Climate Change Scaremongering threatens the physical as well as the mental wellbeing of children: wind turbines in school grounds now complement the scare stories in school rooms

Wind-turbines have been installed in schools in the north of Scotland, no doubt driven by the Scottish government’s pursuit of its nightmarish daydream of massive expansion of wind-energy.  A pursuit being justified by a supine trust in assertions that (a) rising CO2 levels in the air are a real and present danger of great severity and (b) modest reductions in human-related emissions in industrialised countries can have an appreciable effect on them, and on climate.  I say modest, because it is well-established that windfarms have a next to negligible effect in reducing industrial CO2 thanks not just to the CO2 produced in their manufacture, installation, and maintenance, but also to the CO2 from the required back-up provided by conventional power sources forced to operate in a sub-optimal way and the additional CO2 from relocation of industries to countries with fewer emission controls.  In addition, examples abound that even a wholesale overnight cessation of human-related CO2 emissions in entire countries such as Australia would, by the theories of the IPCC itself, have a negligible effect on climate.  We may conclude that a shutting-down of Scotland would have even less effect.  Only abject fear could make anyone lose so much rationality as to want to pursue such a goal.  The kind of fear that climate alarmists would love to see spread throughout our schools.

Pupils at risk from school turbines claim

‘Information provided by the authority shows that turbines have been erected, at a cost of £25,000 each, at nine north schools – Crossroads Primary (Thurso); Castletown Primary; Bower Primary (Wick); Culloden Academy (Inverness); Craighill Primary (Tain); Dornoch Academy; Inver Primary; Stoer Primary and Gairloch High School.’

But they are being opposed, as the article at the above link explains:

‘HIGHLAND Council’s policy of erecting 6kw micro wind turbines at schools is putting pupils at risk, a north-west Sutherland woman has claimed.
Dr Stephanie James, of The Smithy House, Stoer, wrote this week highlighting her concerns to the authority’s top official, chief executive Alistair Dodds.
She fears it is only a matter of time before there is a fatality caused by a turbine malfunction.
Dr James, who has previously contacted planners a number of times about her concerns, decided to take action again after a blade flew off a small domestic turbine situated behind Rhu Stoer Village Hall.
No-one was hurt in the incident which happened at Hogmanay.
Dr James was among a number of people who objected to the erection of both the micro turbine at the eight-pupil Stoer Primary and the one at the village hall.
Planning consent for the Proven WT6000 turbine, mounted on a 15metre column at Stoer school, was granted in April last year. The 6kw turbine has a rotor diameter of 5.5metres.
The 15m high Eoltec Scirocco turbine at the hall was given the go-ahead by planners in November 2010 and erected six months ago.
The council has pursued a policy of erecting turbines either on school buildings or in school grounds in a bid to save money and to boost their green credentials.
A similar turbine at the Rhue Stoer Hall was also given the go-ahead in November 2010 and erected amid much controversy.
In her letter to the chief executive, Dr James points out the failure in November 2009 of a 50metre high wind turbine installed at Raasay School which collapsed and landed in the school playing field.
She claimed that in recent years there had been 66 fatalities with many more injuries in the UK as a result of various wind turbine malfunctions.
She states: "Pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to 1300 metres and blade pieces have gone through roofs and walls of nearby buildings.
"Other serious incidents have occurred through structural failure from poor quality control, lack of maintenance and component failure. As turbines are now being placed in relatively close proximity to buildings, including schools, the accident frequency is expected to rise." ‘

We can add this to reports relayed on this site of the school room unfit for use because it was too cold by design, and the school rooms unfit for use because they were too cold by choice of the headmaster, and the school turbine shut down for killing birds and distressing children in the school grounds. [note added 6 Feb 2012: toilets to save the planet become a health risk in a Florida school] A report of the Raasay incident mentioned above is given here, from which the following extract is taken:

'Wind blades fell in school yard

Published: 21/11/2009

Children at an island primary were sent home after a newly-installed wind turbine next to their school collapsed, it emerged yesterday.

Parents of youngsters at the 18-pupil Raasay Primary School were asked to collect their children following the incident on November 13.

The 50ft turbine will “remain out of commission” until an investigation has been carried out.

The 6KW machine was installed at the school earlier this month, but was soon the subject of complaints due to the noise it was making.’

These are examples of so-far minor harm from policies driven by climate alarmism, and they illustrate the foolishness that such policies can drive people to.  Scotland will increasingly look ridiculous as the rush into renewable energy increases costs, increases risks to life and limb, reduces reliability of supply, increases damage to the environment, and brings degradation of wild places with industrial equipment that will be abandoned and left to rot as and when the subsidies dry up.  And dry up they must as other countries pursue the possibilities for far cheaper energy from shale gas and methane hydrates, not to mention the more familiar coal, gas, nuclear, and oil reserves, making Scottish industry uncompetitive and Scottish domestic life impoverished in comparison. 

A wind turbine lies on its side after crashing to the ground in Lothian and Borders during high wind conditions

P.S. It is happening in the States as well, as this report from Indiana shows: 'Opposition is forming to the Eastern Howard School Board’s plans to install a 350-foot-tall wind turbine on the southern edge of Greentown.' (hat-tip: Industrial Wind Action Group)

Note added 09 May 2012 'Wind turbines at 16 schools in the Highlands have been turned off amid concerns about the planning and installation of the devices.  Highland Council commissioned checks of where turbines were sited after worries were raised by councillors and members of the public.  The local authority said the operation of the turbines would be suspended until risks were fully assessed.  Three secondary schools and 13 primaries are involved.'  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-18003157


Note added 04 September 2013 'Two blades were ripped from the 18m high turbine in the Scottish Highlands and thrown up to 60 yards away after it was hit by 40mph gales. A third was left badly buckled.

The incident has led to calls for all wind turbines to be removed from school playgrounds in the Highlands as the council’s safety trigger for turbines to be shut down currently stands at 80mph winds – 6mph above hurricane force.'  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10285964/Wind-turbine-destroyed-by-wind.html

Note added 12 December 2013:'The high winds were so strong last Thursday that an arm of the turbine at Seascale School flew off and landed 200 yards away in a field.'   Head teacher revealed as a useful idiot:  'Gillian Hartley, headteacher at Seascale Primary School, said the turbines are designed to work in high winds but last week’s weather was exceptional.  Mrs Hartley said: “It was extreme circumstances. Once the turbine is fixed it will be perfectly safe. The maintenance company don’t envisage it happening again.”

http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/wind-turbine-blade-shears-off-1.1104503

(hat-tip Bishop Hill commenter on Unthreaded: Dec 12, 2013 at 3:53 PM | Phillip Bratby)

Note added 13 December 2013: 'The wind turbine at Seascale Primary School had been approved in the economic interests of the school. However, it was agreed that the turbine had subsequently presented more than the expected visual and auditory intrusion for the local community and that the proposed 
economic benefits to the school had not materialised.' Extract from a letter in 2012 from Seascale Parish Council (http://www.seascale.org.uk/Copeland%20BC%20re%20Mawson%20monopole%20mast,%2016%20Apr%202012-1.pdf )
(hat-tip Bishop Hill commenter on Unthreaded: Dec 13, 2013 at 1:26 AM | Gareth)

Note added 22 December 2014.  A turbine has fallen over again in the north of Scotland. 

'A PUBLICLY funded, £37,000 wind turbine sited next to a community hall in north-west Sutherland has crashed to the ground for a second time.

The tower of the 15-metre high turbine at remote Rhue Stoer Hall, north of Lochinver, snapped in two last Thursday, sending the gear box housing and blades tumbling to the ground. It is the second such structural failure in two years.

The turbine was reported to be "askew" and making a "funny noise" just prior to the crash.

Members of the Rhue Stoer Community Association, which runs the hall, were remaining tight lipped about the latest occurrence. But the incident has reignited concerns about siting small-scale wind turbines close to public buildings, particularly schools.'

http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Anger-as-turbine-crashes-to-earth-for-second-time-19122014.htm

See also: http://stopthesethings.com/2014/12/21/gravity-bringing-wind-power-to-its-knees-blades-keep-flying-as-farmers-schoolkids-learn-to-run-duck-for-cover/

Climate Change Conflict in the Classroom: positions provided for the teachers vs questions provided for the pupils

On the one hand, a large non-profit organisation in the United States, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is reported today as intending to  'mount an aggressive effort to teach the nation’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being driven by human activity.'  (hat tip: Tom Nelson)

On the other hand, a professor in Australia, Ian Plimer, has recently published 101 questions on climate in a book entitled 'How to Get Expelled from School' .















They both take an aggressive stance:


NCSE: 'Climate change denial is already threatening the integrity of science education in public schools and elsewhere. These attacks occur in individual classrooms, local school boards, state boards of education and state legislatures, and informal learning environments. And even in the absence of explicit attacks, science educators report experiencing implicit pressure to compromise on the scientific accuracy of their presentations of climate change. NCSE helps concerned citizens to defend accurate science education in all of these settings.'
Plimer: 'The issue of human-induced global warming is about power and has little to do with the environment, saving the planet, creating a better world and freedom of speech.  Except when travelling in communist and other totalitarian countries, all my life I have enjoyed freedom of speech.  The present state of public debate on climate is such that the government-approved beliefs are virtually compulsory.  Those imposing their apocalyptic doctrinal views upon want no rational civilised argument (e.g. "the science is settled"), claim that there is a "consensus", attempt to denigrate, and vilify and marginalise those who question the dogma (e.g. "climate deniers").'


The report in the Washington Times, suggests that the NCSE wants to 'launch a public relations effort. If it is successful, climate change skeptics could become a small minority and might be derided for their beliefs.'  The NCSE site's new section on climate change is already replete with frequent use of the 'denier' insult, and of course is maintaining that its proposed attack on climate realists is akin to its attack on religious fundamentalists over 'intelligent design'.  I think they have fallen off their fence on to the wrong side - their new campaign will support the green fundamentalists and those who ride on their backs to win political power.  The cause of good science, and honest straightforward schooling, will be advanced not by them and all the wealth of Big Green, but by such as Plimer and his humble list of questions in the minds not just of pupils but of parents, politicians, and teachers themselves.

Note added later: This report describes the NCSE as 'small':
'NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.  The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.'

Teachers, whatever you do, don't tell your pupils that climate science is settled about global warming

 The general awareness of climate science may have been severely contaminated by special-interest groups such as the WWF and GreenPeace intent on swelling their coffers and assuming heroic stances simultaneously.  It is not easy for teachers to present a calm and sensible view in these circumstances, not least if their curricula have already been invaded by such interest groups.  Two things, however, seem reasonably clear: 

(1) nothing extraordinary has been observed in weather phenomena over the past 30 years of the CO2 scare, and much of what has been seen contradicts the forecasts of some prominent alarmists such as the streets of New York remaining above sea level, polar bears increasing in numbers, storm levels failing to increase, and of course tropospheric temperatures refusing to shoot up.

(2) learned scholars dispute the core mechanisms posited by some scientist-alarmists as being at the heart of their concerns.  The quote below is evidence of this dispute:

'Recently, Gerlich and Tscheuschner listed a wide variety of attempts to explain the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect. They disproved these explanations at the hand of fundamental physical principles like the second law of thermodynamics. By showing that 1) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, 2) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, 3) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 K is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, 4) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, 5) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, 6) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, they concluded that the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Based on our findings, we argue that 1) the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect cannot be proved by the statistical description of fortuitous weather events that took place in a climate period, 2) the description by AMS and W·MO has to be discarded because of physical reasons, 3) energy flux budgets for the Earth-atmosphere system do not provide tangible evidence that the atmospheric greenhouse effect does exist.'

Source: a recent paper by Kramm and Dlugi entitled ‘Scrutinizing the atmospheric greenhouse effect and its climatic impact’

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=9233

(hat tip: Greenie Watch, http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2012/01/carefully-reasoned-new-paper-finds-no.html#links)

New Year Resolutions for Climate Scientists - eye-openers for some teachers of climate change?

Steven Goddard has compiled some very worthy resolutions for any climate scientist involved in the promotion of climate alarmism in particular, and shoddy-science in general.  They will be eye-openers for some teachers of climate topics.  Here are the first 15 of them - see his post for the rest:

1. I will admit that warming has been much slower than we expected
2. I will admit that recent sea level rise is nothing unusual or threatening
3. I will admit that our forecasts of declining snow cover were wrong
4. I will admit that Arctic temperatures are cyclical, and that we have no idea what will happen to Arctic ice over the next 50 years
5. I will admit that our forecasts of Antarctic warming have been a total failure.
6. I will admit that Polar Bear populations are not threatened
7. I will admit that climate models have demonstrated no skill, and are nothing more than research projects
8.  I will admit there was a Medieval Warm Period
9. I will admit that that there was a Little Ice Age
10. I will stop pretending that we don’t have climate records prior to 1970
11. I will admit that the surface temperature record has been manipulated and is contaminated by UHI
12. I will stop making up data where none exists
13. I will honestly face skeptics in open debate.
14. I will quit trying to stop skeptics from being published
15. I will admit that glaciers have been disappearing for hundreds or thousands of years

Merry Christmas to all my readers

http://en.indonesiafinancetoday.com/read/14593/Oh-Christmas-Tree

Thank you for visiting here.  Haste ye back in the New Year!
I don't 'have religion' myself, but I do find so much of the music, singing, and sentiments of Christianity very moving so here is a carol to mark the season: