restrictions. Global warming realists understand that a greener biosphere with richer and more abundant plant life is not a horrible thing simply because humans may have had some role in creating it.

Alarmist Assertion #6

“Beetles Destroy Iconic Western Forests – Climate change has sent tree-killing beetles called mountain pine beetles into overdrive. Under normal conditions those beetles reproduce just once annually, but the warming climate has allowed them to churn out an extra generation of new bugs each year.” 

The Facts

Alarmists claim warmer winters are causing an increase in pine beetle populations. This assertion is thoroughly debunked by real-world data.

As an initial matter, alarmists have responded to recent bitterly cold winters by claiming global warming is causing colder winters.[15] One cannot claim global warming is causing colder winters and then turn around and simultaneously claim global warming is causing warmer winters. Global warming activists’ propensity for doing so shows just how little value they place on truthful debate. 

Scientific data verify winters are getting colder, countering the key prerequisite to EDF’s pine beetle claim. NOAA temperature data show winter temperatures in the United States have been getting colder for at least the past two decades.[16] Pine beetles cannot be taking advantage of warmer winters if winters are in fact getting colder. Moreover, recent U.S. Forest Service data show pine beetle infestations have recently declined dramatically throughout the western United States.[17]

Forests and plant life are expanding globally, and particularly in the western United States.[18] Pine beetles are a natural part of forest ecosystems. Expanding pine forests can support more beetles. The predictable increase in pine beetles is largely a product of, rather than a foil against, expanding pine forests. One can hardly argue that pine beetles are “destroying iconic Western forests” when western forests are becoming denser and more prevalent as the planet warms.

Also, beetles have bored through North American forests for millennia, long before people built coal-fired power plants and drove SUVs. Beetles are not dependent on warm winters, as evidenced by their historic prevalence in places such as Alaska.[19]

Finally, pine beetles tend to target dead, unhealthy, more vulnerable pine trees rather than healthy trees. Decades of over-aggressive fire suppression policies have caused an unnatural buildup of older, denser, more vulnerable pine forests. These conditions predictably aid pine beetles.

Alarmist Assertion #7

“Canada: The New America – ‘Lusher’ vegetation growth typically associated with the United States is now becoming more common in Canada, scientists reported in a 2012 Nature Climate Change study.”

The Facts

Only global warming alarmists would claim that lusher vegetation and more abundant plant life are a bad thing. Playing on a general tendency of people to fear change, EDF and global warming alarmists argue that changes in the biosphere that make it richer, lusher, and more conducive to life are changes to be feared and opposed. If barren ecosystems constitute an ideal planet, then the alarmist fears of more plant life make sense. But global warming realists understand a climate more conducive to richer, more abundant plant life is beneficial rather than harmful.

Alarmist Assertion #8

“Economic Consequences – The costs associated with climate change rise along with the temperatures. Severe storms and floods combined with agricultural losses cause billions of dollars in damages, and money is needed to treat and control the spread of disease” 

The Facts

Severe storms, floods, and agricultural losses may cost a great deal of money, but such extreme weather events – and their resulting costs – are dramatically declining as the Earth modestly warms.[20] Accordingly, EDF’s asserted economic costs are actually economic benefits. 

As documented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and at Forbes.com, severe storms are becoming less frequent and severe as the Earth modestly warms. This is especially evident regarding hurricane and tornado activity, which are both at historic lows.

Similarly, scientific measurements and peer-reviewed studies report no increase in flooding events regarding natural-flowing rivers and streams.[21] Any increase in flooding activity is due to human alterations of river and stream flow rather than precipitation changes.[22]

Also, the modest recent warming is producing U.S. and global crop production records virtually every year, creating billions of dollars in new economic and human welfare benefits each and every year. This creates a net economic benefit completely ignored by EDF.

Regarding “the spread of disease,” as documented in “Alarmist Assertion #2,” evidence shows global warming will thwart deadly outbreaks of influenza and other cold-dependent viruses.

Additionally, the alarmists’ desired means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions – more expensive energy sources – make economic conditions even worse. Forcing the American economy to operate on expensive and unreliable wind and solar power will have tremendous negative economic consequences. President Barack Obama acknowledged this fact when he promised that under his global warming plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

The economic consequences of Obama’s global warming policies can already be seen in electricity prices, which are currently the highest in U.S. history. Remarkably, Obama’s global warming policies are increasing electricity prices even while new natural gas discoveries, revolutionary advances in natural gas production technologies, and a dramatic resultant decline in natural gas prices would otherwise spur a dramatic decline in electricity prices.

Alarmist Assertion #9

“Infectious Diseases Thrive – The World Health Organization reports that outbreaks of new or resurgent diseases are on the rise and in more disparate countries than ever before, including tropical illnesses in once cold climates.” 

The Facts

Outbreaks of “new or resurgent diseases” are occurring precisely because governments have caved in to environmental activist groups like EDF and implemented their anti-science agendas. For example, DDT had all but eliminated malaria in the United States and on the global stage during the mid-twentieth century. However, environmental activists championed false environmental accusations against DDT and dramatically reduced use of the life-saving mosquito killer throughout much of the world. As a result, malaria has re-emerged with a vengeance and millions of people die every year as a result.[23]

Also, as documented above in “Alarmist Assertion #2,” global warming will reduce the impact and death toll of cold-related viruses such as influenza. In the United States alone, influenza kills 36,000 people every year, which dwarfs all heat-dependent viruses and diseases combined. Few people other than global warming alarmists would argue that it is better to have 36,000 people die each year from influenza than have a few people die each year from Lyme disease (which, as documented above, isn’t even related to global warming).

Alarmist Assertion #10

“Shrinking Glaciers – In 2013, an iceberg larger than the city of Chicago broke off the Pine Island Glacier, the most important glacier of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. And at Montana’s Glacier National Park glaciers have gone from 150 to just 35 over the past century.” 

The Facts

Calling attention to anecdotal incidents of icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice sheet, while deliberately ignoring the overall growth of the Antarctic ice sheet, is a misleading and favorite tactic of global warming alarmists. Icebergs break off the Antarctic ice sheet every year, with or without global warming, particularly in the Antarctic summer. However, a particular iceberg – no matter how large – breaking off the Antarctic ice sheet does not necessarily result in “Shrinking Glaciers” as EDF alleges.

To the contrary, the Antarctic ice sheet has been growing at a steady and substantial pace ever since NASA satellites first began measuring the ice sheet in 1979. During the same year EDF claims “an iceberg larger than the city of Chicago” broke off the Antarctic ice sheet and caused “Shrinking Glaciers,” the Antarctic ice sheet repeatedly set new records for its largest extent in recorded history.[24] Those 2013 records were repeatedly broken again in 2014. The Antarctic ice sheet in 2013 and 2014 was more extensive than at any time in recorded history, yet EDF pushes the lie that the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking.

EDF’s assertion about Glacier National Park is also misleading. Alpine glaciers at Glacier National Park and elsewhere have been receding for more than 300 years, since the Earth’s temperature bottomed out during the depths of the Little Ice Age.[25] The warming of the past 300 years and the resulting recession of alpine glaciers predated humans building coal-fired power plants and driving SUVs. Moreover, opening up more of the Earth’s surface to vegetation and plant and animal life would normally be considered a beneficial change, if global warming alarmists had not so thoroughly politicized the global warming discussion.

There you have it. These are the 10 best arguments global warming activists like EDF can make, along with the objective scientific facts that prove them wrong.

No wonder global warming alarmists are so terrified of people having access to both sides of the debate. '

James M. Taylor (jtaylor@heartland.org) is vice president for external relations and senior fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Taylor is the former managing editor (2001 – 2014) of Environment & Climate News, a national monthly publication devoted to sound science and free-market environmentalism.
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See the complete article for the introduction, and for supporting references [1,25 ]:    http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/07/27/top-10-global-warming-lies

Hat-tip: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/top-10-global-warming-lies/