Church of CO2 Alarm tenets challenged in a university - junior priests and a missionary are startled by this

I try not to get spread too thin here, but this one is hard to ignore (hat-tip: Greenie Watch).  It is, I think, revealing of the narrow-minded, ill-informed yet animated attitudes that have led to the production of so much execrable material on climate aimed at schoolchildren.  The people responsible for it are just the kind that I hope will change their minds soon if this dreadful corruption of the young is to stop.

You have to put yourself in their place to understand their inner turmoil.  They are believers.  They have been brought up in the faith.  They learned about the threat of the evil deniers, paid by evil corporations to spread lies and deceptions - mostly to stupid, gullible people, or to other wicked people.   That's simple and clear enough, and would have been reinforced all but daily in the media, and within their circles of chosen ones.  Imagine their horror then to come across a professor in a university delivering an entire lecture course which undermined the Revelations of Gore and the Holy Insights of Hansen.  Surely, of all sheltered, solidly socialist places, a university should be a safe haven from such non-conformist views?  You can see they would be upset and puzzled.

Four junior priests of the faith took it upon themselves to study videos of the offending lectures, and then put together a 96 page document to capture the horror of them, and add some attempts of their own to refute the heresies.    Hearing of this report, the missionary agreed to do a telephone interview with the heretic himself, and thereby no doubt display both her courage and willingness to deal with such people in the name of the cause.  Perhaps she might show him the error of his ways, or at the very least publicise more awfulness to bring shivers of horror to her own small band of followers.   But, goshdarnit, it turned out that the heretic was polite and rational and well-informed and not at all obviously unhinged or evil.  Listen to the call, or read the transcript, and see how her faith is tested, and how she sometimes remembers her catechisms about Consensus, Deniers, Big Oil, Heartland, Catastrophe, and suchlike.  Yet these potent words, words that produce automatic cheers of agreement amongst the faithful and deep declarations of solidarity with the cause, were brushed aside or even challenged to good effect!  But although she stumbled, and failed in her hopes for this call, she made the best of a bad job and reported next of nothing of it.  Why expose her converts and hangers-on to what she had to endure?  No,she concentrated on the report of the junior priests instead.  A report which even now, the bad guys are having some fun with.  It seems it is a foolish piece of work, one which will bring nought but shame and embarassment to the new church.

I hope, but experience tells me it is a forlorn one, to have time to return to this myself.  In the meantime, and that may be for a long time, here is the inestimable Watts at work on it: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/03/fake-moral-outrage-translated-to-smear-media-upset-that-students-can-choose-to-take-an-elective-course-on-climate-change-at-carleton/#more-58227

Here is some of what he has written:  [note Goldenberg is the missionary in my scribbles above, and Mr Harris is the heretic]

'Contrary to Goldenberg’s statement that the review of the Earth Sciences course was “an expert audit”, Mr. Harris in his telephone interview (from the transcript linked above) explained to her that it was conducted by two biologists and a writer, none of whom apparently have significant expertise in Earth Sciences or Climate Science.

According to Mr. Harris, contrary to assertions in the Guardian piece, the 2011 version of the ERTH2402 course was well supported by peer reviewed science literature and was in no way extreme. It merely concluded that we are a long way from understanding the science well enough to be able to make reliable forecasts about future climate. Harris says the course was completely nonpartisan politically and avoided any sort of commercial endorsement.

Goldenberg wrote in her Guardian article:

“A team of scientists, who reviewed the videotapes of Mr. Harris’s lectures provided by the university, found 142 false, biased and misleading claims”.

Mr. Harris advises me that he will release an appropriate response to those claims when he has thoroughly reviewed the CASS “audit” report. However, as of this writing, no problems have yet been raised by Carleton in the course material as taught in 2011. It appears that Carelton University itself has no issue with the course material, only the CASS group and the media seem to have issues.

Suzanne Goldenberg’s Guardian piece condemning ERTH2402 is itself riddled with logical fallacies, misrepresentations, omissions, and errors, some of which were described in a letter to the editor sent by Mr. Harris to The Guardian early on February 29. So far, The Guardian has not responded or published the necessary corrections in either their Letters to the Editor or “Corrections and clarifications” sections.

If they don’t, and I’m predicting they won’t, I’ll carry the letter from Mr. Harris here as a separate post.'

Note added 9 March 2012:  That promised post has been posted today.  Strong stuff for WUWT:

Editiorial: The Guardian doesn’t give a damn about accurate reporting nor its own editorial code

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Anthony Watts

Funders of school materials on climate: vested interests in the The Scare vs The Heartland Institute

CartoonsByJosh

Most of these state-funded bodies have grown hugely bigger, richer, and more powerful by jumping on the CO2 Scare bandwagon with alacrity.  I suspect they also all produce materials for schools with some of their funds.  They no doubt see children as a means of influencing their parents as well as voters of the future.  Meanwhile, some climate alarmists have tried to frame, abuse, and attack the tiny Heartland Institute for daring to consider producing some educational materials on climate themselves.  The moral and intellectual mess which Peter Gleick has got himself into in this smearing and deceit is tragic for him, and has itself drawn out more reprehensible comments from his 'side' (for examples, see this post by Donna Laframboise ).  

The reality is the funding of that institute is minimal in comparison with those who push the establishment's line, while their integrity may well be orders of magnitude greater than that of their critics.  I would hazard a guess that the science and reasoning and basic humanity in any climate materials they might produce for schools will be outstanding compared to the alarmist dross currently polluting the minds and spirits of the young.

Josh (Cartoons by Josh) captures a sense of the funding discrepancy with his superb graphic shown above.  Ben Pile does the same, also superbly but using prose:
'The environmental movement is as promiscuous with its ‘ethics’ as it is with ‘The Science’. You can make stuff up, apparently, just so long as you do so in order to ‘save the planet’. And this is why sums as paltry and insignificant as $1,000 are so important to their perspective. It is only by amplifying the trivial that the myth of ‘networks’ of ‘well-funded deniers’ can be sustained. It’s only when you lose a sense of proportion that a few million dollars can stop global action on climate change. Trivia, vanity and mythology allows environmentalists to turn ordinary facts of politics – funding, associations of people, and campaigning organisations – into secret conspiracies to explain their own failure to create a popular movement.'


(hat/tips: Bishop Hill)

Those wealthy agencies may well turn on a sixpence as and when their political masters change tack.  They will continue to do as they are bid.  The glossy materials, the fancy websites, the PR machines, the outreach to the young - all of it could look the same from the distance, but, and here is the dream, one day the words will be different, the fearmongering will go, the manipulation, the condescension and the authoritarianism will vanish.  Proper science, respect for others - especially for the trust and vulnerability of the young - and a sense of calm perspective about what we know and don't know about the climate system will take their place, along with more respect for the great industrial achievements of the past and for our ability to rise to the challenges of the future.

And all on greatly reduced budgets!  There's the rub.  And there's the value for money in small outfits like the Heartland Institute.  I hope they do proceed with their climate materials for schools - they could scarcely fail to improve on some of the stuff out there, and they might just help with the long climb out of this pit of fear and smear we find ourselves in thanks to the political and financial power of people driven crazy by their phobia concerning CO2.

Who will help our schools push back on the Great CO2 Scare?

The offer to supply free to schools 300 copies of Ian Plimer's new book, 'How to get expelled from school', has been reiterated on Jo Nova's site.
 

Publisher

Jo writes:

 'The Education Department and the CSIRO push their propaganda and scare our children with apocalyptic, unscientific scenarios.  They are even trying to target pre-schoolers. The ABC has accepted grants from the Climate Change Foundation to work the Climate Change message into ‘DirtGirl’, an ABC4Kids TV. Then there are demonstrations of bias like this from a school in Sydney.

They’re trying to train the next generation to “think” their way. We’d be mad to let them get away with it.

Thanks to the Gallileo Movement and donors, 300 FREE copies of Professor Ian Pilmer’s new book ‘How to get expelled from school’, are available to schools in Australia' 

They require an official order from the schools, and this may be a problem.  If the schools are required to follow the government line on climate scaremongering, then obtaining such a book through official channels is not going to appeal to any head in search of a quiet life, nor is the book likely to be deployed in his or her classrooms.  I think they might be more successful in giving the books to teachers, and others in the education system, in their personal capacities.  It may be that the overthrow of the scaremongers will begin in staffrooms rather than classrooms.

But the idea is a good one.  Some schools, some heads, may be both willing and able to take a more independent view, at least for some classes who have either gone past relevant exams requiring conformance to the climate neurosis, or who have no intention of taking them.   I think as well as books, kits could be provided for physics classes to do their own greenhouse experiments and learn for themselves that the term is a misnomer - thereby undermining one of the emotive catchphrases of the scaremongers (exploiting the widespread experience of hot and unpleasant conditions in real greenhouses). Experiments showing the relatively large energies involved in the phase transitions of water would also be relevant as part of studies into the immense importance of the water cycle in the climate system.  What else?  New books, pamphlets, posters, DVD, and computer games and exercises - all the sorts of kit, in other words, deployed thanks to state funding by those who wish to scare the young into obedience, can be used by those who wish to liberate the young from such oppression and encourage them to think clearly for themselves.  There is great scope for generating enthusiasm, from the grand cosmic scope of the theories of Svensmark and Shaviv, to the great convective systems of the tropics, and the evaporation of a raindrop.  Even CO2 will deserve a mention as a minor player in climate but a major one for plants and indeed ourselves.  No need to scare 'em at all.

While climate alarmists wallow in the mud of their ugly subculture, a real climate scientist speaks out in London - Prof Lindzen, undermining crass climate curricula in schools the world over.

Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. 

It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. 

The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. 

The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. 

The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. 

They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

Professor Richard Lindzen introducing a lecture (pdf) he gave in Westminster on 22nd February, 2012, in response to an invitation from the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Act.  Video via Climate Realists.

Josh was there and captured insights and visual reminders in his gifted way:

Lindzen even managed to penetrate the smug assurance of someone at that home of sanctimonious superficial climate alarmism, the Independent:

Is catastrophic global warming, like the Millennium Bug, a mistake?

The educational implications of this are clear.  Here is perhaps the most distinguished scientifc meteorologist of our age.  His message is not the one our schools have been told to put out.

He is a moral and intellectual giant compared to the likes of Al Gore whose shoddy DVD was issued by the last government to all schools in England and Wales, or the likes of Peter Gleick, a vainglorious alarmist now being hoist by his own petard, or, another alarmist en route to a personal fortune, Dave Miliband, a leading member of that government whose Climate Change Act brings such shame and loss to British society.

Lindzen's core message is not new.  This is not a sudden revelation.  Leading climate scientists were saying it loud and clear to politicians 20 years ago, as the following statement, signed by Lindzen and many others, makes clear:

'February 27, 1992
WASHINGTON, D.C. - As independent scientists, researching atmospheric and climate problems, we are concerned by the agenda for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, being developed by environmental activist groups and certain political leaders. This so-called Earth Summit is scheduled to convene in Brazil in June 1992 and aims to impose a system of global environmental regulations, including onerous taxes on energy fuels, on the population of the United States and other industrialized nations.
Such policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action. We do not agree.
A survey of U.S. atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century. A recently published research paper even suggests that sunspot variability, rather than a rise in greenhouse gases, is responsible for the global temperature increases and decreases recorded since about 1880.
Furthermore, the majority of scientific participants in the survey agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record. Yet all predictions are based on such theoretical models.
Finally, agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.
We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science. We fear that the rush to impose global regulations will have catastrophic impacts on the world economy, on jobs, standards of living, and health care, with the most severe consequences falling upon developing countries and the poor.'

When it comes to cleaning the alarmist guff out of school curricula, one excuse that neither the politicians nor their tame educationalists who put those curricula together and forced them on to schools, will not have is 'we didn't know any better'.  They will also not have the excuse of 'only now has recent scientific knowledge suggested less cause for alarm'.  No, the real knowledge has never provided sufficient cause for alarm.  Never.  The alarm was and is based on speculation - hollow, flaky, insubstantial and promoted vigorously by grossly irresponsible people for a generation.

The Great CO2 Scare - has it run out of steam, will the scaremongering soon be driven out of our schools?

Generally, education and climate change is a gloomy overlap, given the apparent dominance of ruthless scaremongering about CO2 in curricula, and the apparent abundance of zealots all too keen to recruit the young for their peculiar cause.  A recruitment process that seems to involve scaring them about their future, then rubbishing their heritage of discovery and invention, and finally crippling their spirit of adventure, displacing it with obedience to elites who will tell them what they are permitted to do: eating, working, inventing, travelling, thinking, and even procreating.  The old socialist dream, in other words, of Stalin and Hitler and Mao and Pol Pot, and many other more minor dictators who besmirched the 20th century with their hideous behaviour.

But here are some signs of revolt, or of setbacks for alarmists, or at least of dawning realisation that all is not well with this scheme, or with its so-called scientific 'underpinnings'.  In no particular order:

(1) WIthin a month of deciding to support warped science-teaching in schools about climate, the NCSE have 'released' their prize catch of a distinguished climate alarmist from their board of directors, one Peter Gleick, a man driven to malevolent distraction by his vivid fears of armageddon.

(2) Judith Curry, a climate scientist who is not afraid of debate, and who clearly values the integrity and repuation of science in general and her subject in particular, has just started a new thread about teaching climate in schools on her site, and within 24 hours or so it had attracted several hundred comments.

(3) The Australian Climate Madness site has in the last couple of days posted several pieces on climate materials aimed at children, and it is not at all pleased with them - here and here and here.  Looks like that site may continue to pursue this topic.

(4) Andrew Bolt, and several other commentators in the mass media in Australia, have been impugned in a school geography textbook.  He doesn't like that much, and I daresay the others won't either.  Hopefully they will, as Bolt has done, make their displeasure widely known.

(5) Andrew Montford is the author of an outstanding book about an interface between climate science and politics, the Hockey Stick Illusion, and a man very concerned and knowledgeable about the activities and effects of key players in the headlong rush underway to make CO2 and 'climate' a dominant factor in policy making.    He has just given a talk at one of the UK Met Office sites.  This organisation was chosen as a next career choice by a man who played a large part in transforming the World Wildlife Fund into a lobbying body obsessed, even demented by 'climate change'.  In some ways, so is the Met Office - to its great demerit since its level of competence in climate forecasting is laughable, yet it has played an important role in making climate alarm respectable, not least through the influence of its former director John Houghton, who saw climate change and man's impact on it in a religous light.   Anyway, the meeting took place, and the first reports of it sound favourable.

(6) The Independent newspaper, like some other leftwing mass media in the UK, notably the Guardian and the BBC, has been prominent in campaigning and preaching about the dreadful effect of man-induced CO2 releases into the atmosphere.  Their evironmental reporters have been like missionaries seized with fervour as they spread the good words about how salvation will come from reducing something called our 'carbon footprint'.  Aided and abetted by rising taxes, reduced standards of living, and greater power to their preferredinstrument of all progress - the government.  Well, and this is admittedly small beer, yesterday on their website a writer was allowed to publish a sympathetic report about a public lecture on climate by Richard Lindzen, another man who clearly loves science and the pursuit of truth.  The penny seemed to have dropped for this writer that maybe, just maybe, the Great Co2 Scare has been overblown.

(7) The Royal Society's craven dance macabre with government over climate alarmism has been lucidly captured by the above-mentioned Andrew Montford in a short pamphlet which tells how recent leadership there has thrown away the splendid and  precious spirit of objectivity and indepence captured so vividly in their original motto, Nullius in Verba (pdf).  A previous mini-revolt by a few dozen fellows over the society's stance on climate may well be replicated a fortiori if this fine pamphlet helps foment some more unrest.  This matters a lot for schools, since educational materials and their pushers on the climate front have been able to quote the society as an authoritative source in an area of science education that is awfully dependent on reference to authority since actual observations of the climate system show nothing at all unusual going on in what we see or experience.

(8) Another big source of authority for scaring the wits out of children, the IPCC has been exposed as a shoddy organisation by Donna Laframboise, and the next reports due from it are already being attacked in their draft form by knowledgeable commentators - see here or here.

(9) In fact, the speed with which alarmist hyperbole is being jumped upon and exposed in the blogosphere is in general very encouraging, with groups such as the GWPF and SPPI and NIPCC and CO2Science doing sterling service with high quality analyses aimed at policy makers.  See here, for example, for an evisceration of the BBC's record (pdf) on climate alarmism, and here.  Or visit WUWT for regular features challenging the establishment view - a website by the way which recently went past over 100 milllion visits, by itself a good sign.

(10) New books are coming out that could well be used, or inspire, teachers and pupils to take a more robust line when it comes to dealing with those who would use their pupils as pawns in political schemes.  One in particular, Don't Sell Your Coat, is very accessible, being bright, brief, and extremely well-written. It also comes from an an author on the left of the political spectrum, the end at which it would seem that most teachers find themselves to be.

(11) And here's something I've been listening to with great admiration while finishing off this post: Matt Ridley talking to a 'tipping-point' conference recently.  Since 'tipping-point' is one of the catch-phrases used to scare the gullible, it is likely that his audience was mostly of true believers in the climate faith, the apocalyptic one  (h/t Bishop Hill) .  Teachers, I know you are constrained by state-imposed curricula, but could you at least share this in your staffrooms?

(12) Perhaps we are going to see an end to junk like this video clip below, introduced by one Ben Santer, famous for editing draft IPCC reports to suit his, rather than other scientists' more rational, views, and for being tempted  to 'beat the crap' out of another scientist who had the temerity to be wiser and more knowledgeable than him.  The only possibly encouraging thiing about this video, apart from its dire quality, is that comments on it have been switched off at YouTube, possibly because they were too angry:



And the snows of Kilimanjaro?  Well, they got that wrong too - they are not steadily disappearing.  And airborne CO2 emits just as much as it absorbs of infra-red - neither it nor methane is a 'trap' keeping that radiation from escaping to space.  Once high enough up, they will actually help that escape of energy to take place.

The false image of the earth behaving like a glass house will be laughed at one day in classrooms, as will the idea of CO2 as a pollutant, while the youngsters learn a little of this crazy era of CO2-driven political madness say, c. 1980 to 2020, in which gullible politicians were led to believe they could control the very weather by raising taxes, and when little children were coached as activists to encourage such beliefs.  That end date may be on the optimistic side, but I think it is not out of the question.