Merry Christmas!

Here is a splendid, over-the-top production of the carol 'Twelve Days of Christmas'.  In the Albert Hall in London some years ago.  Huge enjoyment all round, and superb singing from the stage.

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/

Earth Interview: something for the classroom, or the kitchen, wall?

Source: Bishop Hill

Readers here will enjoy the cartoon - another fine one by Josh (http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/)

It could also help your children realise what a one-sided view the mass media has been deliberately promoting (the BBC for example) , and that by itself could help them cope better with stress from the alarmism that has been pushed at them all their lives.  And perhaps encourage some to look into it for themselves - the best way to reduce their anxiety.

Some backround reading: 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/27/nasa-carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/23073-new-study-higher-co2-levels-promote-leaf-growth
From the latter:

In an interview with The New American after his presentation, Carter made a statement that supported the findings of the newly released “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers” study: The CO2 added to the atmosphere in recent decades has been responsible for a tremendous greening of the planet. “That’s a huge environmental benefit,” he said, adding that much of the greening had occurred along arid areas such as the Sahara Desert. “If you talk to most scientists, they will acknowledge that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” explained Dr. Carter. “Indeed, it’s grotesque to call it a pollutant. It’s an abuse of logic, it’s an abuse of language, and it's an abuse of science.... Carbon dioxide is literally the stuff of life.”

Stop Indoctrinating Children with Eco-Junk! 'Subsidy Sam' turns up to fight the good fight.

Cartoons by Josh

Josh has the story at Bishop Hill:

''Subsidy Sam' was written by Lyndsey Ward to counter the shameless pro-wind propaganda allowed in schools. Lyndsey asked me to help out with a cartoon and I was only too happy to oblige. Today 'Subsidy Sam' made it into The Press and Journal, a Scottish newspaper'

On her the Facebook page, Wind Energy's Absurd, Lyndsey writes:

'This short story has been written to counter the shameless wind propaganda that is allowed into our schools to influence young minds with no effort to show the other side.

Here at Wind Energy's Absurd we have repeatedly challenged the wisdom and morality of allowing multinational companies into the classroom to put their side of a story that is designed to cultivate acceptance of their industry into future generations.

You will remember Tommy the Turbine - a tale told to children in Ireland about the wonders of wind power.  http://www.tommytheturbine.net/    http://tommytheturbine.com/   

Well now Tommy has a rival - and our money is on Subsidy Sam getting the message out there.
It is time the indoctrination of our children was stopped.'

Hear, hear to that!

Lyndsey is based in the Highlands, where the regional Council has long been complicit in pushing eco-junk on to children.  This picture shows kids from a school which opened its doors to that nasty multinational, the WWF, back in 2012.

From the Climate Lessons post at the time:

'These children from a rural school in Scotland have been encouraged to switch lights off on 31st March, in order to 'support people and wildlife threatened by climate change'.

It is not difficult to spot the political campaigners who are coaching them in this nonsense. And a regional council is on-board too, claiming that it 'hopes the effort will make people think about the energy they use, where it comes from and the impact that has on the environment and climate change.'
(Source: Ross-Shire Journal)

Of course, the council and WWF are busy scheming to make that energy more expensive and less reliable thanks to the windfarms that are popping up in their territory to destroy wildlife, industrialise wild places, and discourage visitors and sensible industries from going anywhere near there.  Meanwhile, it is quite disgraceful that wealthy, un-accountable, biased,scaremongering, self-serving schemers like WWF have been allowed such access and influence on those youngsters.'

The 'Subsidy Sam' story has also been picked up from the Bishop Hill post by another excellent organisation, Scotland Against Spin.

It is good to see people fighting back against the waves of propaganda that children have been subject to for decades.

Back in 1999, the problem was already clear to some:

'#1999 USA 'Shortly after Earth Day in 1997, for instance, a parent wrote a letter to the New York Times: "I have noticed a disturbing trend. With each passing school year, my children are more convinced that humans and technology are bad for the planet....While teachers are helping to insure a ‘greener’ future, I do not think they understand that children may infer a condemnation of humanity."'  
 http://cei.org/news-letters-cei-planet/too-much-fear-too-few-facts'

[an entry in 'Climate Anxiety: reports of frightened children']

P.S. Today, it would seem, is Earth Day.  Here's some good reading to help get it into a sensible perspective: https://www.ihatethemedia.com/earth-day-predictions-of-1970-the-reason-you-should-not-believe-earth-day-predictions-of-2009

P.P.S. Here's an update on that first Earth Day, and its awful stupidity: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/22/7-enviro-predictions-from-earth-day-1970-that-were-just-dead-wrong/  Truly, we need to protect children from such twisted, irresponsible, malevolent junk.

Note added 23 April: the Subsidy Sam story can be downloaded from here: 

http://docs.wind-watch.org/Subsidy-Sam.pdf  [hat-tip: https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/subsidy-sam-the-turbine/ ]

Note added 10 May 2016:  On the topic of windpower, some adults are making good progress in exposing the lunacies  and reducing the damage:  http://notrickszone.com/2016/05/09/major-blow-to-wind-power-bavarias-highest-court-upholds-10h-rule-shoots-industrialization-of-idyllic-landscape/  'The ruling represents a major landmark victory for wind energy opponents, who have been increasingly shocked by the rampant destruction of Germany’s countryside and natural landscape. They greeted the ruling with loud cheers.'  

Good! In the USA, 18-29 year-olds seriously divided about 'climate change'.

Picture source

Tales of youngsters at school growing weary of relentless 'global warming' alarmism appear occasionally, but are the brainwashing efforts of immoral, ill-informed, or irresponsible campaigners nevertheless succeeding?

Not as much as they might like.  At least in the USA, according to a recently published survey from the Harvard Institute of Politics.

This was a survey of people 18 to 29 years old - in other words those who have spent their entire lives under the shadow of the CO2 Frenzy, and during almost all of whose lives, the overall global warming trend has been around a distinctly un-alarming 1 deg C per century, and sometimes with no rising trend at all for many years at a time.

The summarised responses to each question can be found here: http://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files_new/IOPSpring15%20PollTopline.pdf

Four of them mention climate change, and these results are reproduced below:

20-24 Now thinking specifically about Barack Obama, do you approve or disapprove of the way he is handling: 

20. Climate change.
Approve........................................................... 50%
Disapprove ..................................................... 48%
Decline to answer............................................. 2%

85. Government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth. 
Strongly agree ................................................. 12%
Somewhat agree .............................................. 20%
Neither agree nor disagree .............................. 44%
Somewhat disagree ......................................... 12%
Strongly disagree ............................................. 11%
Decline to answer............................................... 1%

96. Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ is a process used to more easily extract natural gas and oil by injecting a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground. Supporters say that using this technique on American natural gas deposits can boost the country’s energy independence, can lower energy costs and create jobs. Opponents say that the technique can contaminate drinking water and air, can cause small earthquakes and contribute to climate change. Based on what you know at this time, do you support or oppose the use of fracking in America? 
Strongly support............................................. 9%
Somewhat support........................................ 31%
Somewhat oppose ....................................... 35%
Strongly oppose ........................................... 23%
Decline to answer........................................... 2%

97. Which of the following statements comes closer to your point of view? 
The United States should take action to address climate change, regardless of whether or not other nations have agreed to it....... 67%

The United States should only take action to address climate change if most other nations agree to take action as well............ 31%

Decline to answer............................. 2%

What are we to make of this?  Well, once again 'climate change' in the survey is not adequately defined, and this may well be deliberate.  The term is, after all, a neutral one when taken at face value.  But we know that CO2 Alarm campaigners do not use it that way - they use it as short-hand for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (cagw).  How different might the responses have been if this had been used instead, especially if preceded by 'the conjecture of'?

So we must take the results with a large pinch of salt since they will depend on just how the ostensibly neutral and un-alarming phrase 'climate change' was interpreted.

But what is clear, is that opinion (about something called 'climate change') is very divided indeed.  Some  48% don't approve of President Obama's approach (and he bigs it up big-time as a planetary crisis).  Some 57% fail to even just 'somewhat agree' that 'government should do more to curb climate change', whatever it was taken to be.  40% support or strongly support fracking, an activity widely detested by CO2 Alarmers.  These alarmers might well be pleased, however, that about two-thirds of the survey respondents think that the United States should 'take action' to address whatever it is.  But since that could include wanting the government to encourage more fossil-fuel power stations to help citizens cope with climate variation, it is not by any means conclusive!

The full-time Alarm campaigners will be pleased that there is still work for them to do, still a need to jet around the world to exotic places for glamorous conferences, still plenty need to make portentous speeches about the end of the world, still a need to raise funds for their chosen way of life.  But others may be pleased that the brainwashing does not seem to have overwhelmed young people, and that this is encouraging.

Now to help develop a scientifically appropriate view on all of this, I commend the following words from Richard Lindzen, whom I regard as the world's most distinguished climate scientist:

'The implausibility or even outright silliness through which global warming became global warming catastrophism is so extensive that one hardly knows where to begin. It is crucial to emphasise catastrophism because the situation is made even more incoherent by the intentional conflation of simple basic results that are widely agreed upon, but which have no catastrophic implications, with catastrophism itself. Currently, there really is quite a lot of basic agreement within the climate science world: 

• climate change exists 

• there has been warming since the Little Ice Age ended around the beginning of the 19th century (well before emissions are regarded as contributing significantly) 

• human emissions can contribute to climate change 

• levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been increasing. 

None of this is controversial and none of this actually implies alarm.'

This is from a lecture given in 2015.  The text is here, and well worth reading in full: http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/03/Lindzen.pdf

In fact, why not print it out and give copies to any 18 to 29 year-olds of your acquaintance?

Oh Mothers, Tell Your Children: don't trust museums on climate change

Picture: The Guardian

Mothers, and fathers concerned about your children getting a fair and balanced view of climate variation, please read this article by John Tierney from which the following is an extract:

'A few years ago, I went to the museum and gave a quiz to a class of high-school students who had just toured it. I asked about two long-term trends in the United States: Was air pollution getting better or worse, and was the amount of forestland increasing or decreasing? None of the students—nor their teacher—got both questions right. Most had no idea that air pollution has been declining for decades while the amount of forestland has been increasing.

You can’t blame them, given what they’d just seen at the Hall of Biodiversity. The message is unrelentingly gloomy, and sometimes just outdated or wrong. There’s an image of a forest supposedly decimated by acid rain, which was a much-proclaimed eco-catastrophe three decades ago—until an extensive federal study concluded that there was ‘”no evidence of widespread forest damage.” There are warnings of resource shortages and admonitions to “reduce, reuse, recycle—and rethink.” One exhibit panel claims that “global warming has already resulted in more frequent and severe coastal storms as hurricanes,” which is contradicted by both data and theory. There has been no upward trend in hurricanes over the past half century (the last decade has been especially calm), and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictsthat “future changes in storms are likely to be small.” A video shows much of Florida and Long Island disappearing under the rising ocean—representing a sea-level rise far beyond what IPCC projects.

The hype was even worse when the museum presented a special show on climate change in 2008. The exhibition, which toured other science museums in the United States and abroad, displayed a model of lower Manhattan under 16 feet of water, while the rest of the world was ravaged by storms, droughts, fires, and plagues. In a review of the exhibition for the New York Times, Edward Rothstein criticized it for being concerned less with science than with frightening visitors. “What we need from a museum is not proselytizing but a more reflective analysis,” he wrote, complaining that the exhibition “made me feel like an agnostic attending church and listening to sermons about damnation.” '

So, the message is that parents need to be ready to protect their children from museum exhibits about climate.  The reality is that the world has been improving in just about every environmental measure you might think of.  Furthermore, evidence continues to accumulate about the gross hype and scaremongering in some scientific circles on climate: the reality of the benign warming trend is ignored, the fantasy of incompetent computer models is preferred.   A quick check of the blogosphere right now, supplies these examples within seconds: (1), (2) , (3), (4) and (5). 

Several posts have raised concerns about museums on this blog in previous years:

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/three-ways-to-get-at-young-about.html

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/p/climate-wisdom-open-letters-and.html

(scroll down to '2015 Open Reply to US Museums ')

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/p/climate-sites-aimed-at-children-or.html

(use Ctrl-f to find at least 3 'museum' mentions)

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/p/climate-curricula-school-curricula.html

(use Ctrl-f to find at least 3 'museum' mentions)

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/president-obamas-last-resort-new.html

http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/scaring-children-about-climate-some.html

The basic message is: children are at risk of being seriously misled by museums about climate and other environmental matters.

Children asking about Earth Hour? Give them a copy of this.

Earth Hour: A Dissent by Ross McKitrick 

In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour. Here is my response. 

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity. Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading. Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world's poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases. Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that's how the west developed.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonises electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity. People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.

I don't want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in "nature" meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply. If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations. No thanks. I like visiting nature but I don't want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilisation with all its trade-offs is something to be ashamed of.


Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph

Source: http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/earthhour.pdf

Note added 20 March 2016.  The advice in the title would be better to have been 'Read this before talking with them about it again.'  Since the text is likely to be hard for young children.
Note added 23 March 2016.  Here is an excellent essay on Earth Hour:  http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-dangerous-narcissism-of-earth-hour/18165  'No, the problem with Earth Hour is that it makes a villain out of electricity provision, the very thing that’s allowed humanity to rise out of abject poverty and reach the standard of living we enjoy today. So, since you probably won’t hear it anywhere else, here are just a few of the tremendous benefits of cheap, reliable electricity: ...'

CO2 Scare Campaigners Plumb Newish Depths by Pushing Children to the Frontline

Photo: Clayton Aldern

How low will they sink?  CO2 Scare campaigners use children to push their case in an American court.  They have been building up to this for a while.

It is long since past time that I got this blog up and running with posts again.

  This disturbing news item will spur me to do just that.

The harm that such campaigners have already helped bring to children includes starvation, energy poverty, suppressed economic development, and of course a terrible fear of the future.

Meanwhile, the climate system continues to act just as it might if the rising CO2 levels, from whatever source, were of little consequence.   Where these increasing levels have had a noticeable impact, however, has been in helping increase food supplies by virtue of boosting plant growth.

Note added 22 March 2016.  More on this shameful business here:  http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/09/us-youth-take-climate-fight-to-oregon-courthouse/
Note added 12 April 2016.  A judge has ruled that the case can go ahead:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/10/federal-court-rules-in-favour-of-plaintiffs-demanding-climate-action/