CO2 Frightens Children and Adults thanks to Propaganda - why not help resist it?

The decades of propaganda about a modest, beneficial increase in estimated global mean temperature portrayed as a threat, sometimes as a catastrophic one, has taken its toll of politicians, teachers, and children.  The associated assertion that this increase is mainly due to our emissions of CO2 has allowed campaigners to threaten not just our mental health, but also our physical well-being.

Yet the case for alarm is a flimsy one.

A long road lies ahead of us who want to help the victims of the scaremongering, and help them and those who exploit them gain a more reasonable, calmer view of climate variation and its multiple causes.  Anyone who wants to do this needs to get well-informed about the climate system, and no doubt this seems like an impossible task to many.  But non-specialists can get informed enough to raise good questions, recognise decent replies, and discuss policy implications.

Just published on WUWT is an excellent essay triggered by yet another book on the climate scare written by victims of it.  The essay has many valuable insights and many useful links to help the reader investigate further.  I commend it to all those who come this way and want to get better informed.  Here are a couple of extracts from the essay to whet your appetites:

(Extract 1) "I served in the Air Force as a weather officer from 1953–1957, earned my Ph.D. in meteorology from Florida State University, joined the National Hurricane Center in 1961, where I served for 25 years and was Director from 1974–1987 (the longest term of any Director), then served as chief meteorologist for the CBS TV affiliate in Houston until my retirement in 2008—a retirement during which I have continued and even expanded my studies of global climate change.

I have been following the global warming debate for almost 25 years. During that time I have metamorphosed from a mild believer in the 1980s and 1990s to a very strong skeptic. My journey is typical of a number of skeptics."

(Extract 2) "What can we conclude? The relationship between CO2 and the earth’s temperature is poor on all time scales from ice ages (100,000 years) to interglacial periods (10,000 years) to short periods of a few centuries or even decades.

Another way we can evaluate the impact CO2 has on the earth’s temperature is to examine the forecasts produced by climate models. All of the climate models have a built-in relation between CO2 and the earth’s temperature that was determined by the observations made in the 1980s–1990s. During that time, the earth’s temperature was rising and the CO2 levels were accelerating upward. Since the CO2 levels were correctly projected to continue upward in the future (see the table above), and since the modelers’ underlying theory was that the rise in CO2 had driven the rise in temperature, it is not surprising that the models forecast continued warming.

If the CO2/temperature relation built into the models is correct, then the models should make accurate forecasts. Numerous tests of the models have been conducted. In one test of over 100 model runs, every one failed. In every case the temperatures forecast by the models were much too warm. Dr. John Christy (who in addition to being a prominent climate scientist is, like Paul Douglas, an evangelical Christian), testified on Feb. 2, 2015, before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and technology that on average “the models overwarm by a factor of 2.5.” "

(Extract 3) "Those promoting manmade global warming:

1. Controlled the meteorology and climatology journals in the U.S.;
2. Controlled non-meteorological science publication (Nature, Science, etc.);
3. Controlled Wikipedia;
4. Manipulated data;
5. Demonized skeptics.

Papers by skeptics were blackballed and not published in U.S. professional journals. In contrast, Kenneth Richard has documented over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers published in Europe and Asia in 2014, 2015, and 2016 that challenge the hypothesis that CO2 has been the primary driver of recent global warming (and other aspects of the bogus “consensus”) and support solar, oceanic, and other natural cycles as the primary causes of global warming, but they are not found in the U.S. publications.

Let me introduce you to a number of credible skeptics. In 2013 Forbes Magazine surveyedover 1077 earth scientists and found 64% believed global warming was from natural causes.

In 2013, 49 retired astronauts and senior NASA scientists wrote a scathing letter to the Administrator of NASA challenging NASA’s position on global warming.

In recent years a growing number of global warming believers have become skeptics."

Not long after pressing the Publish button for the above, I came across another highly accessible, and brief, essay about the climate system and CO2: https://defyccc.com/brief-summary-of-science-for-the-climate-debate/

I hope readers will study the essays at these links, and conclude that they too can, if they so wish, begin to get to grips with this issue, and thereby become less vulnerable to CO2-alarm propaganda themselves, and feel able to get to a position where they can help those who are victims of it.

Note added 09 Feb 2017.  Yesterday I came across yet another accessible and powerful essay by a Dutch science writer who has been studying the climate scene for many years.  This essay is another 'keeper', wide-ranging and full of penetrating insights and supporting links.  One key conclusion of his: 'Keep a cool head – there is time to think.'

http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/08/dutch-expert-with-trump-in-office-now-safe-to-expose-the-many-myths-of-climate-alarmism/

Merry Christmas!

Here is a splendid, over-the-top production of the carol 'Twelve Days of Christmas'.  In the Albert Hall in London some years ago.  Huge enjoyment all round, and superb singing from the stage.

Pop-Bottle Pseudo-Science for Climate-Scaremongering in the Classroom

The use of misleading experiments with glass boxes, jars or pop bottles in classrooms has been happening for a while: ' The experiment as presented by Al Gore and Bill Nye “the science guy” is a failure, and not representative of the greenhouse effect related to CO2 in our atmosphere. '

One correspondent to a Canadian web-based news magazine recently reacted to this sort of insidious nonsense with a powerful letter. Reproduced below from 'My Kawartha.com' :

Pop bottle science ‘grossly exaggerates’ CO2

Kawartha Lakes This Week

To the editor:

Re: pop bottle science. One of the half dozen ways in which the proponents of what is increasingly known worldwide as “the global warming hoax” violate the basic fundamentals of scientific procedure is the selective manipulation and distortion of basic data.

The recent letter succeeds in providing a most graphic example of such blatant violation.

The writer refers to a so-called “science class experiment” in which a comparison of heat retention is supposedly demonstrated with pop bottles. He conveniently omitted the fact that the concentration of pure CO2 was 2,500 times higher than in the atmosphere.

Since the molecular weight of CO2 is approximately 50 per cent higher than that of the components of air, the single CO2 molecule within the other 2,500 molecules in air would have a tendency to absorb more heat, but to an overall negligible effect.

The use of pure CO2 in the CO2 pop bottle therefore exaggerates the heat retention effect of the CO2 by 2,500 times.

 I find this intentional attempt to grossly exaggerate the effect of CO2 to be appalling and disgraceful. It is disturbing that such deceitful measures are actually used in classrooms

This leads me to have serious questions regarding the ethics of any teachers agreeing to such practises, as well as all global warming alarmists in general. Snider suggests that this farcical “experiment” should be performed in local schools. I would hope that our local teachers place a higher value on ethics and respect for their students.

James Lindsay

WELL DONE MR LINDSAY!

Here is more criticism of such experiments from Roy Spencer: 'So, science teachers beware. Those greenhouse effect experiments are junk. Do not try them at home.'

An academic shredding of misleading classroom experiments purporting to demonstrate the so-called greenhouse effect is given here:  http://rtobin.phy.tufts.edu/Wagoner%20AJP%202010.pdf

Meanwhile, in the adult world of politics, I see this encouraging headline:

'Public turning against climate alarmists as more evidence of fraud emerges'

Here's hoping this will happen in our schools as well. 

New Hope in the Hustle for Children of the CO2 Scare

Dramatic, widespread, and influential scaremongering about our impact on the environment has been a feature of life as reflected in the mass media since the 1960s. But of the scares, all of which have turned out to be false alarms or grossly exaggerated, the one about airborne carbon dioxide (CO2) has been the most sustained and the most damaging to societies around the world. One class of victim has been children exposed to adults who have seen them as potential recruits for political and lifestyle campaigns, and who have seen fit to scare them first to get their attention. This is a known brainwashing technique, and is followed by distancing the victim from their usual sources of support and guidance. In the case of children, that is their parents. The children are told those parents are destroying the world and must be stopped if they wish to have a future. In the UK, and elsewhere, by government fiat, schools had to show the ludicrous and vivid propaganda movie called 'An Inconvenient Truth', ameliorated slightly in England & Wales by a court ruling that nine of the most egregious sections had to be highlighted by teachers as politically-loaded opinion rather than fact.

Now nearly ten years later, a possible antidote-movie has been released. It is called 'Climate Hustle' and months have gone by in which tantalising promotions have been made for it, with showings only for a lucky few.  At long last, in Canada and the USA, it has been shown to the public - on the 2^nd of May.  That public launch seems to have been very successful: 

'Meanwhile the people who turned out Monday night to see Climate Hustle at the movies continue to report how delighted they are with the film.

It appears that on Monday Climate Hustle was the number six movie in the nation. When you consider that Hustle was going up against Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Jungle Book,My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and Barbershop: The Next Cut, this is huge. Those other films were in thousands more theaters around the country with multiple show times throughout the night.'

Someone in Montana recorded for YouTube some comments from members of the public before and after the showing in the city of Kalispell. Here is a short, 52 seconds, extract from that which is most relevant to this blog, showing as it does a young woman who has been greatly helped by the movie in confirming the one-sided nature of her schooling about climate.

Sometimes children were lied to (see for example 'Why Are They Lying to Our Children') for dramatic effect, but probably more commonly they were 'merely' fed a rather narrow view of our current knowledge (see for example 'Facts, Not Fear'), a view supporting alarm. Thus reductions in Arctic sea ice may be highlighted, but no mention made of increases in the Antarctic or of previous large variations. Threats to agriculture can be made vivid without mentioning that crop yields have been increasing for a long time. Recent rises in sea level can be bigged-up without mentioning that overall sea level rising trends have been quite steady for the past 150 years or more. And so it goes – find something scary, describe it well, and stop. Thus wave after wave of children may have been seriously misled. Andrew Montford and I drew attention to this, and called for an official enquiry to get an improved estimate of the extent of this problem in the UK (see 'Climate Control: Brainwashing in Schools').

If the movie is as good as I strongly suspect it is, here's hoping it will soon be widely available on DVD or download so that caring teachers can get it into their classrooms, and caring parents bring it into their homes to help current pupils, and those who have recently left school.  It will also, I hope, be a useful resource for all who care about the well-being of adults who have been misled by eco-alarmism in their schooldays, or from the mass media even now.  It would be a grand thing to suggest they watch a movie which will give them a good laugh while at the same time encouraging a calmer perspective on what we know about the causes of climate variation.  More details of the movie can be found here: http://www.climatehustlemovie.com/

Earth Interview: something for the classroom, or the kitchen, wall?

Source: Bishop Hill

Readers here will enjoy the cartoon - another fine one by Josh (http://cartoonsbyjosh.com/)

It could also help your children realise what a one-sided view the mass media has been deliberately promoting (the BBC for example) , and that by itself could help them cope better with stress from the alarmism that has been pushed at them all their lives.  And perhaps encourage some to look into it for themselves - the best way to reduce their anxiety.

Some backround reading: 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/27/nasa-carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/23073-new-study-higher-co2-levels-promote-leaf-growth
From the latter:

In an interview with The New American after his presentation, Carter made a statement that supported the findings of the newly released “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers” study: The CO2 added to the atmosphere in recent decades has been responsible for a tremendous greening of the planet. “That’s a huge environmental benefit,” he said, adding that much of the greening had occurred along arid areas such as the Sahara Desert. “If you talk to most scientists, they will acknowledge that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” explained Dr. Carter. “Indeed, it’s grotesque to call it a pollutant. It’s an abuse of logic, it’s an abuse of language, and it's an abuse of science.... Carbon dioxide is literally the stuff of life.”