Rotting from the Top: government interference in UK geography classes

2007: 'Children will be put on the front line of the battle to save the planet under radical proposals to shake up the way that geography is taught in schools.

The plans, to be published on Monday, will ensure that, for the first time, issues such as climate change and global warming are at the heart of the school timetable. Pupils will also be taught to understand their responsibilities as consumers - and weigh up whether they should avoid travel by air to reduce CO2 emissions and shun food produce imported from the other side of the world because of its impact on pollution.'

'Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said urgent action needed to be taken to avoid the worst-case scenarios and that educating children about the dangers of climate change was vital. "Children have a dual role as consumers and influencers," he said. "Educating them about the impact of getting an extra pair of trainers for fashion's sake is as important as the pressure they put on their parents not to buy a gas-guzzling family car."

The plans are part of a major review of the secondary school curriculum that will be unveiled by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exams watchdog, next week.'

2011: 'Children’s knowledge of capital cities, continents, world affairs and the environment is in sharp decline because of poor geography lessons, inspectors warned today. 

In a damning report, Ofsted said teaching in the subject was not good enough in more than half of English state schools.

Geography – traditionally a cornerstone of the curriculum – is often undermined by a lack of space in school timetables after being edged out by exam practice and other subjects such as citizenship.'

That didn't take very long.  I wonder how convincing Johnson's 'influencers' are when challenged by those who have learned some geography, some science, some logic, and some common sense?

See also: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/climate-education-in-schools-mess-of.html

Added 09 Feb: Previous UK government issued a massive amount of guidance to schools: http://www.politics.co.uk/news/education/labour-s-advice-to-teachers-was-the-length-of-two-bibles--$21386565.htm

Topical Storm Alert: 'Climate Week' has formed, and may be intensifying ahead of its expected UK landfall in March.

Climate Week, 21 - 27 March 2011

The National Association of Head Teachers is said to be supporting it, and so is Tesco, Kellogs, Aviva, EDF, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. And a great many others - a veritable roll call of the establishment.

This cyclone's energy is being raised and organised by a committee of a few seasoned organisers and a lot of fresh young ones.  They remind me just a bit of my own good self way back in the 70s, when Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were persuading us that we were doomed, would be lucky to see the year 2000, and even if we did, we'd not be having much fun, what with the starving, fighting, freezing, and choking and all.  Except, I don't think I looked nearly as good nor as cheerful as they do. But then I was an angry young man attacking the establishment's views, while they are supporting them.

The CEO is Kevin, who obviously is quick and light on his feet to complete this sort of manoeuvre - the leap across a change of government:
'From 2007 to 2009 Kevin sat on the Council on Social Action chaired by the Prime Minister, and on the government’s Talent and Enterprise Task Force. He chaired the Enterprise Campaign Coalition and was on the selection committee of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion. He currently sits on the steering group of the Big Society Network launched by the Prime Minister, David Cameron in July 2010.'

Phil is Head of Communications, and is clearly into green and good causes: 'Phil has worked on numerous award-winning campaigns for social and environmental causes, including Friends of the Earth’s Big Ask , WWF’s Earth Hour, and Orange RockCorps, an initiative uniting young people with their community through music. He helped launch eco blockbuster Age of Stupid with the greenest ever world premiere and organised the UK’s first prison gig at HM Pentonville to highlight the problem of young male suicide. He is a trustee of Dramatic Need, a groundbreaking arts charity supported by Oscar-winning director (and fellow trustee) Danny Boyle, which works with severely underprivileged children in South Africa and Rwanda.'

There are 16 more, several of whom seem to have held down more ordinary jobs, and several are just setting out on their journeys to help us all out, and get paid for it at the same time.  Not that money is important when you have a planet to save.  Actually, let me rephrase that: 'the hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, and euros diverted into climate change good works of one kind or another, are as nothing compared to the losses they tell us we would see if we hadn't spent all that money on them'.  In particular, we might not have learned how to adjust the thermostat on our global warming system, to return climate to the idyllic past of, say the 19th century?  Or perhaps we'd choose the Little Ice Age which spanned the 18th century, or the Medieval Warm Period that preceded it.  Or perhaps even a return to the golden days of the Climatic Optimum, a few thousand years earlier in our beloved Holocene, when mean temperatures were several degrees higher than in industrial times and humanity thrived like never before.  Anyway, this is to daydream...let's get back to the Topical Storm now heading our way:

'Climate Week is a supercharged national occasion that offers an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change. It is for everyone wanting to do their bit to protect our planet and create a secure future.
Climate Week will shine a spotlight on the many positive steps already being taken in workplaces and communities across Britain. The power of these real, practical examples – the small improvements and the big innovations – will then inspire millions more people.
Thousands of businesses, charities, schools, councils and others will run events during Climate Week on 21-27 March 2011. They will show what can be achieved, share ideas and encourage thousands more to act during the rest of the year.
You can help create a massive movement for change by making Climate Week happen where you are. Ask an organisation or group you know, such as your workplace or local school, to run an event.'

Well, I wonder how many will?  Climategate was a bit of a bummer in late 2009, and the ice and snow and sundry political farces in and around Copenhagen that December can't have helped much.  The Met Office has given climate prediction for just a few weeks ahead a bit of a bad name in 2010, issuing secret forecasts of impressive vagueness at huge expense to poor old HMG, which ran out of cash in the cold weather funds before January 2011 got underway.  The public has been up to its ears in global warming of late, and hasn't liked it one little bit.

There may even be some who have been convinced that CO2 controls climate, and that we'd all be a nice bit warmer if only we could only get more of the stuff to stay up in the air.  Somehow I foresee that their projects and events and suggestions will not see the light of day as 'Climate Week' strikes, and we are deluged with the establishment's perspective instead.  But wait! Have the Met Office predicted such a deluge for late March?  If they have, perhaps there is yet still hope ...

Update 2nd March 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/mar/02/climate-week-splitting-green-movement: the faithful of the Church of Global Warming grow fissiparous about Climate Week:

'But a section of the environmental movement that is concerned about the event's sponsors are mounting a counter-campaign which includes spoof entries for the awards and an anti-Climate Week Facebook group. Their objections centre around two areas. The first is that by focusing on "small, positive actions" you take the spotlight off the large-scale changes that really need to happen.
The second and far more contentious issue is that Climate Week is sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the company cited by groups like Platform, People and Planet, the UK Tar Sands Network and the World Development Movement as one of the worst environmental offenders in the UK. In 2009, several groups tried to take legal action over RBS investments, and last summer the bank was the Climate Camp target for the year.'


Note added 31 March 2011: hard to get data for an overview, but my impression is that Climate Week has been a low-key, low-profile, low-impact event.  Thank goodness.

Note added 15 March 2013: the ill-conceived piece of astro-turfing called Climate Week is still around, but reports suggest it is on its last-legs, e.g. http://www.thebreaker.co.uk/climate-week-a-flop-in-bournemouth-and-poole/  'Climate Week, which was set up last week by Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils, was supposed to invite people to combat climate change by making simple sustainable life choices, but not many people came along to take part in the events and the carbon footprint remains high.'  Hat-tip Alex Cull on Bishop Hill Unthreaded (Mar 15, 2013 at 9:30 AM)  There was also this observation from Latimer Alder shortly after the one from Alex Cull:
'Was it Climate Week last week?
Oh dear.. I must have missed it. Tsk, tsk, now there's a thing....
Perhaps, like snow on the Copenhagen conference, the gods were trying to tell us something as they brought on the perishing cold weather..............'

Climate education in schools: a mess of potage, a porridge of propaganda?

Indoctrination in schools is illegal in the UK (e.g. section 406 of the Education Act of 1996).  Education ought to teach children about their world.  But there are those who see the young as so many potential footsoldiers for their cause, little Trojan horses to fill with propaganda to carry back into their homes and into their futures.  All to save the planet of course, so who can object to that?  Of course, they are not 'saving the planet'.  First of all, 'the planet' is not in danger, and secondly, crippling our economies physically, and our children mentally, are not pathways to robust societies ready to tackle whatever challenges the future may bring them, environmental and otherwise.  They are pathways to poverty and dependency.

A geologist surveys Redoubt Volcano in Alaska (Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey)

Geography is an obvious target for proselytising on 'climate change'.  It does not seem to be thriving as a subject in schools in the UK.

2009:

'In a speech at Charterhouse School, Surrey, Prof Woodhead cited the example of geography, where the curriculum has been focused on turning children into "global citizens" at the expense of an objective study of the earth.

"I think there is a difference between education on the one hand and propaganda on the other - and I think this is one of the main reasons why schools are starting to abandon GCSEs in such numbers," he said.

"Politicians seem to have this belief that schools and teachers can solve the evils of the world. Simply dump all the deeply intractable social problems on to the curriculum and let the schools sort it out. Schools should be teaching children what they don't know, not attempting to create citizens of the future who are active and responsible." '
Chris Woodhead, ex-chief inspector of schools


 2011: 
'Geography lessons 'not good enough in half of schools' 

Children’s knowledge of capital cities, continents, world affairs and the environment is in sharp decline because of poor geography lessons, inspectors warned today. 

In a damning report, Ofsted said teaching in the subject was not good enough in more than half of English state schools.

Geography – traditionally a cornerstone of the curriculum – is often undermined by a lack of space in school timetables after being edged out by exam practice and other subjects such as citizenship.

Many primary teachers lacked specialist geographical knowledge, the watchdog said, meaning classes often descended into a focus on superficial stereotypes. The subject had practically “disappeared” in one-in-10 primaries.

In secondary schools, classes were often merged with history to form generic “humanities” lessons that focused on vague skills instead of geographical understanding.

Ofsted said the decline severely reduced children’s ability at all ages to grasp key geographical issues, identify countries or capital cities and even read maps properly.'

Graeme Paton, Education Editor, Daily Telegraph

['Ofsted' is a government agency in the UK: 'Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. We regulate and inspect to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages.']

How come so many teachers have apparently stopped teaching in order to become facilitators for producing ill-informed agitators?  The same malaise has also affected the BBC, an organisation turning into an international laughing stock because of its blinkered, biased approach on climate and its wish to campaign for 'the cause' rather than 'merely' broadcast news, information, and honest investigative journalism. 

The scientific case for alarm over CO2 is fragile and has been widely dismantled, not least by Nature herself refusing to follow the purposeful computer models equipped with magical powers for CO2.    The political case is also faltering, not least due to the absurdities of the IPCC leadership and publications, and to simple-minded bandwagoning by politicians in many countries running out of steam (see for example, the absence of 'climate change' in the recent State of the Union address in the USA, and several opinion polls showing the declining credibility of eco-alarmism).  So will the educational system be the final redoubt for this whole sorry business? 

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: