This should scare 'em - life underwater, War of the Worlds, floods, damaged planet

How long are the good people of England going to tolerate the pushing of this ignorant and frightening nonsense on to their children?

'Climate change forms the focus for South Hill Park’s Big Day Out on Saturday.....

The theme sees the festival imagine what the world would be like if we lived underwater and as part of this, Reading’s Global Café will present its take on the topic while a children’s procession at 5.30pm will feature a large crustacean created by their own hands. It will be inspired by H G Wells’ War Of The Worlds.

There will also be a special performance by Sound Interventions, who will present Drift, an outdoor show which imagines, in an abstract way, what our environmental crimes might soon be doing to planet earth.

Drift will be a procession staged on top of a flood, will use recycled instruments and include a fire show....

There’s a strong family focus to the event, especially during daylight hours, with the festival’s daytime activities climaxing in a children’s parade at 5.30pm.'

See: http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/entertainment/days_out/s/2073907_are_you_ready_to_enjoy_bracknells_big_day_out 

Hat tip: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/

Why Would You Believe This? (3 of 8): '[because of rising CO2] Hundreds of millions of people may not have enough water. Floods, heat waves and droughts may affect millions more. The ensuing migration could make the world a very unstable place.'

Contentious chunk number 3, from the reasons given as to why we should be worried about climate change caused by humans, and why we should ensure our children are worried too - according to a now defunct site promoting Schools' Low Carbon Day (1).  I want to continue with this Fisking to provide a coverage which may be of wider interest.

'Hundreds of millions of people may not have enough water. Floods, heat waves and droughts may affect millions more. The ensuing migration could make the world a very unstable place.'

This is blatant and shameless scaremongering.  The cautious verbs 'may' (twice) and 'could' (once) provide the authors with some protection from total ridicule.  It has long been the case that these calamities 'may be true', or 'could happen'.  And of course, we know for sure that there will be people 'short of water', that there will be 'floods, heatwaves, and droughts', and that there have been already substantial migrations and there may well be more.

Despite the frail, or completely lacking, justification for their views, campaigners under the banner of 'agw' or 'climate change, have had a substantial influence and are intent on entrenching this in society by indoctrinating children.  We must therefore take these campaigners seriously - indeed they have already done serious harm around the world: to children and to vulnerable adults, to the poor and hungry, to the environment, to science, to politics, and to technology.

Here they want to scare children with three things: floods, heat waves, and droughts.  As is usual with environmental scare stories, a search of the literature will soon reveal major flaws in the reasoning.  For the examples below, I have taken reports from the 'Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change' which exists to: 'disseminate factual reports and sound commentary on new developments in the world-wide scientific quest to determine the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content.'  See (2).

FLOODS: for more examples, see (3).
Example of scientific study
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N1/C2.php
What was learned
'In describing the results of their analyses, Mudelsee et al. report finding, for both the Elbe and Oder rivers, "no significant trends in summer flood risk in the twentieth century," but "significant downward trends in winter flood risk during the twentieth century," which phenomenon -- "a reduced winter flood risk during the instrumental period" -- they specifically describe as "a response to regional warming." '
What it means
The results of this study provide no support for the IPCC "concern" that CO2-induced warming will add to the risk of river flooding in Europe.  If anything, they suggest just the opposite.'

HEAT WAVES: for more examples, see (4).
Example of scientific study
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V10/N24/C1.php
What was learned
'Because of the fact that depletion of soil moisture (which has long been predicted to accompany CO2-induced global warming) results in reduced latent cooling, Fischer et al. found that during all simulated heat wave events, "soil moisture-temperature interactions increase the heat wave duration and account for typically 50-80% of the number of hot summer days," noting that "the largest impact is found for daily maximum temperatures," which were amplified by as much as 2-3°C in response to observed soil moisture deficits in their study....'
What it means
'....In light of these complementary global soil moisture and river runoff observations, it would appear that the anti-transpiration effect of the historical rise in the air's CO2 content has more than compensated for the soil-drying effect of concomitant global warming; and this observation brings us to the ultimate point of our Journal Review. Based upon (1) the findings of Fischer et al. (2007) that soil moisture depletion greatly augments both the intensity and duration of summer heat waves, plus (2) the findings of Robock et al. (2000, 2005) and Li et al. (2007) that global soil moisture has actually increased over the past half century, likely as a result of the anti-transpiration effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment - as Gedney et al. (2006) have also found to be the case with closely associated river runoff - it directly follows that the increase in soil moisture caused by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will tend to decrease both the intensity and duration of summer heat waves as time progresses.'

DROUGHT: for more examples, see (5).
Example of scientific study
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V9/N37/C1.php
What was learned
'In the words of the two researchers, "droughts have, for the most part, become [1] shorter, [2] less frequent, [3] less severe, and [4] cover a smaller portion of the country over the last century." '
What it means
'It would seem to be nigh unto impossible to contemplate a more stunning rebuke of climate-alarmist claims concerning global warming and drought than that provided by this study of the United States. And as evidenced by the many materials archived under Drought in our Subject Index, much the same findings are being reported all around the world.'

I will give examples for Asia and Africa in the next {but one] post of this series, but for now I want to end with some general points.

In relatively warm periods, such as the Roman one, and the Medieval Warm period, and our current one, humanity and the rest of nature thrived.  A cool period would be worse than a warm one for both. There is little doubt that the end of our mostly very pleasant interglacial is due within a few thousand years, and that if there is to be a credible climate-related mass migration, it will be such as the evacuation of Northern Europe - a process which would begin as soon as the winter snows fail to melt in the summer - for the ice sheets will not slide slowly down from the north, they will grow on the spot through successive winters.  There is no indication that this will happen soon.  But, as and when it does, the wealthier we are, the more technologically advanced we are, the better educated we are, the more chance that it will be handled in a competent and humane fashion.  Scaring children about heat and CO2, rubbishing real scientists trying to accumulate real knowledge instead of toeing a political line, denigrating technology, crippling our lowest cost sources of energy, and promoting guilt, fear, and ignorance in the young - none of that will help - they merely disrupt progress and cause harm.

References
(1) http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2010/06/schools-low-carbon-day-concerned.html
(2) http://www.co2science.org/index.php
(3) http://www.co2science.org/subject/f/subject_f.php.
(4) http://www.co2science.org/subject/h/heatwaves.php
(5) http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/subject_d.php

Primary school forced to turn off wind turbine after bird deaths

I imagined it went a bit like this:

(1) We believed you when you said CO2 was a threat, and windmills part of the answer.

(2) We believed you when you said children in primary schools should be told of climate threats.

(3) We believed you when you said our windturbine would kill only one bird a year.

But then reality started to intrude.  14 dead birds in six months.  Headteacher coming in early to clean them up before the children arrived.  Children being upset by birds killed during the school day.  And, at last:

Windturbine shut down.

Now perhaps the teachers, having seen (3) was a lie, will review what they have done on (2), and that will surely take them into (1) and the dawn of a shocking realisation: humanity's CO2 has a negligible effect on climate, but it does benefit plants, and thus in due course, insects, birds, bees, herbivores, and people.

Story of the turbine here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/7870929/Primary-school-forced-to-turn-off-wind-turbine-after-bird-deaths.html

Some pathos here:

We've tried so hard to be eco-friendly but now we can't turn it on.

"We can't get rid of it either because we bought the turbine we had to apply for grants and the grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change states that it has to stay on site for five years."

This tiny turbine only wasted £20,000, killed 14 birds, and disturbed perhaps a few dozen children.  And it is hard to get rid of.  Scale this up to the UK's national programme of massive subsidies for windfarms.....Looking to the future of these, Dreadnought's poem comes to mind:

I met a traveller from a distant shire
Who said: A vast and pointless shaft of steel
Stands on a hill top… Near it, in the mire,
Half sunk, a shattered turbine lies, whose wheels
And riven blades and snarls of coloured wire
Tell that its owners well their mission read
Which did not last nor, nowhere to be seen,
The hand that paid them and the empty head.
And scrawled around the base these lines are clear:
‘My name is Milibandias, greenest Green.
Look on my works, ye doubters, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round this display
Of reckless cost and loss, blotless and fair,
The green and pleasant landscape rolls away.

Source: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/9/millibandias.html

Note: Ed Miliband was an energy secretary in the previous government of the UK, and a prominent climate alarmist.

Note added 7 October 2011: Another school in England loses its turbine, and nearly some of its pupils: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/06/wind-turbine-fail-school-left-holding-the-bag-for-53000/

Note added 14 March 2012: a windfarm in the States may shut down at night because of a dead bat - post at Bishop Hill.  A comment on this post also gives a local newspaper link for the above story: http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/localnews/8252862.Portland_school_turns_off_wind_turbine_to_halt_seabird_slaughter/

'Meghan Cox Gurdon: Leaving the lights on won't kill a polar bear' - a journalist reacts to adult hysteria reaching children

Extract from a piece today in the Washington Examiner (hat tip:http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/) :

'Two small girls appeared in the kitchen. One of them looked vexed; the other looked worried.

"Can you please tell her that global warming isn't real?" asked the exasperated party.

Through my mind swept a series of possible responses. They ranged from the instinctive ("People are suffering from hysteria."), to the equivocal ("Many believe it's real and many do not."), to the blandly reassuring, ("Sweetheart, it's not something you need to worry about.").

"Why do you ask?" I punted.

"Someone told her that if she leaves a light on, a polar bear would die."

Blandness and equivocation disappeared.

"Nonsense," I told the child. "Grown-ups are investigating global warming and arguing about it. The one thing I can tell you is that you shouldn't be afraid to turn the lights on. It's not going to affect a polar bear either way." '

Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Leaving-the-lights-on-won_t-kill-a-polar-bear/article/12489



The article concludes (my emphasis added):

'Put aside the debate over climate science for a moment. These are adult matters, or at least they should be. It's iniquitous for grown-ups -- who themselves are roiled over the subject -- to transfer their anxieties to children who are too young to wrap their minds around the issues, let alone "save" the Earth.

It's unfair. Ultimately, it may also redound to the environmental movement's disadvantage. For just as children discover that there is no Santa Claus and no tooth fairy, they'll eventually stumble on the statistics indicating that the world hasn't warmed appreciably for a decade. In other words, today's 8-year-olds may grow up to discover that the guilt and fear perpetuated upon them in childhood were based mostly on vapor, on adult hysteria. We ought to protect them from that, at least.'

Amen to that.  Oh for ten thousand times ten thousand of articles like this one to be published!

Schools' Low Carbon Day - illegal here, illegal in Germany, illegal everywhere?

The now 'disappeared' Schools' Low Carbon Day (1) may be an example of an illegal intervention in schools, one forbidden by the Education Act of 1996.  This same act led to a legal decision awarded against Albert Gore's film 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2):

'The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock.  The Court found that the film was misleading in nine respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.  In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.'

Another political party in the UK, UKIP, has recently suggested that Schools' Low Carbon Day may also be illegal (3):

'The event, held on June 24, focuses on teaching children how to reduce their carbon footprint in the interests of stopping global warming and even encourages schoolchildren to drink less milk because cows produce greenhouse gases.
UKIP’s joint deputy leader said: “The notion that environmental pressure groups disguised as concerned parents should infiltrate 1,600 schools with a political propaganda message dressed up as scientific concern for the planet is contrary to the provision of the education acts, which forbid political activity in schools.
“It is now apparent that global warming is not happening at the predicted rate and it is now increasingly understood among scientists that the rapid but not unprecedented rate of warming from 1976 to 2001 was chiefly of natural and not of human origin.
“Even if the UN‘s alarmist and wildly exaggerated estimates on the warming effect of co2 are correct, shutting the global economy down completely for half a century would do no more than prevent less than 1°C of warming – at a hideous cost not only to human lives worldwide but also to the environment itself.”


I noted that on the now defunct website, Greg Clarke MP, former Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change was quoted as supporting the initiative:
'It is our children and grandchildren that will be most affected by climate change. We have a duty to equip them to deal with the challenges that it presents, and ‘Schools' Low Carbon Day’ works towards this goal.'


Breaking another law, several sites described the people behind Low Carbon Day, 'Mothers Against Climate Change', or 'Cool the World', as a 'registered charity', which it is not.  Here are the sites:

http://www.healthypages.co.uk/newsitem.php?news=6265
http://ethicalandgreen.com/2010/03/29/schools-low-carbon-day/
http://naturalmatters.net/news-view.asp?news=4151
http://www.ukteachersforums.co.uk/archive/index.php?t-420417.html
http://www.newportlearn.net/caerleon/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=152
http://breastfeedingmums.typepad.com/breastfeedingmums_blog/2010/03/schools-low-carbon-day-launches-to-educate-1-million-children-about-climate-change-.html
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/510/Schools-Low-Carbon-Day.html


 
Here is a school which seems to have taken part.
http://www.wolverley.worcs.sch.uk/2010/06/21/low-carbon-week-21st-25th-june/

Meanwhile, in Germany it is also illegal to engage in political indoctrination in schools.  Here are two examples (4):


In Germany departments of education in all states have their schools spread the message that the country is endangered by “climate change”. So a documentary of Report München (a political magazine in a public German TV channel) of 2007 showed an activist of a German campaign group telling young students in Bremen that their City (elev. 12m) would eventually be swallowed by “rising sea level”. In our next study we will have a closer look at such activities which are illegal by German law.  

We found a perfect  example of green climate indoctrination in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Selected 8th-graders were detached to a private enterprise and brainwashed for 8 days each to become “Student Mentors for Climate Protection”, with the task to mobilize their co-students for participation in all kinds of greenish activity. Costs are shared between the Ministery of Education and Ministery of Environment. That the Code of Education in that state prohibits any kind of political indoctrination ...was apparently [overlooked] by those ministers who compete for environmental image.'

If any of these examples can be adequately substantiated, I hope that someone somewhere will be in a position to take some legal action in order to help reduce the risk of this sort of nonsense happening again and again.

(1) http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2010/06/schools-low-carbon-day-hoax-scam.html

(2) http://newparty.co.uk/articles/inaccuracies-gore.html

(3) http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1724-low-carbon-day-is-dangerous-propaganda

(4) Quote taken from notes 1) and 2) in the References of the report 'Rescue from the Climate Saviors', downloadable via: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/rescue-from-climate-saviors.html