They thrived in the fear they created: 1972, and the fatuous 'Blueprint for Survival'

Donna Laframboise has written a very informative essay about the 'Blueprint for Survival' published way back in 1972.  This, along with the similarly fatuous 'Limits to Growth' published in the same year and Ehrlich's 'Population Bomb' published a little earlier, was the output of a handful of rich and poorly-informed, weak on science, weak on economics, weak on history, weak on humanity, men in the West, claiming to be desperately anxious about the future of humanity.  Laframboise has identified a very influential subset: the Drama Queen Scientist.  They live in the wealthy West, they have enought money, enough security, but what they lack is sufficient publicity.  They discovered that scaring people witless was a pretty good way to get it. 

 Some extracts (my italics) from the essay:

'The 34 distinguished biologists, ecologists, doctors, and economists who endorsed the Blueprint are accountable to no one. If such people started making decisions regarding economics, public health, transportation, and other matters we’d be exchanging representative democracy for tyranny on the part of these select experts. We’d be saying that a small number of people know better than we do what is best for us and our children.
I think that’s bunk. I also think it’s important to note that some experts are drama queens. For them, the glass is always half empty and everything is always a crisis (rather than a manageable problem). Unfortunately, drama queens tend to attract media attention. We therefore need to start noticing that, no matter what the specific problem has been, drama queen scientists have been pushing the same unpalatable solutions for 40 years:  fewer humans, less consumption, less travel – and less freedom.'

...

'The past 40 years bear little resemblance to the horror story the drama queens were predicting back in 1972. Average people are now richer and healthier. They live longer lives and many enjoy access to more food, culture, and technology than did the princes of old. In much of the world the air and water is cleaner than it was in the 1970s, and the forests are larger. As books such as Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist patiently explain, the planet is not headed to hell in a handcart. Things are far from perfect, but the current situation looks nothing like the collapse predicted by the Blueprint 40 years ago.'

...

'When I read the Blueprint I’m reminded of Soviet Communist Party literature prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Communists also thought they were building a better world. They thought they could alter human nature and that, if they only planned carefully enough, a prosperous and harmonious society would transpire. Communist party publications, I might add, were characterized by the same pompous, judgmental tone.
The Communist reality, however, was a disaster. Which means that before I’m willing to place my trust in anyone else’s utopian fantasies they’ll need to spend an awful lot of time explaining what they’ve learned not to do based on their careful study of the Soviet and Chinese debacles. Quick tip: let’s start with how many independent safeguards will ensure that millions of souls cannot be starved or murdered by their own government.
Drama queens inhabit a fear-filled world – one that’s dangerously unpredictable and in which some small matter can trigger the apocalypse. They have little faith in their own ability to cope, in humanity, or in the future. No matter how many good things have happened, they insist on identifying the flaw in every apple. They are a personality type – and they are a part of our collective humanity.
But a world that permits that part of us to determine the future is a world in which the future may, indeed, turn out to be bleak.'

How many senior teachers, heads, etc were students in the early 1970s and were influenced by the fluent balderdash of the Blueprint or the Limits or the P-Bomb?  How many of our current politicians, and senior civil servants, and media managers, were also victims of them?  Can we suppose part of the astonishing success of the IPCC-spin on climate is due to such influences?  Can we find ways to protect future generations from them?

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/