Pop-Bottle Pseudo-Science for Climate-Scaremongering in the Classroom

The use of misleading experiments with glass boxes, jars or pop bottles in classrooms has been happening for a while: ' The experiment as presented by Al Gore and Bill Nye “the science guy” is a failure, and not representative of the greenhouse effect related to CO2 in our atmosphere. '

One correspondent to a Canadian web-based news magazine recently reacted to this sort of insidious nonsense with a powerful letter. Reproduced below from 'My Kawartha.com' :

Pop bottle science ‘grossly exaggerates’ CO2

Kawartha Lakes This Week

To the editor:

Re: pop bottle science. One of the half dozen ways in which the proponents of what is increasingly known worldwide as “the global warming hoax” violate the basic fundamentals of scientific procedure is the selective manipulation and distortion of basic data.

The recent letter succeeds in providing a most graphic example of such blatant violation.

The writer refers to a so-called “science class experiment” in which a comparison of heat retention is supposedly demonstrated with pop bottles. He conveniently omitted the fact that the concentration of pure CO2 was 2,500 times higher than in the atmosphere.

Since the molecular weight of CO2 is approximately 50 per cent higher than that of the components of air, the single CO2 molecule within the other 2,500 molecules in air would have a tendency to absorb more heat, but to an overall negligible effect.

The use of pure CO2 in the CO2 pop bottle therefore exaggerates the heat retention effect of the CO2 by 2,500 times.

 I find this intentional attempt to grossly exaggerate the effect of CO2 to be appalling and disgraceful. It is disturbing that such deceitful measures are actually used in classrooms

This leads me to have serious questions regarding the ethics of any teachers agreeing to such practises, as well as all global warming alarmists in general. Snider suggests that this farcical “experiment” should be performed in local schools. I would hope that our local teachers place a higher value on ethics and respect for their students.

James Lindsay

WELL DONE MR LINDSAY!

Here is more criticism of such experiments from Roy Spencer: 'So, science teachers beware. Those greenhouse effect experiments are junk. Do not try them at home.'

An academic shredding of misleading classroom experiments purporting to demonstrate the so-called greenhouse effect is given here:  http://rtobin.phy.tufts.edu/Wagoner%20AJP%202010.pdf

Meanwhile, in the adult world of politics, I see this encouraging headline:

'Public turning against climate alarmists as more evidence of fraud emerges'

Here's hoping this will happen in our schools as well. 

New Hope in the Hustle for Children of the CO2 Scare

Dramatic, widespread, and influential scaremongering about our impact on the environment has been a feature of life as reflected in the mass media since the 1960s. But of the scares, all of which have turned out to be false alarms or grossly exaggerated, the one about airborne carbon dioxide (CO2) has been the most sustained and the most damaging to societies around the world. One class of victim has been children exposed to adults who have seen them as potential recruits for political and lifestyle campaigns, and who have seen fit to scare them first to get their attention. This is a known brainwashing technique, and is followed by distancing the victim from their usual sources of support and guidance. In the case of children, that is their parents. The children are told those parents are destroying the world and must be stopped if they wish to have a future. In the UK, and elsewhere, by government fiat, schools had to show the ludicrous and vivid propaganda movie called 'An Inconvenient Truth', ameliorated slightly in England & Wales by a court ruling that nine of the most egregious sections had to be highlighted by teachers as politically-loaded opinion rather than fact.

Now nearly ten years later, a possible antidote-movie has been released. It is called 'Climate Hustle' and months have gone by in which tantalising promotions have been made for it, with showings only for a lucky few.  At long last, in Canada and the USA, it has been shown to the public - on the 2^nd of May.  That public launch seems to have been very successful: 

'Meanwhile the people who turned out Monday night to see Climate Hustle at the movies continue to report how delighted they are with the film.

It appears that on Monday Climate Hustle was the number six movie in the nation. When you consider that Hustle was going up against Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Jungle Book,My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and Barbershop: The Next Cut, this is huge. Those other films were in thousands more theaters around the country with multiple show times throughout the night.'

Someone in Montana recorded for YouTube some comments from members of the public before and after the showing in the city of Kalispell. Here is a short, 52 seconds, extract from that which is most relevant to this blog, showing as it does a young woman who has been greatly helped by the movie in confirming the one-sided nature of her schooling about climate.

Sometimes children were lied to (see for example 'Why Are They Lying to Our Children') for dramatic effect, but probably more commonly they were 'merely' fed a rather narrow view of our current knowledge (see for example 'Facts, Not Fear'), a view supporting alarm. Thus reductions in Arctic sea ice may be highlighted, but no mention made of increases in the Antarctic or of previous large variations. Threats to agriculture can be made vivid without mentioning that crop yields have been increasing for a long time. Recent rises in sea level can be bigged-up without mentioning that overall sea level rising trends have been quite steady for the past 150 years or more. And so it goes – find something scary, describe it well, and stop. Thus wave after wave of children may have been seriously misled. Andrew Montford and I drew attention to this, and called for an official enquiry to get an improved estimate of the extent of this problem in the UK (see 'Climate Control: Brainwashing in Schools').

If the movie is as good as I strongly suspect it is, here's hoping it will soon be widely available on DVD or download so that caring teachers can get it into their classrooms, and caring parents bring it into their homes to help current pupils, and those who have recently left school.  It will also, I hope, be a useful resource for all who care about the well-being of adults who have been misled by eco-alarmism in their schooldays, or from the mass media even now.  It would be a grand thing to suggest they watch a movie which will give them a good laugh while at the same time encouraging a calmer perspective on what we know about the causes of climate variation.  More details of the movie can be found here: http://www.climatehustlemovie.com/