Something for the classroom wall - cartoons by Josh to get them thinking (and laughing)

Source, and contact details for permissions: http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/

Also showing at good blog sites near you, e.g.

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/12/10/josh-62.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/10/friday-funny-the-new-and-improved-4-legged-agw-table/

Heroic teachers can get classroom cheers by telling the truth about climate

Climate Depot has added to an earlier compilation of scientific dissenters from the party line on climate, that shameful orthodoxy we have been force-fed by a largely docile or even collaborating media who can see their own advantage in it, be it sales ('fear' sells), or be it political patronage or even thinly-veiled campaigning for socialism (that creed which caused so much misery and suffering in the 20th century).

That's an important post, well worth keeping for reference, but I want to highlight 2 of the comments posted under a report on it at WUWT because they had me smiling with good cheer at my desk.  One of them reported their class cheering too as they heard their teacher dismantling the CAGW nonsense.  Here they are:

(1) Jenn Oates says:

December 8, 2010 at 10:27 pm

A few years ago I got an email from a furious parent because I told her daughter that AGW was a hoax and that it was all politics, not science. The parent lambasted me for my weather/climate unit, and told me that I ought to be ashamed of myself for trying to brainwash my students and start teaching science, and keep out of politics (I had mentioned our friend Al). I replied that she was wrong, AGW was not real, and that since I taught science I would not be perpetuating a scientific hoax in my classroom. It’d be like teaching that Piltdown Man was an actual human ancestor–not gonna do it.

Now that the hoax is finally falling apart to the point where even the masses are hearing about it, I’d sure like for her to apologize. :)

(2) Andy says:

December 9, 2010 at 12:02 am

Jenn Oates says:
December 8 2010 at 10:27pm

I’ve had a similar experience Jenn. I’m a maths teacher in a London secondary school (11-18 years). During one of my lessons a child mentioned AGW, so I decide to explain to the class why I thought the theory was complete rubbish and showed them some graphs (eg graphs that show MWP, logarithmic effect of CO2, etc) to explain why. I’m not exaggerating when I say the kids actually cheered!
Anyway, the next day the Head of Science came to see me in the staff room and told me to stop telling the kids about my ‘conspiracy theories’.
The graphs are now stuck on the wall of my classroom for all to see! ;)

Cartoons for the classroom: a little humour to reduce the sting of climate alarmism

If the curriculum is alarmist, a pupil who questions it may lose marks, and a teacher who questions it may lose their job.  I face neither of those risks, and I hope that somewhere there are teachers and schools where that is also the case.  There may be opportunities in most schools through debating societies and suchlike to share radical views about climate, radical only because the establishment position is so dogmatic, loaded, and anti-scientific.  But the 'radical' view really ought to be the ordinary, unremarkable one: climate varies, some of the variations give us severe problems on various space and time scales, our forecasting ability for climate is very modest, our computer models of it are laughable in the face of great complexity, and our observations of temperatures, ice, precipitation, hurricanes, sea levels, etc etc show nothing at all extraordinary has been happening in recent times to what we see and experience.

The cartoons by Josh on climate have both great charm, and great penetration into some of the issues and personalities involved, and could enhance discussions and presentations on climate in our schools.  Here are two recent ones:

For many more, and for background on each, see: http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/

Please note his conditions for use:

'The cartoons are my copyright but feel free to link to this page
or to post the cartoons on non-commercial blogs with attribution (cartoonsbyjosh.com).
If you want to use any of them in a printed or on-line journal, newspaper
or any other publication, or use them in connection with any for-profit business
or usage then please email me at josh at cartoonsbyjosh.com for higher res versions, permissions, rates and so on.'   

10-Minute Trainers: 129 of them on shoddy science, politicised institutions, and more!

There are now 129 'gates' in the list published at the 'No Tricks Zone' site.  If only we had not had to endure so many scientific, PR, and political tricks about climate and CO2 for the past 25 years or so!  Anyway, some of the awfulness is captured by this list, and each and every one could be developed into an informative '10-minute trainer' ready for use in the classroom at the drop of a hat (10-minute trainers were developed in Japanese manufacturing companies to make good use of any unscheduled downtime in production - teachers can use them to make good use of any unscheduled opportunities to step outside the indoctrination curricula on climate currently being imposed by diktat in many countries).

Here are the first 12, to whet appetites anywhere where free thinkers are thinking:

1. NEW! 1010-gate (aka Splatter-gate) NoTricksZone and media silence (NoTricksZone) and Pachauri sensitize children (NoTricksZone and media bias (WUWT). Hate, intolerance, and violence are embedded in the psyche of the environmental movement, as the following promo video illustrates.


2. Acceleration of sea level rise-gate (Appinsys) and here (Ecotretas)
Claims of accelerating sea level rise are misleading.
3. African agriculture claim-gate (WUWT)
IPCC wrongly claims that in some African countries yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020.
4. AIT-gate (SPPI) and British High Court (Telegraph)
35 errors or gross exaggerations are found in Al Gore’s Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
5. Alaskan glaciers-gate (Science Daily)
Loss of glaciers in Alaska was grossly exaggerated.
6. Amazon rainforest-gate (WUWT) and here (eureferendum) and here (C. Booker)
IPCC cites “robust” source: green activist organisation WWF. WWF’s source was merely an anonymous brief on forest fire risks posted in 1999 and taken down four years later.
7. NEW! American Physical Society-gate (GWPF) and Hal Lewis resigns (WUWT).
Distinguished physicist Hal Lewis resigns from APS due to it’s departure from science and adoption of dogma.
8. Antarctic sea ice-gate (WUWT)
Antarctic sea ice underestimated by 50%.
9. Authoritarian science-gate (American.com)
The science says… Science is increasingly used as an instrument of authority to impose public policy.
10.Australia-gate Jo Nova and here (climategate.com) and here (WUWT)
Australia temperature adjusted upwards to show more warming.
11. NEW! Australia brushfire-gate (SMH) and here (greenwatchamerica blog).
Green restrictions, not global warming, caused 300 deaths in Australian 2009 bushfires.
12. Bangladeshgate (AFP)
IPCC inflates Bangladesh doomsday forecasts in 2007 4AR.

See them all here: http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/07/climate-science-scandals-list-of-gates-balloons-to-129/

10-minute trainer: IPCC spin exposed very clearly. Again.

The remarkable success of the IPCC is due in some part to the simple, emphatic messages it imparts to the media, and seeks to incoporate in 'summaries for policy makers'.  These gloss over, ignore, or even contradict the reservations expressed even by those scientists who participate in the various working groups.  Thus, the scientists hang on to some integrity, where their papers recognise uncertainties, or distinguish between observational data, and the output of speculative computer models. Meanwhile, the political activists get what they want - dramatic headlines, and a headlong rush to push policy-making at breakneck speeds.

Donna Lamframboise has reported on one recent instance of this, captured by a writer from the New York Times, a famously leftwing paper not at all hostile to the IPCC, exposing the blatant error in this UN press release:

'UN press release makes the same mistake Revkin talks about

Andrew Revkin, who blogs about climate change for the New York Times, is doing what an experienced beat reporter is supposed to: he’s paying close attention. In a post filed from the Cancun climate summit, Revkin notes that a draft document currently being circulated by the United Nations contains a mistake.
The document lists some basic, agreed-upon climate change facts on page four. The third point, Revkin reports, currently says that the document

3. Recognizes that warming of the climate system, as a consequence of human activity, is unequivocal, as assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change [IPCC] in its Fourth Assessment Report;

Revkin correctly points out that this statement is false. In his words:

The only major conclusion of the climate panel that is described as “unequivocal” is that the climate has warmed.'

A nice illustration for any class discussion on the nature and intentions of the IPCC.  This is by no means the only instance of this sort of thing.  It supports the contention that the de facto role of the IPCC is to generate severe alarm about human influence on climate, largely via the implausible hypothesis that CO2 is a major driver of climate.  Yet many might have reasonably have assumed that the role was to critically review and summarise what is known about the causes and consequences of climate variation.  No such luck!