Greta Thunberg is a poor role model for children on climate and on politics

A disturbed youngster, a school drop-out, a low-information climate pundit, misled by climate misinformation fed to her by a teacher, and who wishes to wreck advanced societies and cripple the prospects of developing ones.  She needs help from compassionate people, and the exploitation of her by climate zealots should cease immediately to give her a better chance of a calmer life.

In Australia, though, someone posted a fake curriculum item calling for pupils to emulate her.  This was in New South Wales, where they have some previous in agitprop for children:

'The NSW school system was heavily criticised last year during the so-called Climate Strike for allowing climate activists to indoctrinate impressionable young children.

Thousands of school children truanted school to take part in the Climate Strike street protests.

One father pulled his son out of a state primary school in Bilambil, northern NSW, at the time after he was asked to 'dress like a hippy' by his teacher.

Matt Karlos, 38, took his 10-year-old son Max out, saying the teachers were making the kids terrified for the future and scaring them with climate change.

'The ideologies were in his face all the time,' Mr Karlos said.

In September, Alan Jones accused teachers of brainwashing vulnerable children. 

The former 2GB radio host pointed to a report which claimed children under the age of 10 were experiencing anxiety from the climate change debate.

'Young people are going to be concerned, they believe their teachers, they actually think that they're at school and what they're being told is true,' he said. 

'The notion of using children in all of this is scandalous and the politics of climate change has become poisonous.'

One small mercy here is that the NSW Education Department has taken down the offending material

'A spokesman from the NSW Education Department said they would investigate how the Thunberg lesson plans made it onto the official website.

'This web page was published without approval. We will have the web page taken down and reviewed,' he said. '

Note added later on 17 June  James Delingpole has spotted an interesting thing about the NSW Education Department's response:
'However, the NSW Education Department clearly wasn’t that concerned about feeding primary school children naked green propaganda, for the lesson plans were up on its website for nine months. It only took them down after concerns were raised by the newspaper.'

That newspaper is the Australian 'Daily Telegraph'

What we are up against in schools: a GCSE study guide on climate is brainwashing propaganda

'The whole chapter reads as little more than a propaganda sheet, filled with inaccuracies, half truths, emotive slogans, subliminal messages and a total lack of historical perspective.'

Paul Homewood has just reviewed a GCSE Study Guide used in Wales at least for the period 2010 to 2015.  He is not impressed by the section on climate change - see the above quote.  Extract:

'Just to pick up on a few points:

1) They mention the retreat of glaciers over the last 150 years, yet there is no mention at all of the Little Ice Age, or the fact that the very same glaciers expanded massively during that era.

Ironically, the chapter unwittingly contradicts itself on the final page, when it shows graphs for global temperatures and CO2 – note how CO2 levels began increasing from 1860, yet temperatures only began rising after 1900. Also the rise from then until 1940 was comparable to recent decades, despite the rise in CO2 being much smaller then. This of course suggests that simply blaming warming on CO2 is over simplistic.

2) They claim that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. There is zero evidence to support this claim, as even the IPCC accept. In particular, the reference to increase in tropical storms is without foundation.

3) The claim that the UK has experienced some of the wettest, windiest and driest weather is also contradicted by the data. Indeed, as far as the last two are concerned the opposite is the case.

4) They claim that CO2 levels have never been as high as they are now. This is quite an astonishing claim, given that they have been much higher than now for most of the Earth’s history.

5) The next section called “What are the alternative futures”, is nothing more than an indulgence in scaremongering, with little basis in fact. Encouraging kids to imagine apocalyptic futures is not education.

6) Then we come to the case study in sea levels. Notice how they have gone from the previous claim of “up to 1 metre” to a map drawn at 5 metres above sea level.

7) If that lot was not bad enough, we finish with the spider diagram, specifically intended to get children to imagine the likely impacts of global warming.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, mass extinctions, plague, Greenland melting, nuclear war, refugees. Note also the subliminal messaging – Stern Report and Act Now.

Whoever has written this guide clearly has little knowledge about the subject, and has simply picked up a few talking points and applied a large dose of alarmism.'

As Paul notes at the end of his post, this sort of material can be used to brainwash young minds.  As he says, 'It is little wonder that the younger generation have become so paranoid about climate change.'

We must hope that one day, a great many parents will be able to refute such materials as and when they come across them, and be able to reassure their children that there are no grounds for alarm.  And that they may go on to request that their children's school drop such materials forthwith.  

Get prepared to deprogram your kids from climate scare ideology every day after school

'Be prepared to budget some extra time in your already busy day to deprogram your kids when they come home from school, unless you spend a lot of money for private education and home schooling.'

This is a sensible response from a New Jersey radio station talkshow host called Dennis Malloy to the news that New Jersey is going to push 'climate crisis' into early schooling, beginning in kindergarten.

Thank goodness for some sanity in the face of this still escalating madness as reported by CNN:

'(CNN)New Jersey students will start learning about climate change in kindergarten and keep studying the crisis through graduation

 under the state's new education standards.

The State Board of Education adopted the new guidelines on Wednesday --which outline what will be taught to New Jersey's 1.4 million students.

Greta Thunberg: 'Our actions can be the difference between life and death for many others'

It's the first state to include climate change education in it's K-12 learning standards, officials said in a statement.

New Jersey's first lady Tammy Murphy pushed for the new standards and met with 130 educators statewide.'

Marc Morano has a special report on this sorry development at his blog Climate Depot.  This includes a succinct reaction from Tom Nelson:

'Crazy bullshit: "New Jersey's first lady Tammy Murphy pushed for the new standards".

She says kids need to "understand the climate crisis", which is completely imaginary.'

Tammy Murphy gets to feel good, the kids get to feel bad.  Not a good deal.  Parents everywhere should take heed, and get prepared to protect their children from the fatuous, ideologically-driven eco-scaremongering that others want to impose on them.

Relentlessly misleading the young: CO2 Scare campaigners send propaganda to parents during lockdown

Paul Homewood's blog 'Notalotofpeopleknowthat' has exposed some shocking materials sent to  a parent in England for use in homeschooling their children on Earth Day.  This may well be a glimpse into the kind of junk being fed to our children week after week when they attend their schools.  The lockdown has helped bring this out for adult review, and it does not look good.

Here is one of the Powerpoint slides provided in the materials:

'Global warming isn't good for our Earth'  Since when has that been true during the Holocene?  Warmer periods have generally been far preferable to cooler ones, and not just for people.  Most forms of life thrive in warmer rather than cooler conditions, and more warmth means more moisture can be carried in the air.  The gentle warming of the last 150 years or so has taken us out of the Little Ice Age, and closer to the more congenial temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period, and the Roman Climate Optimum.  Here is a 2018 post which provides some background on this:   https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/the-holocene-climate-optimum/

'It means that ice is starting to melt in the Antarctic and this could cause floods in other parts of the world.'   Just starting to melt is it?  What kind of a misleading impression does that sentence make on a 7-year old (the apparent target age group)?  Here is an overview reflecting some of the complexities of climate and ice accumulation in that continent:   http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-mass-balance/ , and how it was warmer there in the Medieval Warm Period: https://notrickszone.com/2019/07/06/medieval-climate-anomaly-now-confirmed-in-southern-hemisphere-on-all-four-continents/.  And with examples of  'Unfortunately, the media would rather scare the public to promote a climate crisis, than honestly educate them about the causes of natural climate variability.':   https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/09/medias-horribly-dishonest-antarctica-propaganda/  [taken from this archive at WUWT]

The stuff on turtles and the so-called 'Fact' about developing countries are left as exercises for the reader to pursue.

Read the Blog Post for more details
See the blog post at:    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/climate-change-propaganda-for-7-year-olds/
for more extracts from the materials, a link to the entire Powerpoint presentation, and for these concluding words:

'The whole thing is nothing but pure propaganda. It most certainly is not factual, nor does it explain to kids the real implications of the policies proposed by the likes of Greta.

Indeed, the suggestions of “how we can help” are infantile and risk making children think think that is all they need to do.

They may be seven year olds, but they should be treated with more respect and honesty.

I don’t know who produced this presentation or if it is officially approved. If anyone has any more info, please let me know.'

Please get in touch (send a comment at his blog) with Paul if you have 'more info'.  Pushing 'nothing but pure propaganda' at young children is a disgraceful thing to do, and the more we know about where it is coming from the better.

Note added 30 April 2020
See the lively comments at the blogpost.  Commenter 'Joe Public' has tracked the distributor of the above material to a UK outfit called Twinkl.  This seems to be a very successful provider of materials for teachers around the world.  It was started at home by one couple in England in 2010 and has grown into a big business, with a subscription service for the materials, and a long list of sponsors or partners.  That's an impressive achievement.  But such a pity that the example above of their climate materials is so dire and damaging to young minds.  Here is a link to this 'Earth Day' propaganda:   https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/earth-day-differentiated-reading-comprehension-activity-t2-e-5247  Note that it comes under the heading of 'English Activities'.  As Andrew Montford and I noted some years ago, no area of the school curriculum seems safe from such political infiltration.

Re the Antarctic 'starting to melt', here is another recent post, from 3 days ago, with lots of useful info:
https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/27/no-antarctica-is-not-rapidly-melting/

Poor Old Scotland: compulsory climate propaganda for students is being mooted

Mandatory climate change classes plan for Scottish leaders

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18404742.mandatory-climate-change-classes-plan-scottish-leaders/  (hat-tip: https://www.samizdata.net/2020/04/the-return-of-the-test-acts/)

The joys of controlling everyone's behaviour during the virus lockdown has gone to their heads:

' The man behind the idea, RSGS chief executive Mike Robinson, said a number of business leaders have already committed to undertake the course along with the Scottish Government, with further discussions to ensure new university students and MSPs can take part well-underway.'

What is the 'idea'?  Well, nothing less than a mandatory course on climate panic propaganda for every university student who wishes to graduate, and for other people too:

'MSPs, busineess leaders and newly enrolled university students may be asked to take mandatory climate change studies if plans currently under consideration are adopted.

The studies would help arm them with facts and knowledge to make urgent changes to society as it emerges from COVID-19 lockdown. The Scottish Government has already committed to enrolling at least 100 senior officials to the Climate Solutions course.'

The RSGS is the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and its leader Mike Robinson seems to be a a kind of grown-up version of Greta Thurnberg.  Here he is in 2019:

'We will need to waste less, drive less, fly less, use renewable electricity and heat, use electric cars and trains, buy less tat, eat differently and repair and restore materials more than we do. We will need to remind ourselves of the value of community, society, environment, nature and place, and record more than just GDP. And we will urgently need to start building the future we want – properly creating houses, businesses, infrastructure that we need for a net zero carbon life, and not settling for the cheapest, least imaginative versions which are out of date before they are built and will look ridiculous in 10, 20, or 30 years’ time.  In short, we need to start treating this Climate Emergency like an emergency. And having these targets now in place is a welcome and significant first step.'

(source: https://www.rsgs.org/blog/taking-a-step-in-the-right-direction)

In other words, a radical who wants to wreck our society.  And based on what?  The flimsy conjecture that our CO2 emissions are doing what CO2 has never done before and dominating the climate system.  Not a plausible claim, and nor is it being supported by observations.  The climate system is behaving just as it might if our actions are of minor importance on the global scale.

It is some consolation that the comments below the Herald article are almost all hostile to the proposal.  So far.  The legions of the faithful will no doubt be being mobilised to change that.

It is also a consolation that genuine science research continues to undermine the case for such alarm over our emissions.  Readers are urged to check our these recent posts:

https://notrickszone.com/2020/04/27/new-northern-hemisphere-temperature-reconstructions-are-devoid-of-michael-mann-like-hockey-sticks/

https://notrickszone.com/2020/04/26/new-video-by-german-geologist-casts-doubt-over-exclusively-man-made-global-warming/

And on the third-rate advice that is so easily cobbled together on climate, and so easily refuted:

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/04/24/four-twenty-sevens-error-strewn-report/

Sadly, it seems likely that the Scottish government will continue to support this shameful proposal to undermine what tertiary education should stand for, and furthermore that this kind of authoritarianism will in due course serve to make climate teaching in high schools even worse.  

Parents can not rely on schools to give a balanced perspective on climate variation, and to avoid needlessly scaring children and undermining their future.  Parents will have to look elsewhere.