CO2 Alarm Virus epidemiology: identifying some vectors in the USA.

A very useful annotated summary of some educational initiatives in the US funded by federal agencies on climate:

'Nearly 100 ‘Climate Education Programs’ funded by NASA, NOAA, NSF & EPA'

The author introduces his study as follows:

'Four Federal agencies are funding at least 95 'Climate education programs'. These programs are specifically designed to influence students, teachers, and the public in general about climate change. Based on their summaries (which I will share) these programs are not intended to present information and let the public decide for themselves. Instead, they are designed for two goals. One, to influence the public to accept and take action on climate change. Two, to increase the future workforce involved in climate change fields. I will take each agency in turn, look at their stated goals, then look through some of the programs they have funded.
To be very clear, these programs do not further climate research. They are not studying the atmosphere or oceans. They are not studying clouds or albedo. We know nothing more about the state of our climate from these programs. Their sole purpose is education.
I'm going to explain my own view shortly. I do believe that the climate is changing, and that humans have had a minor role in this occurring. I do not believe that the future of the planet is in jeopardy. I object to these programs for multiple reasons, but one main contention is the fact that they all make the assumption that future climate change is overwhelmingly negative and that we absolutely must take serious action now. These programs all appear to assume catastrophic warming will occur unless action is taken. Enough of what I think. Look at the programs yourselves and see what you conclude.'


My comment appended to the above post:

'Excellent work to bring all this together and annotate it so wisely. In 2010, it seemed clear that the flimsy basis for alarm about rising CO2 had been so exposed, and that the unpleasant, self-seeking nature of the handful of individuals and organisations at the core of the alarmism was so visible, that this particular scare was over. But your work here helps show how deeply and widely the activists, acolytes and others have spread their scaremongering, enjoying their chunk of the billions of dollars diverted to this destructive, soul-destroying, and demented ’cause’. Well done! We still have a long, long way to go to get over this, and a lot of waste and societal loss is no doubt still to come as a result.'

Hat-tip:  http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/

CO2 alarmism is not a win-win game: here is the progress that it threatens

Hans Rosling shows just how much development there has been over the past 200 years in terms of life expectancy, and the correlated per capita income for the countries of the world.  The impact of WWI and the flu epidemic can be detected in the time sequence, and possibly WWII.  One has to wonder if the effect of CO2-reduction policies in industrialised countries will also be detectable in due course.  Overall, the most dramatic good news is the great progress of Latin American and Asian countries, not least India and China, both of which may gain some short-term but substantial benefit by selling products such as wind-turbines and solar panels to CO2-reduction countries, while burning as much coal as they need to get them through this phase of their industrial development.  But if more industrialised countries are damaged by expensive energy costs, not to mention demoralised, frightened people, then the overall effect could be harmful for everyone.
 
Hat-tip: http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/16497-200-years-of-global-development.html
 
Watch it here:

To Holt for TEE: transnational energy education, or is it more of 'scare the kids, control the adults'?

The dark spectre of 'behaviour change' may be stalking the quiet streets of Holt today, as various climate-related activists from Norway, Sweden, and England run a 'teach the teacher' programme in this small English town:

"The teacher training event at Holt brings together the very best international energy education practice to ensure teachers are well equipped to engage their pupils in learning about climate change and energy efficiency.
...
Teachers will also learn more about how to connect young people with the broader community, business and university partners to develop skills and action. "

Does that last part mean 'pressuring their parents to toe the party line on climate'?  If so, let us pause for a virtual two minute silence for 'Philip and Tracy', symbolically slaughtered using explosives in the 10:10 movie for the crime of having parents who were insufficiently convinced by said party line. (see the movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k&feature=player_embedded ; see the strategy espoused via here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2010/10/terrorise-children-control-adults.html )

Civil servant Jonathan Thompson, Environment Planning Team Leader from the Environment Agency, is reported as saying ‘We are proud to be supporting this event with it's focus on developing international understanding and sharing of knowledge and experiences. Climate change is an international issue we all need to address. Education is critical if we are going to act and adapt to climate change and make the significant changes in behaviour needed.’  (my emphasis added).

I hope we can find out more in due course as to what they are getting up to in Holt this week.  Perhaps they are genuinely concerned to help teachers teach wisely and well about climate.  Hope springs eternal.

This event has been flagged on Bishop Hill a couple of days ago, with a hat-tip to Dave W.  As is often the case, the Bishop's post has an interesting set of comments, not least on the culpability, vulnerability, and competence of local authorities such as the one supporting the Holt event.

Commenter 'Pharos' tracked down some relevant links:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/126979.aspx  and  http://www.answerproject.eu/
There may be many such events going on.  And why not, given the large funds available to support alarm about climate?  More background here: http://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/campaign/index_en.htm

Many universities are in on this gravytrain, here is one outfit with the disarmingly honest acronym of SAUCE:
http://www.schools-at-university.eu/project/index.html :
"The European project “Schools at University for Climate & Energy (SAUCE)” offers a series of one-week on-campus education programmes for pupils ages 10-13 on the topics of energy efficient behaviour, renewable energies and climate change. The SAUCE programmes are held at all partner universities from 2009 until 2011."
(German, Dutch, Danish, and Latvian universities in this little earner, or should I say siphon for taxpayers money under the control of the EU)

Here is one constructed by a group based in the University of Sussex, tapping into UN funds:
http://www.childreninachangingclimate.org/

Here is another, apparently a registered charity in England and Wales: http://www.se-ed.org.uk/index.html, with a contact address in London, c/o 'Global Action Plan'.  'Global Action Plan' seems to be into tapping UN cash: http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/about-us .  Founded by green insider Trewin Restorick .  That in turn led me to DEFRA sites, and to a sinking feeling about just far into the political fabric the CO2 alarm virus has spread.  But that is another story.

Note added 21 Jan 2012.  Here is an example from the States of using the children to get to the parents, by a teacher called Visco who has, thank goodness, now retired: 'For Visco's class, that meant teaching his students that small changes could have a large impact on the planet. "I had lots of students who would come in and say, 'My parents hate you. I'm driving them nuts, making them recycle and turn heat down and change lightbulbs,'" he recalled.
In many cases, by teaching his students he was also teaching their parents, something that Yale's Leiserowitz has also found. "Do parents influence kids, or do kids influence parents? Evidence suggests that it works both ways."
"I definitely saw changes in my students, and I definitely saw parents that softened," said Visco

Climate propaganda: humour and a history lesson.

Under the previous government of the UK, this skit would have been very 'close to the bone'.  Let us hope the new government will keep away from such madness.  Mind you, in Canada when they went in for mass-indoctrination about climate dynamics back in 2002, something interesting happened:

'By 2002, McIntyre was in comfortable semi-retirement in Toronto ....every home in Canada was sent a leaflet about the risks of global warming.  When McIntyre read his copy....'

The rest is history, ably documented in the book from which the above quote was taken, 'The Hockey Stick Illusion' ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illusion-Climategate-Corruption-Science-Independent/dp/1906768358 ).

Climate Scaremongering Antidote: mankind is making progress, doomsayers are low-credibility distractions

Picture: http://kabiza.com/images/buga25.jpg

Pierre Gosselin reports on a recent article in a German publication which points out just how much progress has been made over the last century or so, and how the doomladen forecasts of such as Paul Ehrlich have been refuted time and time again.  Such facile, highly articulate but profoundly stupid, doomsayers will no doubt always be with us, but must we take them so seriously?  Perhaps the spectacle of the IPCC disappearing in the quagmire of its own making will help this along.  Anyway, back to the article which is reported on here: http://notrickszone.com/2011/01/26/german-focus-magazine-facts-show-planet-much-better-today/

Extracts below are in italics, other words are by Gosselin:

'Human prosperity

   " The world’s population has grown 6-fold since 1800, and at the same time life expectancy has doubled. Between 1955 and 2005 inflation-adjusted average personal income has tripled for the average person on the globe.”

Many of the poor indeed have gotten much richer.

Agriculture

How often do we hear about the threats of industrial agriculture devouring land to feed the exploding masses of people? Guess what? Modern agriculture protects wildlife and forests.

    "With the crop yields of 1961, farmers would have needed 32 million square km of cropland to have fed the 6 billion persons on the globe in 2000. Instead they have been able to harvest the necessary amount of crops on just 15 million acres. That means an area almost the size of South America was spared the plow. Forests and savannahs were thus saved."

All thanks to modern agricultural technology, which today continues to develop nicely. Yet, today, many greens are busily bemoaning the very agriculture that has rescued millions of sq km of forests and wildlife from primitive manaul agricultural practices. Worse, they also want us to fuel our cars with bio-diesel, which would require the extra deforestation of millions of sq km.'

The report on the article ends as follows:

' The future
So what lies in the future now that we have seen that every apocalyptic warning heard earlier in history has ended up being just fly-crap in the wind? The business of apocalypse is a big industry and involves lots of money – so don’t expect the end-of-world-charlatans to go away. There’s more money in it today than ever.

Being wrong every time isn’t going to deter today’s modern charlatans. They have a whole new line-up of catastrophes in their bag of tricks: climate change, biodiversity, ocean acidification, species extinction, to name some. And, there are plenty of malcontents out there who want to hear more, more, more.

But I suspect, like the earlier scares of the past, we’ll soon be able to put those on the list of seriously endangered species as well. Here today, extinct tomorrow.'

 
Schoolteachers should not be forced to show such travesties of truth and decency as 'An Inconvenient Truth', full as it is of doomladen prophesies based on errors of various kinds, including the error of forgetting that the truth will out in the end, and that people are not so dumb as Al and those behind him suppose.  But while teachers may be required by their curricula to propagate ill-founded scares around CO2, they may also have the freedom to inform their charges of all the amazing progress we have made in modern times. Reports such as the one linked to above will help with examples, as will books such as Matt Ridley's 'The Rational Optimist'.