A straw in the wind - are UK teachers revolting against the teaching of global warming propaganda?

Here is a comment on a thread published recently on WUWT :

"JohnOfEnfield says:

November 22, 2010 at 12:04 pm

I am very heartened by recent feedback from within my circle of family, friends and colleagues.

Apparently the teaching profession in the UK is beginning to revolt against teaching global warming, which they see as mere propaganda.

The BBC is also being seen as a propaganda tool right across the board. Their active support for AGW is seen in this light and therefore the standing of AGW is suffering badly.

All good signs, if not an open revolt yet."

Is this true?  Is it even plausible?  Hope springs eternal.  May I ask all who read this to please forward a link to this post to any and all of their contacts in teaching.  If you have none, how about forwarding it to some local schools, e.g. geography or science head teachers?

If a spark of sense is smouldering in JohnofEnfield's circles, perhaps it can be found elsewhere, and encouraged to turn into a blaze of fury that will help see the curriculum cleansed of odious alarmism.

Do Climate ScareYouAlls make good teachers or preachers? - a musical offering.

[note: KnowItAll replaced by ScareYouAll 21/11/10]

APOLOGIES: Gilbert and Sullivan
TITLE: I Am the Very Model of a Modern Climate-ScareYouAll
 
Lyrics
[Pirates of the IPPC]



I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll
I’ve information digital, quotable, pictorial
I know the hacks of TV-land, and quote just like an oracle
On ‘News at Ten’ to ‘News at One’, on crises categorical.


I’m sort of well acquainted, too, with matters computational
I’ve heard of those projections, both simple and dramatical
On past and present temperatures I’m teeming with a lot o’news
Tho short of cheerful facts about the Yamal trees we have to use.
 
I’m very good at scariness and all degrees of fearfulness
I know how children get those nightmares quite horribilis
In short, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.
 
I know our media’s trickery, in Nature and the NYT
I dish out press releases and they headline anything from me
I quote in elegiacs all the flaws of Homo Sapiens
With polemics I can dazzle almost any leftwing audience.
 
I can tell Trenberths and Santers from the Manns and even Houghtons
I know the Schmidts and Hansens  from the Albert Gores and Joneses
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din anew
And whistle all the airs from that infernal M4GW.
 
I can write a laundry list in Hulmeian Obtusiform
While forgetting every detail of those emails in ExCRUciform
In short, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.
 
In fact, when I know what is meant by "lapse rate" and "stratiform"
When I can tell at sight a timeplot from a tephigram
When such affairs as hunches and guesses I'm more wary at
And when I know precisely what is meant by "wet in an adiabat".
 
When I have learnt of progress made in methods so statistical
When I know more ANOVA than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental calculus
You'll say a better Climate-ScareYouAll has never been to see us.
 
For my scientific knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of last century
But still, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.

A singalong version, with the original words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZM__VdEjk&feature=related




I posted an earlier version of the above on WUWT yesterday as a comment, but a post there today made me dig it out to polish it up a bit. The post was about yet another agitated professor, this time a professor of astronomy, ranting away on climate, desperately trying to provoke his class. An unedited video of this class is here.

Full Video: LSU Astronomy Class from Campus Reform on Vimeo.

We have professors of many sorts, of various ‘ologies such as psychology, apparently so demented with fear that they make dreadful pronouncements well outside their professional competence.

We have environmental/climate office holders in the media (not least in the BBC), and in all  those organisations previously concerned with other things before they discovered meteorology such as the WWF, FoE, GreenPeace, and Oxfam telling us the end is nigh with much gusto.  Not to mention those organisations previously concerned with meteorology before they discovered other things, such as the UK Met Office, NASA, and CSIRO.  

 We have had the 10:10 zealots scaring even their own followers with the PR disaster of their extremist movie ‘No Pressure'.

And of course, we have the IPCC itself, whose reports, leaders and followers like Albert Gore scatter the word ‘catastrophe’ around like confetti, happily winning plaudits and fortunes from those they have managed to convince.  

Yet I don't find any of them convincing. Nor do many others. No doubt we should deepen our study of what the experts are telling us, but I can do without the emotional, scaremongering excursions into polemics from academics who ought to know better, from journalists who parrot their words, and from no end of political and financial interests finding advantage in the melee. 

Any schools still free to do so, should actively and explicitly distance themselves from this unseemly arena of unsettled science and very settled politics, to concentrate instead on educating and building the 
confidence of their pupils as free agents, rather than scaring and 'mobilising' them to the tune of a very politicised drum.

Note added a few hours after original post: more Gilbert & Sullivan adapted for the modern climate here:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/9/the-modern-climatologist.html   (good verses in the comments as well).

Note added 30 April 2013.  Here is yet another version: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/a-modern-climatologist/

New hope for climate sense in the classroom - speechless teachers?

http://comics.com/big_nate/2010-11-17/

It may not be on climate, but the lesson is clear enough.  Children can ask good questions!

(thanks, Anonymous)

(and later seen here as well: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/ )

As insight into the real science of climate, as opposed to computer models programmed to give CO2 a dramatic effect, and into the proper analysis and reporting of climate data (as opposed to cherry-picking for dramatic effect - be it from PCA, trees, weather stations, satellites, or media headlines), spreads wider and wider, there is surely hope that some children at least will be able to stir things up in the classroom.

Perhaps children will have the courage to do what teachers may be afraid of, or prevented from, doing: digging in behind the facade of CO2 scaremongering.  Given the awful onslaught of climate-related-indoctrination for political purposes, this would indeed be an affirmation of the human spirit.

Scientific papers (peer-reviewed and published) dealing with the real climate, and not the worship of GCMs and associated politicising.

Source: http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/

The Climate Science blog published a reminder today of the list of papers which have been collated at Popular Technology:

http://climatescience.blogspot.com/2010/11/800-peer-reviewed-scientific-papers.html

These are papers which do not pursue alarm about CO2.  They support a sceptical view of that alarm, as befits scientists of integrity.  One day, our school and college textbooks will give them the prominence they deserve, but a lot of troubled and turbulent political water  will have to pass under the bridge before that day arrives - such is the sorry state of modern climate science (and of modern politics).

The list has been edited and updated, and now includes a section of responses to criticisms of the earlier lists:

'The following papers support skepticism of AGW or the negative environmental or economic effects of AGW. Addendums, comments, corrections, erratum, replies, responses and submitted papers are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count. These are included as references in defense of various papers. There are many more listings than just the 800 counted papers. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.

Criticisms: All criticisms of this list have been refuted or a change made to correct the issue. Please see the notes following the list for defenses of common criticisms. I make every attempt to defend the list where possible, in many cases my comments correcting the misinformation stated about the list are deleted and I am blocked from replying. Please email me if you have any questions or need me to address something, populartechnology (at) gmail (dot) com.'

Their rebuttals of criticisms:

'Failed attempts at "debunking" this list include,

- Lying about the paper counting method used. (Addendums, Comments, Corrections, Erratum, Replies, Responses and Submitted papers are not counted. These are included as references in defense of various papers. There are many more listings than just the 800 papers. If they were counted the paper count would be +50 papers.)
- Lying about the list being debunked because certain papers on the list do not "refute" AGW theory. (All papers support either skepticism of AGW or the negative environmental or economic effects of AGW.)
- Lying about peer-reviewed journals not being peer-reviewed. (Every journal listed is peer-reviewed.)
- Lying about the inclusion of a paper on this list as a representation of the personal position of it's author in regards to AGW theory. (It is explicitly stated in the disclaimer that "The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific personal position to any of the authors".)
- Lying about all climate related papers not on this list endorsing AGW theory. (There are thousands of climate related papers but only a small percentage of these explicitly endorse AGW theory.)
- Lying that certain paper's age make them "outdated". (The age of any scientific paper is irrelevant. Using this logic all of science would become irrelevant after a certain amount of time, which is obviously ridiculous. This would mean dismissing Svante Arrhenius's 1896 paper "On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground" and the basis for greenhouse theory. There are over 650 papers published since 2000 on the list.)
- Lying that Blog posts, Wiki pages and YouTube videos "refute" peer-reviewed papers. (That is not how peer-reviewed papers are challenged. Any valid criticisms would follow the established peer-review process of submitting a comment for publication in the same journal, which allows the author of the original paper a chance to publish a rebuttal in defense of their paper.)
- Lying that broken links somehow invalidate the list. (Anyone with an elementary knowledge of the Internet knows that links can break at any time for a myriad of reasons. All broken links are fixed when notified or found. Regardless the full citation is provided so there is no excuse about not being able to locate the paper.)
- Lying that since some of the papers are mutually exclusive the list is falsified. (The purpose of the list is to provide a resource for the skeptical arguments being made in peer-reviewed journals and to demonstrate the existence of these papers. It is not supposed to be a single argument but rather a resource for all of them.)'

Link to the list: http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

Many of these will be largely inaccessible at school level, but surely no more so than those which have 'inspired' modern curricula of climate / CO2 alarm.  Variants of that cartoon by Josh could be produced many times over if these curricula were to be critically reviewed with this list to hand.

  

10-minute trainer: walk your class along a bar chart of the atmosphere's constituents

The levels of alarm about energy production, and the urging of children to hassle their parents into driving less etc in order to save the polar bears (which happen to be doing very well of late), avoiding temperature rises (which would be beneficial almost everywhere), and reducing CO2 emissions (ditto), and of course reducing the incidence of whatever horsemen of the apocalypse currently appeals to those driven nearly demented by their permanent state of alarm about 'the environment', can all be put into a calmer perspective by constructing a bar chart of atmospheric composition (a stacked barchart, in the jargon) in order to display how little CO2 there is in the air, how little the human contribution is, and how little the difference of even a total cessation in our CO2 production would make.

To make it even more vivid, here is an appealing idea from a poster called 'Wendy', who put this up on a comment thread on Jo Nova's site (comment 64, http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/mystery-solved-why-the-pr-hacks-exploded-their-credibility/#comments), where I have added some boldening at the end:

'Imagine one kilometre of atmosphere that you want to clean up. For the sake of the discussion, imagine you could walk along it.

The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.

The next 210 metres are Oxygen.

That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. Just 20 metres to go.

The next 10 metres are water vapour. Just 10 metres left to go.

9 metres are argon. 1 metre left out of 1 kilometre.

A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.

The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.

A bit over one foot.

97% is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural. It has always been in the atmosphere otherwise plants couldn’t grow.

Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.

That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.

And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.

Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre.

So in every kilometre of atmosphere, complete with green-house gases regulating the climate – in every kilometre reflecting back and retaining the sun’s heat on earth, just .18 of one millimetre is contributed by Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Now Julia Gillard’s Great Green Tax, the Emissions Trading Scheme is designed to reduce Australia’s contribution by 5%. That’s what it’s designed to do. Gillard wants to reduce our [point] .18 of one millimetre by 5%.

That’s what all the pain is about.

It is simply madness. It’s not based on science. It’s a tax. Finally, a tax on the air we breathe.'

Now that's clearly referring to Australia,  but it would be easy to customise this for each of our own countries, and thus provide an excellent '10-minute trainer' to have up our sleeves to use when opportunities arise.

Some niggles arise over the specific numbers to use, not least because of the huge variability of water vapour levels.  If I take, for example, the Wikipedia estimates of the composition of the dry atmosphere, and add in their estimated overall average of 0.4% for water vapour by adjusting all the other constituents in proportion to their quantities, and then round the figures again for simplicity, I get the following values:

N2                    778 metres 

O2                    209

Ar                         9

H20 vapour            358 cm

Trace gases             42 cm   (of which CO2 is 39cm)

So, be prepared to define and defend your own computations and assumptions.  The numbers used by Wendy assume 1m for water vapour, and this may be more typical for the troposphere ( the estimates given in the Wikipedia link today: 'Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1%'; elsewhere it states levels vary between 1% and 4% near the surface, with an overall value of 0.4%).  The Wikipedia data is imperfect in other ways too, for example there is an excess of something like 57ppm when you add up all the constituent ppms for the dry atmosphere.  I suspect someone merely bumped up the CO2 component to 390ppm from a value of around 333ppm in an earlier table without bothering to make any other adjustments.

A simpler alternative would be to do the example for the dry atmosphere, thereby sidestepping the troublesome water:

N2                    780.8 metres 

O2                    209.46

Ar                         9.32         (adjusted down by 0.02 by me to allow overall total to be 1000)

Trace gases             42 cm   (of which CO2 is 39cm)

Lest one be accused of trying to downplay CO2 by even a tiny amount, perhaps the best way is to start with the current estimate of the global ppm for CO2, and adjust the rest of the constituent ppms in due proportion to make up the totals for either the dry, or the 'average' atmosphere.  In any event, it doesn't really matter for the impact of this 10-minute trainer - the important thing is to know the assumptions or source of  your arithmetic.

Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth