Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Some things to do to help resist CAGW-scaremongering in schools

I am going to be devoting most of my time to other work for the next four months or so, and I expect to post a lot less often than I'd like to here. In case any readers are looking for ideas on what they might do to help with the chores of getting egregious materials on climate out of schools and elsewhere, I've been compiling a little list. Here it is, in no particular order and based on no profound analysis of the possibilities - I've just dusted down and spruced-up a 'to-do' list of my own:

(1) Investigating 2 sites: Project Genie and Kids Club Zilla

Shortly after I started this blog last year, I noted 3 possible projects in one of my early posts:

‘a) Schools Low Carbon Day: http://www.cooltheworld.co.uk/low_carbon_day.php Apparently well-intentioned initiative, but of course based on smoke and mirrors.

b) Genie: http://www.projectgenie.org.uk/ An overblown scare site based on notion that carbon (dioxide) is a genie buried in the earth, one which we are releasing to our imminent danger and disadvantage.

[added 19 Feb 2012: A glimpse of the approach of this odious project can still be seen in a press release from University College London in April 2010 which contains an extract of the video at the heart of their materials: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1004/10043001]
c) Zilla: http://www.kidsclubzilla.com/index.html I am not sure how current this site is. It is spooky, of unclear origin, and may be a money-making scam taking advantage of the CO2 scare.I have heard that such sites appear after major disasters are in the news. Well, the IPCC is certainly one of those.’

Of these, the first one seems to have disappeared. I am not so sure about the other two. Some investigation to find out more about their current state might be worthwhile. Are they still active? If so, what are they doing? Do they matter much?

(2) Organising the Pages. I have 5 ‘pages’ on the blog which are in very poor shape.

They could do with some organisation, and ideas for further development. The five topics are:

Any ideas for material to include in them? Any ideas for improving their layout, or making them more useful?

(3) Making better use of Delicious. I have been occasionally adding links to the ClimateLessons collection on Delicious. This too needs a good tidy, and ideas for making more use of it. My main idea when starting it was to provide convenient access to references useful when Fisking silly climate materials. One of the key tag-words is ‘rebuttal’ (or ‘Rebuttal’, or even ‘rebutal’ – see what I mean about tidying!).

(4) Investigating the British Council climate propaganda efforts. What are they up to? When did it start? Who is driving it, and why? It seemed to die down (http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110610/full/news.2011.364.html ) but look at this report on Biased-BBC: Andrew Mitchell, Cameron's international development secretary, has announced this weekend (reported in the Sunday Times P6, so not linkable)a £90m grant for the BBC World Service Trust (WST). This, as I have written before, is a body whose main purpose is to brainwash the developing world about eco loonery, and already spends millions doing so, with projects like this:

‘The major objective of Africa Talks Climate is to identify the entry points to engage, inform and empower Africans in local, national and international conversations about climate change. To achieve this, the initiative will collate opinions and then amplify the voices of people at all levels of society. "Climate change is the defining issue of our age," said Peter Upton, Country Director for the British Council in Nigeria. "Climate in Africa is one of the most important issues that all people and governments will face. Africa will be one of the most affected regions but has done the least to contribute to the problem. ‘

Source: http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/11/not-conservative.html#comments

(note added 14 Dec 2011:cg2 emails reveal BC zealots spending UK tax money on creating media pundits)
(note added 27 Jul 2016: nasty person uncovered high up in the British Council: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1501559/three-year-old-prince-george-hit-by-vile-rant-from-british-council-boss-paid-thousands-to-promote-uk/ )

(5) Review, or even Fisk a part of a website or booklet or DVD aimed at children or at teachers. My series of posts on ‘Low Carbon Day for Schools’ works through just one paragraph on the original site in a series of 8 posts ending in this one (http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-would-you-believe-this-8-of-8-and.html)

http://xkcd.com/386/

Here is an example of Fisking some particularly silly remarks on climate: http://adventuresintimetravel.com/2011/05/27/hari-watch-purple-prose-alert/

Here is an entire book Fisking another book on climate: ‘The Weather Makers Re-Examined’ by D Weston Allen (Irenic Publications, Australia). ‘The Weather Makers’ being a book of climate alarmism by a Tim Flannery, notorious in Australia for his over-the-top forecasts of doom.

There are a great many booklets aimed at young children. One I came across recently is ‘Why Are the Ice Caps Melting’, and there is scarcely a page of text in it without something objectionable. Ordering one such book and doing a review of it would be good practice for anyone wanting to cut their teeth at Fisking.

(6) Investigate what is going on at Science Learning Centres, e.g. this one in the north-east of England (https://www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk/centres/north-east/climate-change-schools-project/introduction ). Climate seems to be dominating this science centre, presumably because that is where it has been easiest to get funding. But what are they doing to the children? Information about their materials and messages would be useful. Appears to take AGW as a given, and concentrate on saving energy. Yet energy is not in short supply, and nagging children about it seems unduly negative and destructive of their spirits.
Note added 20 June 2012. These centres remain active, and have a link with something called ClimateNE, with which they share this blog on a business support site: http://blog.nebusiness.co.uk/climatene/

(7) Find out more about what the UK Youth Climate Coalition might be doing in schools or elsewhere. It looks like a group of youngsters having a whale of time, tapping into funds, jetting around the world, and generally feeling like they are saving us all. But what is it based on? What foundation is there for this proselytising? Have they given any deep thought to anything at all? Does it matter much since they will either grow up or move on to another fad within a few years? Would they benefit from therapy?

(8)Ditto for Climate Week. What has been happening to these youngsters? Such as this one: so young, but has served on Obama’s election campaign, advised the UK government, directed academic studies, and more. They have clearly been convinced and energised about climate change (it would be interesting to try to find out what it is that they have found most convincing by way of evidence), and are finding lots of things to do, committees to join, conferences to attend, initiatives to pursue.

(9)Scotland seems heading into economic and intellectual swamps along Californian lines, as evidenced by the political push for carbon reduction and renewables. The alarmists’ penchant for getting to the kids is also well underway, and would be a worthy topic of investigation. One organisation involved is ‘Eco-schools Scotland’.

(10) Take a Global View. This site might be a place to start: http://climatechangeeducation.org/international/index.html in order to learn more about international and national activities aimed at schoolchildren. This organisation would also bear checking in case there is anything unsatisfactory going on: http://globe.gov/about

(11)Getting information to interested politicians, e.g. note the straight talking here in Australia: http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/05/minchin-offensive-nonsense-from-known-global-warming-alarmists/ Politicians do need information for their ‘soundbites’, and some indication that there is appreciable support ‘out there’ for viewpoints contrary to that of ‘the establishment’ on climate.

There is to be a meeting in Westminster on 30^th November involving several distinguished critics of climate alarmism and/or the IPCC ('The Climate Change Act Reconsidered' starting 1pm in Westminster Palace or Portcullis House). Can you persuade your MP to attend?

(12)Study some aspect of climate in more detail – make it your speciality to be familiar with what the experts and others are saying about it. Plenty to choose from: polar bears, glaciers, hurricanes, floods, droughts, etc, etc. Get hold of data yourself and do some plots in Excel to become more familiar with it.

There are lots of examples here using Excel, albeit by a statistician but anyone competent with spreadsheets could reproduce much of it: http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/. That link is for Australian temperature data – here is someone who was inspired by it to take a look at Canadian data in a similar way: http://cdnsurfacetemps.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/why-mean-temp-is-meaningless/

Informal data analysis can help stimulate ideas for further tests. Here are more examples: as in here: http://reasonabledoubtclimate.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/texas-winters-hayhoe-warming-effect/

Added 28 Nov, 2011: Here is an example of a professor of atmospheric science being fatuous. The analysis shows how easy it can be to refute those driven by dogma and the momentum of an all-consuming 'cause': http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/katharine-and-the-100-year-rain-events/#more-331

Added 07 May 2012. Here is another example of someone deciding to 'look at the data', and as is so often the case, finding no cause for alarm. It concerns precipitation in the San Jose area of California:
http://climatereflections.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/quick-first-look-at-precipitation/

(13) Further to (12). Prepare to write to, or in, your favourite newspaper and/or post comments at its web-version. First, of course, get a clear grasp of some aspect of climate that may come up – do not just parrot stuff from other sites, do some thinking, note-taking, and arithmetic on your own and see what views you form. Then, and only then, start sharing them. There are so many topics to choose from, so take care not to spread yourself too thinly. Just choosing one might be a good place to start. There is so much interlinking and overlap amongst topics that wherever you choose to start, you will find many avenues to follow as and when you feel ready to.

(14) Review in more detail the Welsh Climate Pack mentioned here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/09/welsh-schools-to-be-sent-scare-them.html

(15) Outreach from here. If you find a post in this blog that you like, then draw attention to it in some site or other forum where relevant people gather. I imagine most of my readers here are already convinced that some level of scepticism is in order about CO2 alarmism. I think that if there is any merit in a post, it would be best drawn to the attention of those who are most relevant to it, and who are unlikely to see it otherwise. For example, email details to any teacher you know – you don’t have to defend my ramblings, you might merely say they might be of interest or they caught your attention, and what does your contact think about it? I think there has been very little outreach from here, and that to me is a great failing.

(16) Find out more about what is going in your local schools. Do they still show ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ for example? Where in the curricula are climate change issues addressed, and how? Do outsiders, e.g. from corporations such as Greenpeace or WWF visit any of them? Do pupils get to hear about calmer views of climate? What do your nearby head teachers think about how best to include climate issues? You could extend this to finding out more about central government initiatives in this area. I suspect they have faded away dramatically with the change of government, but I don’t know for sure.

Now not many people read this blog (1,000 to 2,000 page view per month since July), so it should not be your first choice as an outlet for any of your work if you can find others. On the other hand, I'd be delighted if you want to make use of it. I still harbour hopes that one day it will be useful as a source of information for anyone actively engaged with this resistance effort against the wave of frightful propaganda about climate aimed at the young.

Added 20 Nov 2011
(17) Design or develop climate lessons which would give schoolchildren valid and balanced insights into the climate system, into meteorology, and into the various implications of either. These are all interesting areas, and could provide material for very interesting and engaging classes, without any resort whatsoever to the cheap, immoral, and irresponsible device of scaremongering. The more such curricula there are, the quicker the transition to better scholastic standards in this area could be. A trickier, and more urgent, task would be to give thought to materials that could help those children already exposed to the shoddy science of alarmism and its possible manifestations just about anywhere in the curriculum. Such materials would also be of use to adults long past their schooldays but still damaged by their climate-related experiences in them. This website has a scattering of suggestions for '10-minute trainers' that could be used to expose alarmist nonsense - search on that topic to see at least half a dozen here. (added 6 Dev 2011 A useful compilation of of links to tutorial materials here: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Debate.htm)

Note added 22 May 2012. Page view rates on this blog have increased to around 3,000 per month according to Blogspot, with one excursion recently to 6,000 in a month.

Note added 15 December 2012. Re project (4) above. A key leader of this British Council work, the David Viner of 'children won't know what snow is' fame, has been spotted as a useful resource by a consultancy which stands to gain from climate alarmism. Here is a comment posted on the Bishop Hill blog, Unthreaded section:

'Re comment by Brent Hargreaves 98:560 AM) on David Viner's new job.
The link you provide shows that his company thinks the poor chap is a Nobel Laureate:
'David was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change between 1993-2007.
[http://www.mottmac.com/newsandpublications/newslist/?id=294066]
They also are under the impression that his diversion of the British Council into promoting alarm about climate around the world was a good thing:
'In 2008 David was appointed global director at The British Council where he developed a ground breaking cultural relations strategy and programme that was delivered through 250 offices in 109 countries.'
Others take a different view of such initiatives, e.g. this writer on Biased-BBC describes them thusly:
'It means oodles more bureaucratic fear-mongering projects, the goal of the greenies involved being to convert the developing world into West-hating, climate change fanatics'
[http://biased-bbc.com/2011/11/not-conservative.html]
But then, Viner's new employer notes that this sort of thing is very good for his business:
'Mott MacDonald’s environment manager Ian Allison said: “We are delighted to welcome David to Mott MacDonald. Sustainability and climate change are important drivers for our business. As awareness of these issues increases, the consultancy is continuing to develop its services and skills to help in strategies for adaptation, mitigation and institutional reform to respond to these challenges.'

Note added 24 October 2013.

Five Of The Six Snowiest Winters Have Occurred Since David Viner Declared The End Of Snow

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/five-of-the-six-snowiest-winters-have-occurred-since-david-viner-declared-the-end-of-snow/

How to Get Expelled from School, a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters

This does look promising!

'HOW TO GET EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL:
A guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters

Ian Plimer
Foreword by Václav Klaus,
President of the Czech Republic

RELEASED DATE: November 2011

$29.95
ISBN: 978-1-921421-80-8
Paperback, (250 pages approx)

Are pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change? Now is your chance to find out. Professor Plimer gives 101 simple questions with answers for you to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians. The climate industry adjusts the temperature record and withholds raw data, computer codes and information from scrutiny. Computer predictions of a scary future don’t agree with measurements. Past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst case predictions yet humans adapted. Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly.'

(h/t Phillip Bratby, comment posted on 'Unthreaded' Nov 15, 2011 at 11:40am at Bishop Hill)

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

This is how it should be: thoughtful climate science in a high school

Roger Pielke Snr maintains an excellent - informative, civil, thoughtful, substantial - blog on climate science. He recently met with pupils at an American high school, and reports on the question and answer session here. (hat-tip: Tom Nelson)

Q&A For Climate For High School Students

What a contrast to some of the material and motivations I have reported on in this site. Let me pick out a few highlights to encourage you to read the original post:

'In addition to these human climate forcings, natural climate forcings and feedbacks are also quite important. We need to consider these natural effects as clearly the climate is much more complex than is commonly reported by the media and even the IPCC. For example, the global average temperature anomalies are cooling!'

'Since the CO2 effect is but one of a number of first order climate influences, as discussed above, I have concluded we know much less about the future climate than is claimed by the IPCC and the media. This does not mean we should not be concerned as to how much CO2 we insert into the atmosphere, but the claims that we know its effect on the climate is very much overstated, in my view.'

'Finally, in terms of climate metrics, I encourage your class to research yourselves from orginal data what is the current status of these metrics. You would be surprised how many of them do not follow the behavior predicted by the multi-decadal global climate model predictions, and being reported in the news.'

Pielke puts most 'climate educators' to shame with his basic scientific honesty, not to mention his straightforward prose. When, as must surely happen one day, our curricula are cleansed of the IPCC-inspired hyperbole and scare stories, we know there are some, such as Pielke, who could fill those precious places in the curricula with decent science. They would seek to inform and inspire the young, rather than frighten them into 'political activism' for a soul-destroying and economically ruinous cause. A cause which is, in my view, riding on the back of speculative and wholly inadequate computer models.

Note added 7 Dec 2011: Bob Tisdale has stumbled across a criticism on the SkepticalScience blog of Pielke's Q&A reported on above. He has taken the trouble to analyse the criticism, and, as you would expect, shows it to be vexatious (by misdirection) and lacking in substance. He summarises it as follows: 'Yet again, SkepticalScience has highlighted their inability to comprehend a topic of discussion, or has illustrated their need to mislead their readers, or both.'.

Sunday, 6 November 2011

Climate Classroom Projects: testing the sagacity of the Royal Society

http://4umi.com/swift/gulliver/laputa/5

The regrettable participation of the Royal Society in the spreading of alarm over climate was partially corrected by their revised, and far less inflammatory statement on climate issued in 2010.

The new statement is full of cautions and provisos, but two of the least ambiguous remarks are to be found in paragraphs 45 and 49 relating to sea levels (I have added the emboldening):

‘45 Because of the thermal expansion of the ocean, it is very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise will be at least as large as the rate of 20 cm per century that has been observed over the past century. Paragraph 49 discusses the additional, but more uncertain, contribution to sea-level rise from the melting of land ice.

49 There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century (see paragraph 45) for a given temperature increase. Similarly, the possibility of large changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean cannot be assessed with confidence. The latter limits the ability to predict with confidence what changes in climate will occur in Western Europe.’

Project 1: what is actually happening to sea levels?

Recently sea levels have been falling in quite a pronounced way (Climate4You has graphical summaries).

The projected rise in sea level by the year 2100 using a 3-year running mean has fallen to 22cm in the year 2010, and the data suggests it is likely be below 20cm shortly. If the recent drops continue, then the naïve extrapolation will in due course be for a fall in sea level by the year 2100.

A report of a recent study using data from an EU satellite, claims a naïve extrapolation of only 8 cm rise by the year 2100.

The C3 site has more leads.

Project 2: what is actually happening to the big ice sheets?

As for the ‘the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica’ of paragraph 49, that should provide scope for another informative class project. Plenty of leads on the topic can be found here: http://www.c3headlines.com/are-antarcticgreenland-about-to-totally-melt/ . For example headlines such as those below could be checked for veracity and relevance:

# New Research Out of Greenland Proves Stability of Ice Sheet Over The Last 2 Decades

# New Antarctica Research: The IPCC "Consensus" Science Is Turned Topsy-Turvy

# IPCC Science Wrong: Current Antarctic Climate Conditions Are Not Unprecedented, Peer-Research Determines

Both of these projects could be sustained over many years to come, with different waves of pupils adding to the collective insights and preparing their own summaries from the latest data. The link to the Royal Society’s claims will add a topical touch.

Cultural aside. If you or any of your pupils have a literary bent, you might enjoy a (re-) reading of Gulliver’s Travels to accompany these projects. Here is a commentary on part of them by Shirley Galloway:

‘The main focus of social criticism in the voyage to Laputa is on intellectuals, such as scholars, philosophers, and scientists, who often get lost in theoretical abstractions and conceptions to the exclusion of the more pragmatic aspects of life, in direct contrast to the practical Brobdingnagians. Many critics feel Swift was satirizing "the strange experiments of the scientists of the Royal Society," but may also have been warning his readers against "the political projectors and speculators of the time," (Davis 149-150). The Laputians excel at theoretical mathematics, but they can't build houses where the walls are straight and the corners are square. Instead, they constantly worry about when the sun will burn out and whether a comet will collide with the earth. This misuse of reason is hilariously elaborated on in Chapters five and six, where the various experiments occurring at the Grand Academy of Lagado are described. Of course, the point is highlighted as Gulliver professes his sincere admiration for such projects as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers and building houses from the roof down. The satire in Voyage three attacks both the deficiency of common sense and the consequences of corrupt judgment (Quintana, 317).’

I guess modern Laputians would excel at computer modeling, and be constantly worrying about when CO2 will bring catastrophe. Oh for a modern Swift to warn us against ‘political projectors and speculators’!

Note added 13 April 2012: The key claim by the Royal Society is that sea level rise rate will be more than the historical 20cm per century we have seen over the last 100 years or so. Not much sign of that so far. Here is a plot for a site in England:

Note added 08 May 2012. Less than two years since their revised, more moderate 'statement' on climate (a statement that makes an utter mockery of the spirit of Nullius in Verba, but which is at least a bit more dignified than the worse tosh which preceded it), the studies are coming in to refute them. 'New empirical evidence from New Zealand scientists document the lack of "accelerating" global sea level levels. The island nation in the southern Pacific has not been swamped by the rising seas and the confirmed trend indicates only a 7 inch rise by 2100.' See: http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/05/tide-gauge-station-data-global-sea-level-rise-nz.html

Note added on 12 December 2012. Recent satellite surveys of sea level confirm the deceleration of the rate of rise. Projections from recent rise rates points to an end of century rise of 13cm or less.
See: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/noaa-2012-report-finds-sea-levels.html
[using figures from this report: http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2012.pdf ]

Note added 30 April 2013. An update on sea level forecasts:
'Conclusions: 1. Expert climate model predictions of catastrophic accelerating sea level increases are wildly wrong 2. CO2-centric climate models that focus almost entirely on the impact of human trace emissions of greenhouse gases produce erroneous and unreliable predictions for policymakers 3. The IPCC and large government computer climate models can't predict squat'
http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/04/reality-wake-up-call-climate-experts-sea-level-prediction-found-to-be-wildly-wrong-.html

Note added 6 May 2013. UK Sea Levels–No Increase In Last 10 Years

Note added 03 July 2013. 'New study using GRACE data shows global sea levels rising less than 7 inches per century'. That's less than 18cm per century. Still not looking good for the Royal Society. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/03/new-study-using-grace-data-shows-global-sea-levels-rising-less-than-7-inches-per-century/

Note added 28 December 2013. 'A paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds global sea level rise has decelerated by 44% since 2004 to a rate equivalent to only 7 inches per century. According to the authors, global mean sea level rise from 1993-2003 was at the rate of 3.2 mm/yr, but sea level rise “started decelerating since 2004 to a rate of 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012.”' http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/new-paper-finds-sea-level-rise-has.html

Note added 17 September 2014 More charts on sea-level rise 'I’ve recently looked at sea level trends on the US eastern seaboard, and shown how the rate of sea level rise was higher than now around the middle of the 20thC. We also get the same pattern across the Atlantic.':
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/long-term-sea-level-trends/

Thursday, 3 November 2011

Alarming the Children: creating climate activists in Africa

Outside of religion, outside of totalitarian regimes, has there ever been such targeting of the young to win recruits for a cause such as we are seeing being used by climate campaigners around the world? With fear as the spur to catch their attention: you are going to be doomed/suffer greatly/kill polar bears/etc etc unless you, your parents, your teachers, your communities, your businesses, your governments follow the party line - a line which calls for weakening your society's ability to respond to climate variation by, for example, subsidising windfarms and discouraging more reliable and less expensive ways to generate electricity.

By what stretch of a tortured imagination, can it be found desirable to abandon the basic adult responsibility of protecting the young from being terrified of their future? The fact that this abandonment is based ultimately on computer models that can be tweaked to produce anything the owners of them want to see [apart from verisimilitude] is even more jaw-dropping.
(text and link in brackets added 4 Nov 11)

Here it is happening in Africa. Read this extract from a press release by UNICEF dated 31 October 2011:

'UNICEF urges media to hear the voices of children on climate change

PRETORIA, 31 October 2011 - As South Africa prepares for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban from 28 November to 9 December 2011, UNICEF is urging media to consult with children on what they believe to be the key issues surrounding climate change, its impact on the children of South Africa, and what role children can play to address climate change.
A new study commissioned by UNICEF in partnership with the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, to be launched in mid-November 2011, highlights the importance of child participation in designing effective responses to climate change.
The study ‘The Impact of Climate Change on Children in South Africa’ highlights the expected impact of climate change on children’s health, education, nutrition, safety and access to adequate housing and sanitation in South Africa – both directly and indirectly. However, in spite of their increased vulnerability, children cannot be viewed simply as victims of climate change. Children need to be – and have a right to be – actively involved in the discussions and planning of mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as policies and plans by various levels of government.
The study also reveals that there are a number of existing initiatives in South Africa through which children are participating in the climate change agenda. These could be strengthened to create a solid foundation for effective participation by children on climate change issues that can feed into, and strengthen policy and national response.'

(hat-tip Messenger for this link: http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.com/2011/11/unicef-children-should-participate-in.html )

Further reading
(1) Creating 'little climate activists' in UK schools

http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/classroom-climate-conditioning-at-work.html

(2) Something similar in Canada
http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/03/canadian-climate-campaigners-how-to.html

(3) Why do they pick on children? Some thoughts here:

http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-just-another-brick-in-wall-hey.html

(4) How much harm can they cause? Examples here:

http://www.eco-imperialism.com/main.php

(5) Opposition in the USA to alarm-indoctrination in schools: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/08/propaganda-pantomime-of-climate.html

Also includes this quote from the UK:
‘This week, I met a 17‑year-old pupil from a girls’ public school that, in the past, has been more famous for turning out Sloaney husband-hunters than for filling its pupils with useless scientific facts. But the stereotype is out of date, it seems. The GCSE syllabus ranges far and wide, taking in the physics, chemistry, biology, geopolitics, economics and ethics of climate change. In English lessons, girls “debate” (ie, heartily endorse) the proposition that global warming will kill us all. And guess what topic has been chosen for French conversation?
But parents shouldn’t worry that their girls will turn into eco-loons. “Honestly,” says my informant, “we’re all, like, sooo bored with climate change. I can’t wait to leave school to escape.”’

There’s hope yet!