Climate Change Conflict in the Classroom: positions provided for the teachers vs questions provided for the pupils

On the one hand, a large non-profit organisation in the United States, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is reported today as intending to  'mount an aggressive effort to teach the nation’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being driven by human activity.'  (hat tip: Tom Nelson)

On the other hand, a professor in Australia, Ian Plimer, has recently published 101 questions on climate in a book entitled 'How to Get Expelled from School' .















They both take an aggressive stance:


NCSE: 'Climate change denial is already threatening the integrity of science education in public schools and elsewhere. These attacks occur in individual classrooms, local school boards, state boards of education and state legislatures, and informal learning environments. And even in the absence of explicit attacks, science educators report experiencing implicit pressure to compromise on the scientific accuracy of their presentations of climate change. NCSE helps concerned citizens to defend accurate science education in all of these settings.'
Plimer: 'The issue of human-induced global warming is about power and has little to do with the environment, saving the planet, creating a better world and freedom of speech.  Except when travelling in communist and other totalitarian countries, all my life I have enjoyed freedom of speech.  The present state of public debate on climate is such that the government-approved beliefs are virtually compulsory.  Those imposing their apocalyptic doctrinal views upon want no rational civilised argument (e.g. "the science is settled"), claim that there is a "consensus", attempt to denigrate, and vilify and marginalise those who question the dogma (e.g. "climate deniers").'


The report in the Washington Times, suggests that the NCSE wants to 'launch a public relations effort. If it is successful, climate change skeptics could become a small minority and might be derided for their beliefs.'  The NCSE site's new section on climate change is already replete with frequent use of the 'denier' insult, and of course is maintaining that its proposed attack on climate realists is akin to its attack on religious fundamentalists over 'intelligent design'.  I think they have fallen off their fence on to the wrong side - their new campaign will support the green fundamentalists and those who ride on their backs to win political power.  The cause of good science, and honest straightforward schooling, will be advanced not by them and all the wealth of Big Green, but by such as Plimer and his humble list of questions in the minds not just of pupils but of parents, politicians, and teachers themselves.

Note added later: This report describes the NCSE as 'small':
'NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.  The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.'

Teachers, whatever you do, don't tell your pupils that climate science is settled about global warming

 The general awareness of climate science may have been severely contaminated by special-interest groups such as the WWF and GreenPeace intent on swelling their coffers and assuming heroic stances simultaneously.  It is not easy for teachers to present a calm and sensible view in these circumstances, not least if their curricula have already been invaded by such interest groups.  Two things, however, seem reasonably clear: 

(1) nothing extraordinary has been observed in weather phenomena over the past 30 years of the CO2 scare, and much of what has been seen contradicts the forecasts of some prominent alarmists such as the streets of New York remaining above sea level, polar bears increasing in numbers, storm levels failing to increase, and of course tropospheric temperatures refusing to shoot up.

(2) learned scholars dispute the core mechanisms posited by some scientist-alarmists as being at the heart of their concerns.  The quote below is evidence of this dispute:

'Recently, Gerlich and Tscheuschner listed a wide variety of attempts to explain the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect. They disproved these explanations at the hand of fundamental physical principles like the second law of thermodynamics. By showing that 1) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, 2) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, 3) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 K is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, 4) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, 5) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, 6) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, they concluded that the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Based on our findings, we argue that 1) the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect cannot be proved by the statistical description of fortuitous weather events that took place in a climate period, 2) the description by AMS and W·MO has to be discarded because of physical reasons, 3) energy flux budgets for the Earth-atmosphere system do not provide tangible evidence that the atmospheric greenhouse effect does exist.'

Source: a recent paper by Kramm and Dlugi entitled ‘Scrutinizing the atmospheric greenhouse effect and its climatic impact’

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=9233

(hat tip: Greenie Watch, http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2012/01/carefully-reasoned-new-paper-finds-no.html#links)

New Year Resolutions for Climate Scientists - eye-openers for some teachers of climate change?

Steven Goddard has compiled some very worthy resolutions for any climate scientist involved in the promotion of climate alarmism in particular, and shoddy-science in general.  They will be eye-openers for some teachers of climate topics.  Here are the first 15 of them - see his post for the rest:

1. I will admit that warming has been much slower than we expected
2. I will admit that recent sea level rise is nothing unusual or threatening
3. I will admit that our forecasts of declining snow cover were wrong
4. I will admit that Arctic temperatures are cyclical, and that we have no idea what will happen to Arctic ice over the next 50 years
5. I will admit that our forecasts of Antarctic warming have been a total failure.
6. I will admit that Polar Bear populations are not threatened
7. I will admit that climate models have demonstrated no skill, and are nothing more than research projects
8.  I will admit there was a Medieval Warm Period
9. I will admit that that there was a Little Ice Age
10. I will stop pretending that we don’t have climate records prior to 1970
11. I will admit that the surface temperature record has been manipulated and is contaminated by UHI
12. I will stop making up data where none exists
13. I will honestly face skeptics in open debate.
14. I will quit trying to stop skeptics from being published
15. I will admit that glaciers have been disappearing for hundreds or thousands of years

Merry Christmas to all my readers

http://en.indonesiafinancetoday.com/read/14593/Oh-Christmas-Tree

Thank you for visiting here.  Haste ye back in the New Year!
I don't 'have religion' myself, but I do find so much of the music, singing, and sentiments of Christianity very moving so here is a carol to mark the season:

A lifetime's worth of climate alarmism in a nutshell

 I think this comment by David M Hoffer (posted on WUWT) provides a witty but true summary of the alarmist positions and debating styles since 1971, with a 'projection' for the year 2031 ( I have added the boldening and italics):

Natural variation and climate cycles explained:

1971
Alarmists: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like natural variation, not a long term trend….
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Ice Age! We’re all going to die!

1991
Alarmists: The world is heating up at an unprecedented rate!
Skeptic: But you just said….
Alarmists: CO2! CO2 is causing unprecedented warming!
Skeptic: OK, forget the ice age then, it STILL looks like natural variation, not a long term trend…
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Tipping point! We’re all going to die!

2011
Skeptic: You know, looking at the last 10 to 15 years, it doesn’t seem like there’s been any more warming….
Alarmists: Natural variation! It's hiding the warming!
Skeptic: Hiding the warming? Where?
Alarmists: Blasphemer! The warming is hiding in the bottom of the ocean where we can’t measure it, and/or being masked by aerosols, and/or being hidden by natural variation! We’re all going to die!

2031
Alarmist: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like…never mind, I know where this is going. We’re all going to die. I for one, because a) I'm old and b) I’m sick to death of listening to alarmism.