Lessons in Intolerance: a wry look at contempt for CAGW sceptics

The Sun, 26th February, 2011.

Hat-tip: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7301  

A more considered, but equally heartfelt piece on this topic is to be found in The Spectator magazine:

'It’s another powerful, and depressing tale of the woeful state of climate science. Real science welcomes refutation: with global warming, it is treated as a religion. As they say in their cover story:

“Nature’s original peer-review process had let through an obviously flawed paper, and no professional climate scientist then disputed  it - perhaps because of fear that doing so might harm their careers. As the title of Richard Bean’s new play - The Heretic - at the Royal Court hints, young scientists going into climate studies these days are a bit like young theologians in Elizabethan England. They quickly learn that funding and promotion dries up if you express heterodox views, or doubt the scripture. The scripture, in this case, being the assembled reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” '

and this classic of understated but penetrating insight:

'Science as a philosophy is a powerful, but fragile thing. In the case of climate, it is now in conflict with science as an institution.'


Link: http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6706648/debunking-the-antarctica-myths.thtml

Learning by Metaphor: foolish building, foolish technology, foolish teacher, foolish 'science'

Foiled by the winter: The £25,000 eco-classroom that can't be used because solar panels don't provide enough heat

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360297/25-000-eco-classroom-used-solar-panels-dont-provide-heat.html#ixzz1Ey9IWSKc

Simple arithmetic would have shown this building to be a foolish one, yet it was constructed.

Modern technology would have made a better building than this one, yet it was constructed.

The importance of the building as a gesture, no matter how absurd, outweighs, for some, all other considerations:
"Headteacher Jill Hughes defended the project and said she hoped classes would be held in the classroom when the weather gets warmer.  She said: ‘We’re delighted to have the Living Ark - its a tremendous resource both for the school and the local community and is an important part of the Muswell Hill low carbon zone initiative.’ "

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360297/25-000-eco-classroom-used-solar-panels-dont-provide-heat.html#ixzz1Ey7jLQ3R

The source of this madness, this modern ideology, can be traced to political exploitation of computer models of the climate which are hopelessly inadequate.  Just like this building.  It is a metaphor for the wastefulness and the incompetence and the smugness of CO2 alarmism.

More details in the Daily Mail report.

Hat-tips:   http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/25/climate-craziness-of-the-week-3/    and http://spielclimate.blogspot.com/2010/03/suggestions-for-blogs-and-links.html

Note added 7 March: details of a grander scheme costing colleges in Los Angeles the loss of $10million are given here:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/03/colleges-blow-10-million-on-wildly.html, and once again it would have been avoided if arithmetic had been allowed at least equal status with ideology.

Note added 11 July: another example of this foolishness, this time from East Germany :
'Pupils and teachers dread every school day at the SeeCampus. If the deodorant of just one person fails to work, then half the classroom goes into a coma. The ventilation in the exemplary passive building is a catastrophe. There’s an extreme lack of fresh air on hot days. Because of concern over the health of the children, who complain about headaches and fatigue, parents are threatening to stop operation of the school through legal action.  The school building SeeCampus in Niederlausitz becomes completely overheated on summer days and is badly ventilated. Headaches and cardio-respiratory problems with pupils and teachers are the result. The number of sick days is climbing rapidly.'
http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/11/flopped-green-passive-school-suffocating-students/


Note added 23 September 2013: more metaphor opportunities:
(1) children threatened by insects dropping in from an 'eco-school' roof:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/10327504/School-closed-after-pupils-bitten-by-mites-in-eco-roof.html
(2)children threatened by mould and damp in another 'eco-school':  'Devon County Council says it has already spent £250,000 to investigate the problem and without urgent repairs, it says teaching pupils inside the building could seriously damage their health.' 
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Acclaimed-eco-school-forced-shut-classrooms-years/story-19789593-detail/story.html#ixzz2fi669r8B 

An End to Government Scaring of Children with Climate Propaganda in the UK?: a couple of straws to clutch at

We know that children in the UK have been frightened by materials on climate change.
We know that the mass media in the UK have produced or relayed 'climate porn' for many years.

We know that the UK government issued the reprehensible, and frightening, DVD 'An Inconvenient Truth' to schools in 2007, along with guidance on how to make the most of it.

We know that in 2009 the UK government funded and promoted a frightening tv ad with imagery apparently designed to attract and disturb children.
We know that a scary movie involving children was used during the opening of the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009.We know that the UK government funded absurd, and scary, nursery rhyme posters on climate for which it was rebuked in 2010 by the Advertising Standards Agency.

We know that art exhibitions for climate propaganda have been promoted by scary imagery, and even individuals have produced scary movies to help their climate cause.

We know that various groups have produced more professional scary movies and adverts viewable by children, or, in the case of the ugly 10:10 movie 'No Pressure', with the brutal murder of children as one of the dramatic devices to urge conformance to the party line on climate.
We know that games and cartoons have been produced to scare children about their 'carbon footprint'.
We know that various initiatives on climate change aimed at schools are in place, and are concerned to achieve 'action' of one kind or another, but mostly pressure on parents to toe the party line on climate and the desired 'behaviour change' as per the prescriptions and analyses pushed by the IPCC.
We know that schools are being pushed into seeking to create 'little climate activists'.
We know that the head of the IPCC has identified children as a key political target.

So it is not unreasonable to speculate that scary climate movies may be shown to children in schools in the UK.


But evidence of how much and how often does not seem to exist. 

The journalist Leo Hickman has had several pieces recently on the possibility that scary videos are being used in schools to advance the cause of climate alarmism (aka 'CAGW', 'climate change', 'sustainability', 'climate disruption').  This was triggered by a remark by Johnny Ball, who built up a considerable reputation for sharing his enthusiasm for mathematics on tv programmes and talks for schoolchildren.  In more recent years he has taken up the cause of defending children from climate scaremongering.  This, of course, is to invite the wrath of the greens.  So it is all the more remarkable that a CO2-alarmed correspondent in a CO2-alarmed newspaper has sought to expose as unacceptable the kind of attacks on his reputation which Ball has reported.

Hickman reports Ball as asserting that a movie talking of an unliveable planet by 2050 has been shown in schools.  And, to his credit, Hickman pursues this.  First he appealed to his readers to provide any examples of such a movie being shown in schools, and he received none.  He also checked back with Ball, who could not give further details.  And then he checked with the Department for Education (DfE).

The good news here is first of all that no examples were sent to him, other than reference to Gore's reprehensible 'An Inconvenient Truth'.  This may be due to the nature of the Guardian readership, a paper which gave a generous plug to the 'No Pressure' video.  But, on the other hand, it may be due to such videos being rarely shown. 

The second piece of good news lies in the response Leo Hickman obtained from the DfE (my emphases added):

"Keen to get the definitive position on this, I asked the Department for Education (DfE) to clarify the situation regarding the showing of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in schools. It said that in March, 2007, the following email was sent to all secondary schools announcing that the film, as part of a larger educational pack, was being sent out, but that schools could opt out if they wished.

Then, after the court case in October, 2007, updated guidance was emailed to schools in December, 2007.  But that was 2007. What about today? A DfE spokeswoman said it is very unlikely any school is still using this educational pack containing An Inconvenient Truth because teachers are warned on the website that this is old teaching material and could be out-of-date. She said no other climate change-related film has been distributed to schools by the department since 2007. She added:

    We are awaiting to hear more about the National Curriculum review, which will look at all aspects of the curriculum, and will know more then about where teaching on climate change will fit – currently it comes more under the science curriculum, it may well still be [following the review]."

Should we be pleased, or remain cynical?  The alarmists and their strategists may well have decided that the 'scare the children' tactic has backfired on them, or merely that they always need something new to keep the scare bubbling over in the political class.  So perhaps we shall be spared further shocking, blatant, scaremongering materials.  Perhaps, they will gamble that there has been enough of that, that 'CO2 as a source of impending catastrophe' can be treated as a given, or pushed to one side, while superficially more positive messages about 'sustainability' will provide the new banners in their relentless campaign against humanity and industrial progress.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, the numerous groups set up to tap into climate education funds, or win donations from climate scaremongering, or trade in carbon credits, or secure influence over governments through 'environmentalism', or pursue any advantage based on the notion that we face a clear and present danger from rising CO2 levels, will not go away overnight.


It may be merely that the presentation of misleading or frightening materials on climate to children has entered a more subtle phase.

Schools without Scruples over Climate: never mind the facts, the computers have spoken

Definition of 'Scruple': a doubt or hesitation that troubles the conscience or that comes from the difficulty of determining whether something is right.  Schools such as the one reported on here in Norfolk, UK, don't seem to suffer from such a thing when it comes to climate:





It is not difficult to excuse this sort of excess, e.g.
Well, we're saving the planet.  That deals with the conscience.
The IPCC, the Royal Society and other Government-funded bodies, all say we are doomed unless we reduce CO2.  That deals with the 'rightness'.

But what is the reality?  First, with regard to the weather phenomena of the planet, nothing at all extraordinary has happened anywhere with regard to temperatures, precipitation, storms, ice extent, glacier movements, or sea levels.  All we are seeing is perfectly consistent with business as usual for a turbulent atmosphere with a complex, irregular surface, and varying orbital, solar, and oceanic features.  The null hypothesis of 'business as usual' has not been discredited by observations.

Second, with regard to argument from authority, the circular nature of that can only be broken when pushed into, when it will be discovered that political activists orchestrated a global panic by exploiting the conjectures of a few dozen workers in the field of climatology, especially those parts relying heavily on computer models.  The limitations of their work are becoming more apparent year by year.  Let it be summarised as follows: the computer models are too primitive to be fit for prediction, the data sets are too sparse in both space and time to be sufficient as a detailed guide to what has happened in the past, let alone be capable of reliable extrapolation into the future. 

So, we are in a situation in which nothing unusual has been seen to be happening to the weather, to the sea, or to the ice.  There has been a remarkably steady growth in ambient CO2 recorded at Mauna Loa, a volcano on a Pacific island.  Just about anything and everything in and around the atmosphere can influence climate, including CO2.  The problem is not determining whether this factor or that has an influence, but rather it is determining the nature and the magnitude of it. The simplest model for increasing CO2 levels is that they would lead to a modest overall warming, one which would be hard to reliably confirm in the variability of temperatures due to all the other factors involved, a warming of around 1C for a doubling of the ambient levels. But a few people programmed up computers to illustrate a much more dramatic effect of CO2 via an unconfirmed positive feedback mechanism.  This was spotted as a godsend by those who wished to see an end to industrialisation or a weakening of western power or a dimunition in energy consumption or a reduction in population or an overthrow of capitalism or a massive transfer of cash to the developing countries or the dawn of world government or a rise in their own level of recognition as wise prophets or seers or an increase in the audience for their media or an increase in the grants awarded to their institution or more votes for their party.  And what a hugely successful 'big thing' they have made of it over the past 30 years.  That man-made CO2 is leading to catastrophe is now a 'given' in our schools, and leads to events such as this one:

 

But it is by no means properly treated as a 'given'.  It is not satisfactory to base so much belief and commitment on a flimsy foundation.

Sources: 

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/photo_gallery_attleborough_high_school_tackling_climate_change_1_804906

http://www.theclimaterun.org.uk/shaping-norfolks-future/

Hat/tip: Dave W.

The Toyota Recall and CAGW: two examples of sense submerged by alarmism

The vulnerability of modern societies to scare stories is revealed on a small scale by the Toyota Recall fiasco, and on a large scale by the CO2 Alarm fiasco.  Both give insight into how politicians and others can be hassled into hasty actions and foolish decisions.  Or is it merely that they spotted advantage in propagating the scare?

Millions of vehicles were recalled around the world, and a new TLA spread: UIA - un-intended acceleration.  Sounds scary!  Better do something!  The theatre is on fire!  Everybody out!  No time to waste!

Except it was a false alarm:
 
'NASA's Toyota Study Released by Dept. of Transportation     02.08.11'

'WASHINGTON -- The results of a ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers of possible electronic causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles was released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).


"NASA found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," said Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team lead of the study from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.'


This would be a good project for senior pupils interested in current affairs: a side by side comparison of the climate scare and the accelerator scare.  They are on different scales, but they share much in common:

(1) something scary for the general public
(2) a simple theory to convey 'knowledge' of the reason for the scare
(3) self-serving groups joining in the alarmism in which they have spotted advantage
(4) hasty legislation or the threat of it
(5) resources diverted to unnecessary actions
(6) in retrospect, revealed to be unfounded and foolish


Would that NASA, which led the investigation into the Toyota recall (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-study.html), would display the same disinterested and analytical approach on climate.  But no, that would be naive, since they are a prominent example of stage (3) above.

Stage (6) is still underway on climate alarmism, and is taking far longer.  The climate stage (3) was just on so much greater a scale, aided and abetted by massive state funding for such as the IPCC, and the far larger set of parties who spotted political, financial, or merely career opportunities in and around the scaremongering.

Note added 07 April 2014.  The disturbing episode of the Toyota false alarm is still getting coverage.  An Obama functionary called LaHood helped make the alarm worse, and Toyota ended paying a fine of $1.2 billion: 'No one is innocent, of course, but not everyone is bailed out. So Toyota, after recalling millions of cars and changing parts and floor mats even before LaHood's outburst – and after years of being hounded by the administration – recently agreed to pay a steep fine for its role in the acceleration flap. This, despite the fact that in 2012, Department of Transportation engineers determined that no mechanical failure was present that would cause applying the brakes to initiate acceleration. The DOT conducted tests that determined that the brakes could maintain a stationary car or bring one to a full stop even with the engine racing. It looked at 58 vehicles that were supposedly involved in unintended acceleration and found no evidence of brake failure or throttle malfunction.' http://patriotpost.us/opinion/24589  .