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that we need for a net zero carbon life, and not settling for the cheapest, least imaginative versions which are out of date before they are built and will look ridiculous in 10, 20, or 30 years’ time.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.

Enlighten Your Kids About Earth Day: that virtual monument to panic and irrationality

Earth Day arrives again, with nothing to commend it, no good having come from it, and indeed a lot of harm instead.  Harm to children's minds and spirits.  Harm to developing countries having to suppress their development.  Harm to industrialised counties having to waste resources on the follies of 'renewables'.  Harm to all the better things that could have been done with all the conferences, resolutions, and bloated budgets of eco-this that and the other.

Josh sums it all up rather well:

Parents who want to enlighten their older children could start by giving them a copy of Josh's cartoon.  And that by itself could trigger lots of useful online research projects to dig deeper.  There are more specific ideas for such projects here.  And more background on the failure of Earth Day here.

One thing seems clear.  You cannot rely on schools to do this for you.  

Turn All Your Lights On for Earth Hour 2020 (or just ignore it)

The annual ritual of Earth Hour is upon us once again.  Turning off lights is indeed an informative gesture because that kind of darkness - avoidable, unnecessary, silly virtue-signalling - will be commonplace if the eco-extremists continue to exert so much influence on governments.

Anthony Watts, at WUWT has a stronger suggestion:

TURN ON ALL YOUR LIGHTS! At 8:30PM local time for an hour.

CELEBRATE LIGHT, HEALTH AND HAPPINESS!

And as always, a reminder that every hour in North Korea is “Earth Hour”.

I would add: also read or re-read the classic essay by Ross McKitrick:

https://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-abhor-earth-hour-abundant-cheap.html

Helping Children Cope with the CO2 Scare - a new resource

The articles I've seen on helping children cope with the CO2 Scaremongering are mostly along the lines of 'tell them they are not helpless, get them out on demonstrations, encourage them to walk to school and turn off lights'.  In other words, 'take the scare seriously, and fuss over it'.  I doubt that is going to help, and it may even make things worse for the young victims.  Better by far is to help them see that have been duped, and even well-intentioned adults have been duped.

This will take time, and lots of study and persistence.  Many parents and high-schoolers can dig deeper for themselves into alarming claims about climate, and those who do so can help those who have not done or cannot do such work on their own.

A new website has just started up and it could be a great resource for this:

Here is the link to it:  http://climaterealism.com/

As well as feature articles, there is a reference section currently with the following topics:

Allergies, Alpine glaciers, 

Carbon tax, Cleaner air, Climate change impacts,

Climate models, Climate record, Consensus, Coral Reefs, Crop nutrition, Crop production,

Disease/Virus,Drought,

Economic harm, Economics and policy, Emissions by country, Emissions Impact,Extreme cold, Extreme heat, Extreme Weather,

Floods,

Great Lakes, Green New Deal,Greenland ice melt,

Health impacts, Heavy Rainfall, Historical CO2 levels, Hottest Year,Hurricanes,

Insurance policy,

Jobs created,

Little Ice Age,

Meat and Agriculture,Medieval Warm Period, Migration, Mortality,

National security, Natural climate change,

Ocean currents, Oceanic conveyor belt,

Pine beetles, Polar bears, Polar ice caps,

Renewable Energy, Republican proposals,

Sea level, Snow, Snowpack, Social cost of carbon,

Solar impact, Species Impacts, Subsidies,

Terms of debate, Tipping points, Tornadoes,

U.S. temperatures, Underlying Science,

Vulnerable populations,

Water levels, Wildfires, Wine.

So that's plenty to be getting on with!

(Hat-tip: WUWT )

Note added 21 Mar 2020.  There's more!  An apparently sister-site called Climate at a Glance is also well worth a visit.  It has short summaries on a range of topics:     https://climateataglance.com/

'Climate At A Glance puts frequently argued climate issues into short, concise, summaries that provide the most important, accurate, powerful information. The summaries are designed to provide a library of solid yet simple rebuttals so that legislators, teachers, students, and laymen can easily refute the exaggerations of the so-called “climate crisis.”

Excellent!  Just what is needed.

(Hat-tip: NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat )

A Young Survivor of the Tsunami of CO2 Scare Propaganda: Naomi Seibt, Climate Realist

What a refreshing change from the facile alarmism acquired by Greta Thunberg and her followers.  This video has Naomi Seibt speaking while often juxtaposed beside clips of youngsters demonstrating climate alarmism, and my goodness, she comes across as a calm voice in favour of science, and of discussion, and indeed of 'climate realism'.  A very impressive young woman.  Let us hope she can help a good many of those still floundering in, and no doubt often genuinely upset by, the scaremongering over CO2.  And may she, and Greta alike, go on to have careers free from all this unjustified and distracting alarmism some day soon.

(hat-tip: Climate Depot)

P.S. Further insight into Seibt's views and plans, and some threats she has received because of them, can be found here:
https://www.thegwpf.com/meet-the-19-year-old-anti-greta-who-warns-thunbergs-alarmism-must-be-stopped/

One in five in a sample of UK children report nightmares about climate change

One in five in a sample of UK children 
report nightmares about climate change

The Jakarta Times , and others e.g. the London Metro, have published a Reuters piece on the results of a survey of UK children (hat-tip GWPF Newsletter 04/03/20).  These results, if correct - and they do seem plausible, are a sharp indictment of schools and the mass media for all they have done, and are doing, to scare children  about climate without good reason:

'One in five children are having nightmares about climate change, according to a British survey on Tuesday, as students globally stage protests over a lack of action to curb global warming. 

About 17 percent of children in Britain said worries about climate change were disturbing their sleep while 19 percent said these fears were giving them nightmares. 

The survey of 2,000 children aged eight to 16, conducted by pollster Savanta-ComRes for BBC Newsround, also found that two in five, or 41 percent, did not trust adults to tackle the climate crisis.'

Children, listen to this: Don't Be Afraid of Climate Change!

Writer Melissa Nichols has done children a great favour by writing this little book - 'Don't Be Afraid of Climate Change'.  It classes 'Climate Change' as a big, bad wolf, and takes the young readers through several of the ways this beast has been trying to scare or mislead them:

'But like all big, bad wolves, Climate Change doesn’t like telling  the truth. Let’s look at what he’s been saying, and see if he’s  been truthful or if he is just trying to scare you. '

She then goes through the topics, one by one and points out how wrong they are.  Here is how she handles the first topic:

'Polar bears are starving, and soon there won’t be any more  of them.  

Sorry, Climate Change, polar bears are doing just fine. Their  numbers were down in the past, but not because of you. They  were widely hunted, but thanks to polar bears becoming a  protected species, there are more of them running around now  than 70 years ago - around 25,000 more! That’s a lot of polar  bears.' 

Here are the headings for the other topics she covers:

Get ready to go for a swim. The ice is melting! 

The oceans are rising. We’re all going to be underwater. 

Hurricanes are getting stronger, and there are more of them.

Drink plenty of water while you can. Droughts are getting  worse. 

Climate Change used to be called Global Warming. And it’s  still getting hotter. 

Wind power is just about as good as it gets for helping the  environment. 

Solar power is a clean energy that everyone should have to  use. 

Nuclear power is evil. 

Pipelines are bad. The more pipelines that are built, the  more natural gas people will use. 

Cow farts and fossil fuels are producing enough methane to  knock us all out. 

CO2 levels are going to kill the earth. They must be stopped  right now! 

Ban fracking. It’s bad. 

She concludes (my italics):

'Climate change is not something to be afraid of. The world has  been changing since its beginning. It will always will. This is  not a bad thing. You have been changing from your very  beginning as well. This earth has been hot, and it has been cold.  We have always adapted to its changes and learned to enjoy  each day as it comes. '

At the end of the book, she provides a selection of references for further reading on each of the topics.  These will help older children and adults to dig a little deeper.

This is a wonderful book, one that deserves to be in every home, and in every school library.  The book is brief, simply-themed, very readable and with attractive illustrations.  There is surely scope for a hundred books like this, covering more ground, more topics, and with a range of content-levels.  We need books for 5, 10, 15 year-olds, and 20 and 25 and 30 year-olds as well.  All have been exposed all their lives to the scaremongering about CO2 and climate variation, and surely most could do with some help to get a calmer, better-balanced view of it.   In the meantime, I strongly recommend this book for all age levels.  It makes a great start on what will be a big, and kind, and truthful, task: helping victims of the CO2 Scaremongering recover from it.

[Hat-tip: Climate Depot]