Unfortunately, some misuse science. Some of their intentions, are far from benevolent. They see science as a mechanism for political power and control. There is great danger from those who would use science for political control over us.
How do they do this? They instill, and then continuously magnify, fear. Fear is the most effective instrument of totalitarian control.
The GWPF has just released an indictment of David Attenborough, the much-admired populariser of wildlife studies. His emotive voice-overs in misleading documentaries have surely been one of the drivers of the current high levels of climate anxiety in young people:
'London, 27 January: Anew videodocumenting Sir David Attenborough’s inaccurate claims about climate change and Arctic wildlife blames his apocalyptic language and misleading narrative for the dramatic rise in eco anxiety among young people.
The video published today by the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) and written by Dr. Susan Crockford, a Canadian wildlife expert, shows that increasing climate angst felt by many young people around the world started with Attenborough’s films that blamed starving polar bears on human-caused global warming.
The parents and teachers of these youngsters trusted Attenborough’s BBC productions to be accurate portrayals of the effects of climate change but that trust has been betrayed.
David Attenborough’s claims that ‘the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon’ have captured international media attention but it is now apparent he has failed to ensure that the scripts he reads for his Arctic documentaries and the messages they contain are true reflections of the natural world.
"Misleading narratives about starving polar bears and fabricated stories of dying walrus, used to support an escalating message of doom about the Arctic, are not supported by facts," Dr Crockford said.
"Attenborough did not verify any facts contained in the scripts he was paid to narrate and passed along misinformation to naïve viewers, including many young children," she added.
One of these children was Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who said she was shown images of starving polar bears in school when she was 8 or 9 years old. The timing and nature of the material suggests the film she saw was Attenborough’s ‘On Thin Ice’ documentary from the ‘Frozen Planet’ series released in 2011.
"David Attenborough bears the brunt of responsibility for the recent epidemic of ‘eco-anxiety’ among children and young adults. Much of their misguidedly negative sense of how Arctic animals are fairing and their bleak outlook on the world come from the heart-wrenching but unverified stories found in Attenborough’s documentaries,| Dr Crockford said.
It is the responsibility of teachers and parents to reassure these worried youngsters that polar bears and walrus are not suffering because of sea ice loss blamed on climate change. Children need to be told the truth: that whatever scary stories some biologists come up with about what might happen in the future, Arctic species have demonstrated that they are much more resilient to changes in sea ice than Attenborough’s films suggest.
The GWPF is sending copies of this video to all head teachers of UK schools together with a letter, telling them that they are responsible for the mental health of their pupils and that they have a responsibility to provide their pupils with accurate information about the state of wildlife in the Arctic.
A bout of illness has delayed my next post aimed at helping those who want to protect children from the excesses of the CO2 fanatics, but in the meantime here is some motivation for doing just that - a good piece in the Mail on Sunday:
DOUGLAS MURRAY: Terrifying our children with doom mongering propaganda on climate change is nothing less than abuse
'Natural phenomena, including disasters such as the recent fires in Australia, are presented as though they have never happened before and they are presented as though they are solely the result of this ‘climate emergency’.
It is a cynical and dangerous trend. And so the hyping-up of a generation continues, all encouraged by adults.
Caroline Hickman, a teaching fellow at the University of Bath, recently claimed that eco-anxiety had increased massively in the past year.
‘We’ve been talking to teachers and head teachers about how to help children and young people,’ she said. Some children have reported waking up with eco-nightmares. Her response? ‘Parents can’t just say, “Everything will be all right” as it won’t be.’
And there we get a glimpse into the real project here: a new generation is being terrified into agreeing with a specific and fringe eco-lobby.
This lobby does not care if it damages the mental health of a generation because it seeks to recruit that generation as foot-soldiers.
It is time we called this what it is: an abuse of children on a massive and unforgivable scale. Something that the generations that will succeed us will look upon with shame.'
Well, parents, it is perfectly reasonable to assure your children that 'Everything will be all right' because there is no good reason to doubt that it will be as far as CO2 and climate variation are concerned. But what an effort is going to be needed to overcome the decades of scaremongering propaganda!
Looking Back
2019 was remarkable for those of us interested in the extensive, and utterly unjustifiable, panic over climate variation and our impact on it. Two features stand out to me:
(1) The exploitation of Greta Thunberg, a troubled youngster whose troubles were increased when she was misled by a schoolteacher who told her that polar bears were dying out. Of course, that 'fact' is not at all true - the polar bears have been doing relatively well for decades now, and their numbers have increased quite dramatically. But truth does not really matter much in the CO2 Scare - speculation, naive extrapolation, avoidance of inconvenient facts, and the dominance of emotive catch-phrases are all far more important. Greta was but one of countless victims of decades of propaganda in schools, and elsewhere. She went on to be pushed out front as a figurehead to produce even more such victims. Ben Pile and Jaime Jessop have each written penetrating essays on what has been happening these past 12 months:
Ben https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/30/2019-the-year-of-peak-green-bullsht/
'The only truly new thing that has emerged over the past year or so has been the phenomenon of Greta Thunberg and her school-strike movement. For years, the ‘green blob’ network of campaigning organisations, corporations, academics and UN agencies has fantasised about mobilising the young as a political force. After pumping billions of children full of green propaganda, a climate avatar has arrived in the form of the Swedish truant-cum-activist. There could be no doubting the sincerity of the teen who bore the emotional scars inflicted on her by the movement that she was to lead – she had been so traumatised by green propaganda that she had not spoken, not eaten and had refused to go to school. Environmentalism is nothing if not a cult of self-harm.
Political, cultural and religious leaders fell over themselves to be seen being scolded by the child. Unlike Harry and Meghan, Greta refused to fly. Instead of private jets, European royalty, millionaires and superstars loaned her their sailing yachts and Teslas. To keep her own personal carbon footprint down, sailing crews and her entourage had to fly across the Atlantic.
Politicians and campaigning organisations may have found it useful to hide their political ambitions behind children. But to many people, the emotional manipulation of impressionable minds is unconscionable. It has now emerged that the false stories that many of the children have fallen victim to – such as the claims that charismatic creatures like walruses and polar bears face extinction or that the world’s rainforests face imminent collapse – are distressing young children and causing real harm.'
'2019 – The End of a Decade When Climate Change Alarmism Tipped Abruptly Into Climate Crisis Hysteria
In the final days of 2019, there is much to reflect upon events of the past year and, with the closing of the second decade of the 21st Century, much to reflect upon how climate change alarmism has itself alarmingly morphed into something much more dangerous, visceral, urgent, ideologically driven and immediate as regards public perception and societal impact. A decade during which global warming faded into obscurity (on account of the fact that there wasn’t any from 1998-2013) to be replaced almost universally by the more politically correct term of ‘climate change’, which has itself now been largely displaced in activist circles and the media by the terms ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate crisis’. Ironically so, because, bereft of an actual climate crisis, alarmist scientists and activists have proceeded to invent one, linguistically, as in the case of the Guardian’s newly introduced style guide and by co-opting extreme weather events and their impacts into the general narrative.'
(2) An increase in scientific papers, and many excellent blog posts with a scientific focus, that undermine the climate panic, and the dreadful, degrading corruption of schools, universities, media, and governments. Kenneth Richard and Pierre Gosselin have perhaps done more than most to collate and summarise these 'contrarian papers':
Need to make a presentation showing there is no climate alarm? The following findings we reported on in 2019 will put many concerns to rest.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed papers ignored by media
What follows are some selected top science-based posts we published here at NoTricksZone in 2019. These new findings show there is absolutely no climate alarm.
Hundreds of new peer-reviewed papers, charts, findings, etc – which the IPCC, activists and media ignore and even conceal. No wonder they’ve gotten so shrill.'
Looking Forward
There is a clear need for calmer voices to be heard, and for a wider appreciation of just how flimsy the case is for alarm over our CO2 and our other impacts on climate. Roughly speaking, more of item (2) above and less of item (1) are needed.
I am planning a series of posts that will be aimed at adults who want to help themselves and their children develop informed, apolitical, non emotive, fact based perspectives on climate variation that they can call their own thanks to their own efforts to learn more about what all the fuss is about.
There is plenty of evidence for the harm being done to young people thanks to their accepting 'off-the-shelf' scary opinions as if they were gospel truths. Donna Laframboise has written of a recent example:
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/12/16/young-people-distressed-about-climate-change/ 'A few days ago, a 20-year-old who resides in the UK sent an e-mail to American climate scientist Judith Curry. This young person describes themselves as miserable, fearful, and petrified. Frequently sick to their stomach, unable to eat or sleep, they’re genuinely worried that “climate change is going to kill me and all my family.” Donna wants to help such youngsters: 'If you are a young person in distress about the climate, please read one or more of the three books listed below. I promise you, your world will be different by the time you finish any of them. If you read all three, I guarantee you’ll see the universe with completely new eyes.' See the link for more details of these excellent books.
