Unfortunately, some misuse science. Some of their intentions, are far from benevolent. They see science as a mechanism for political power and control. There is great danger from those who would use science for political control over us.

How do they do this? They instill, and then continuously magnify, fear. Fear is the most effective instrument of totalitarian control.

Chet Richards, physicist,

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/science_in_an_age_of_fear.html

Wednesday 3 July 2019

RIP Christopher Booker, your climate writings will inform and help teachers & pupils for many years to come

The GWPF has reported the passing of the journalist Christopher Booker

'Everyone at the GWPF was saddened to hear of the passing of our friend and colleague Christopher Booker, one of the doughtiest campaigners against global warming hysteria and vested interests in the climate debates. 

Booker’s Sunday Telegraph columns never failed to question orthodoxies and to ask awkward questions about global warming dogmatism.

He wrote two highly successful reports for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The first, in 2011, looked at the BBC’s biased coverage of climate change, while the more recent paper on groupthink has been one of GWPF’s most successful.

An archive of Booker’s enormous contribution to climate sceptical thought and critical analysis over the last ten years can be found on the GWPF website

Christopher will be fondly remembered by all at the GWPF for his erudition, bravery, integrity and his endless good humour.'



My thoughts

His books 'Scared to Death: from BSE to Global Warming, why scares are costing us the Earth' (co-authored with Richard North) and 'The Real Global Warming Disaster' deserve to be in every high school library, along with his GWPF publications listed at a link above, in anticipation of the day when senior pupils will do projects trying to make sense of the CO2-driven lunacy.  They will benefit from his lucid writing, his ability to spot foolish and ill-informed actions and beliefs, and his detailed tracking of who did what and where and when, all backed up by references.  As well as helping them get their projects done, he will also provide reassurance that not everyone engaged by the hyperbole around rising CO2 was credulous, or venal, or malevolent, or self-centred, or destructive of society and progress during these past few decades of the madness.

Tuesday 28 May 2019

Not Safe For School (NSFS): the mentalities of CO2 alarm 'scientists'

  Here, thanks to Josh (hat-tip WUWT), is a graphic giving insight into what mentalities drive some climate scaremongers in 'science' (some are sincerely alarmed, but that may exclude many who are mainly doing it to make money from carbon trading, renewables subsidies, research grants, and so on, as well as those on the far-left who are doing it for political gain, and those on ego-trips):
cartoonsbyjosh.com

Here is a recent example of 'panic' and 'ego' at work, an essay by James Dyke on the Conversation:
'Climate change: ‘We’ve created a civilisation hell bent on destroying itself – I’m terrified’, writes Earth scientist'
Extract:
“But what about the many millions of people directly threatened,” I went on. “Those living in low-lying nations, the farmers affected by abrupt changes in weather, kids exposed to new diseases?”

He gave a sigh, paused for a few seconds, and a sad, resigned smile crept over his face. He then simply said: “They will die.”
This essay, and another of the genre by Mark Maslin, are discussed at CliScep:   https://cliscep.com/2019/05/25/the-conversation-or-does-my-brain-look-big-in-this/  'Both of them are packed full of interesting facts. Unfortunately none of the facts are about the climate. Most of them are about Dyke and Maslin.'


We Can Do Better Than That

https://sd.keepcalms.com/
This is surely the ideal: cool, calm, and collected study of what we know and what we might do.  Here is a recent example, an essay by Ian Aitken published on WUWT:
Extract:
'We know that climate change is happening – but the fact that climate change is happening (as it has for billions of years) does not in itself constitute an ‘emergency’ (or even necessarily a serious problem); global warming and climate change are not intrinsically bad things – few would want to return to the pre-industrial climates of the Little Ice Age. As the IPCC stated in their last Assessment Report, ‘Climate change may be beneficial for moderate climate change’. We are experiencing moderate climate change and it has indeed apparently been net-beneficial. '

But such reasonableness, such willingness to check with reality, is not a feature of climate alarm propaganda such as the deceits of the polar bear scare that had such an effect on poor Greta.  Who knows the extent of such scaremongering in schools - in Greta's case it may just have been one teacher acting on his or her initiative to share their personal fears with their pupils, but in some it will be an integral part of curricula.  The number of children in the recent wave of school 'strikes' who say they see no future for themselves because of 'climate change' is very saddening.  How they might be helped out of this wretched, and unwarranted view will be a focus of further posts here this year.


Monday 6 May 2019

Christian Aid Wants to Deceive Children about Climate. Why?

'Someone sent me [Paul Homewood] this teachers study aid being circulated around schools by Christian Aid.


Far from being an educational aid, it is little more than insidious propaganda aimed at young kids.
It is so full of inaccuracies, exaggerations and significant omissions that it is hard to know where to start!'

For details of Paul's criticisms, see his post:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/christian-aids-blatant-climate-propaganda-for-schools/


BUT WHY?

Why does Christian Aid stoop to this level? Is it a victim of infiltration  by radicals intent on using the organisation as a vehicle for their political ambitions?  That would explain it.  They would not be the first:   https://climatelessons.blogspot.com/p/climate-curricula-school-curricula.html

Whatever the reason, the materials are unworthy of any organisation with aspirations to basic decency.  
Making Little Activists
Their Ideal School

Friday 26 April 2019

Teachers are Scaring and Misleading Kids over Climate Change: Greta Thunberg For Example

A primary school teacher abused her position to scare Greta about climate change when she was around 8 years old: 'The most visible child climate change activist is Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. She recently publicly admitted to having been indoctrinated into fearing climate change by elementary school teachers. In her words, “I first heard about
Picture source
this when I was 7, 8, or 9 years old. In school the teacher explained what climate change was and how it was caused and they showed us pictures of starving polar bears”. Elementary school teachers have a fixed and well defined curriculum of things like language, grammar, arithmetic, and so on. This curriculum does not include climate science and these teachers are not qualified to teach climate science.'

https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/26/the-scary-reality-of-climate-change/

So, pictures of starving polar bears knocked poor Greta over the edge.  No-one near her was able, or perhaps even willing to help her.  A simple dose of the truth might have done the trick: 'Hey Greta, the polar bears are actually doing OK.'

Here's a telling post from Paul Homewood:


“Pictures Of Starving Polar Bears Convinced Me”

APRIL 24, 2019
tags: 
By  Paul Homewood

h/t stewgreen

image
And where did she get this strange idea from? As she relates, her teachers at school told her, when she was about eight.'
--------------------

It Is Time for Parents to Go on the Offensive

Propaganda is deep in the school systems in many places, almost always it would seem because of leftwing ideologues, and compliant teaching and administrative staff.  Climate variation is arguably of no real interest to them, but it appeals greatly as a vehicle to produce fear and in due course threaten society.  Here is a recent example of an extreme ideologue having been commissioned by a major published in the States to write a textbook on US history: 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/04/meet-the-man-who-wrote-textbook-calling-trump-and-his-supporters-racists.php

It is now time for parents to study the textbooks given to their children, and to be ready to make strong complaints when they find blatant propaganda instead of educational content.  Why should anyone tolerate malevolent people targeting their children's minds with warped opinions from within the school system?

As Sarah Hoyt points out

'If you don’t read your kids’ textbooks, and don’t have other books and evidence ready to refute this sort of thing — and please note this stuff goes on in both public and private schools — you’re falling down on your job. You might have your reasons, but you should also be aware you’re failing your kids.'

I shall finish this post with another quote from the Thai blog from which the opening quote above was taken:
    'Rather than be the accusers of the fossil fuel industry as evil activists who are trying to keep elementary school teachers from teaching climate science to elementary school students, climate scientists should look in a mirror. There, they will see the evil of child abuse and child exploitation to further their activism against fossil fuels. The scary reality of climate change is that someday these charges and related lawsuits will be brought against the perpetrators of these crimes against children to shore up a failed case against fossil fuels that their own science is unable to defend.'

Further Reading.  Some suggestions from recent blog activity:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/02/18/stop-scaring-kids-stiff-about-climate-change/
https://cliscep.com/2019/03/08/educating-greta/
https://quillette.com/2019/03/21/when-children-protest-adults-should-tell-them-the-truth/
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/25/stop-scaring-children-witless-about-climate-change/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/scientists-co2-the-miracle-molecule-key-to-feeding-saving-the-world
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61371
and still worth reading today, the 2014 report on climate brainwashing in UK schools: http://www.thegwpf.org/climate-control/
And to get a vivid notion of what we are up against, here is a heartfelt piece by an adult victim of the climate scaremongering:   https://www.brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk/news/opinion/it-s-time-to-talk-to-kids-about-climate-change-1-8905068
How best to help her, and her children?
Note added 27/4/2019  Here's something good: from a 16 year old who, unlike poor Greta, has avoided climate scare indoctrination:   https://quillette.com/2019/04/25/teenage-climate-change-protestors-have-no-idea-what-theyre-protesting/

Note added 20/82019  The exploitation and abuse of poor Greta Thunberg gets worse.  Here is a summary of some of the accusations: https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/33183-green-machine-child-climate-activist-a-tool-of-an-gore-esque-corporate-con
Meanwhile, she is a passenger on an extremely expensive, extremely uncomfortable, extremely high carbon yacht crossing the Atlantic in order to use up far more 'carbon' than if the poor lassie had just taken a commercial flight.  This is because some of the crew are going to fly back to Europe. and more crew will be flying to New York to bring the boat back later.  There is even talk of there being a diesel-powered boat following the yacht to take movies of it and be a back-up.

Friday 19 April 2019

Coming Soon to a School Near You: Attenbollocks the Movie?

School authorities in their shocking lack of wisdom decided to distribute Al Gore's junk movie to scare the kids with, so will they do the same with this new Horror Film featuring David Attenborough, sundry 'voices' and 'climate scientists'?
http://cartoonsbyjosh.co.uk/

If so, get ready to shred it.  You'll find plenty in it that will scare the children, so how about turning that into dismay at adult foolishness, ignorance, and irresponsibility instead? 

Some ammunition will be found at the following links, but surely readers here will readily find more:

Paul Homewood has done some Fisking:
'One of the features of the programme is the insertion of personalised, emotional film sequences – bats dying from heat in Australia, father and son escaping from wildfire in California, and the Isle de Jean Charles.
They are clearly designed to bring home to people the real effects of climate change, and make them feel guilty. At one point, the interviewee even says “we have got to do something”.
Unfortunately, the facts don’t agree. Maybe the programme would better have been called “Climate Change – The Myths”'


James Delingpole writes with his customary understated flair:
'Even by the BBC’s abysmal standards, this programme was a disgrace: an insult to the intelligence, a betrayal of the Reithian principles on which the BBC was founded, and a shameless piece of propaganda on behalf of the watermelons who would destroy our civilisation. As for Sir David Attenborough, it’s time this whispery voiced, gorilla hugging, walrus scaring Malthusian was recognised for what he is: not as a national treasure but as a national embarrassment long, long past his sell-by date.'


Anthony Watts is not impressed:
'Well, there you have it, done in timing with “Extinction Rebellion” protesters who are nothing more than the paid rabble of eco-NGO’s. And of course, we’ve heard these end-of-the-world scenarios time and time again from whacked-out doomsters. They didn’t come true, and we are still here.
Josh wasn’t impressed, neither am I.'

Notes added 20/4/2019.  An article by Ross Clark in the Spectator pins down some of the deliberate deceptions in the disgraceful Attenborough agitprop, but ends quite gently with these words: 'It is little wonder that terrified kids are skipping school to protest against climate change. Never mind climate change denial, a worse problem is the constant exaggeration of the subject. I had thought David Attenborough would be above resorting to the subtle propaganda which others have been propagating, linking every adverse weather event to climate change. But apparently not.'

Cliscep has several posts by Jaime Jessop with insightful criticism of the Attenborough fiasco of a 'documentary':

Note added 22/4/2019  Part 3 from Jaime.  Well worth your time.  This is an example of a brain at work seeking to make things clearer, more accurate, more reliable.  In utter contrast to the brains that worked on Attenborough's Disgrace.

Note added 23/4/2019  Another timely post at CliScep, and one at Bishophill:

Notes added 26/4/2019  The GWPF have made a formal complaint to the BBC over their part in promoting, and publishing Attenborough's Disgrace.  It is their disgrace too, and therefore one more item on their long rap sheet as climate scaremongers and propagandists.

Jaime publishes part 4 of her detailed examination of the Disgrace.  Just having her talk to to camera with a few charts and diagrams would have produced a far better documentary, one that would have been of benefit rather than of harm to the viewers.

Note added 27/4/2019.   Jaime publishes her fifth and final post on the Disgrace:  https://cliscep.com/2019/04/27/climate-change-the-lies-propaganda-misinformation-disinformation-and-emotional-blackmail-part-v/

Note added 03/9/2019.  Walruses falling off cliffs seems to be a relatively unsurprising event:  
'US Fish and Wildlife officials in 1994 explain walruses falling to their deaths from a cliff at Cape Pierce in the southern Bering Sea (a haulout for adult males during the ice-free season). Explanation? Overcrowding (too many walruses)!'


Thursday 18 April 2019

Is Your Child in a Climate Change Cult?

'Climate Change and the Ten Warning Signs for Cults'



(hat-tip: GWPF Newsletter 18/04/19)

Rick Ross, described as an 'expert consultant and intervention specialist', has published this list of 10 warming signs:

Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.


  1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
  2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
  3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
  4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
  5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
  6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
  7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.
  8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
  9. The group/leader is always right.
  10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Pic: Childhood Cult
A writer named 'Will' has worked through this list to see to what extent they might apply to what he calls the 'climate change movement'.  See his article for more details on how this movement conforms to every item on the list.  For example, here are the first two:
'1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
The leading advocates of the Climate Change movement are politicians, entertainers, and even children. Climate preachers such as Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio lack any formal scientific training whatsoever, and live personal lives of unparalleled luxury while prescribing carbon austerity for the masses. Yet no one is permitted to point out their scientific ignorance or call attention to their hypocritical lifestyles.
Child advocates such as Greta Thuneberg and the crudely indoctrinated children of the “Sunrise movement” are essentially sock puppets for their shameless activist handlers. Refuse to bend the knee to these tiny fascists, as Diane Feinstein most recently did, and the mainstream left will relentlessly attack you as an accessory to mass murder.
The authority of Climate Change leaders is entirely unmerited and absolute, yet no one is permitted to hold them accountable for their ignorance, inexperience, or brazen lies. Thus, the Climate Change movement clearly meets the first warning sign for unsafe groups.
2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
The conclusions of the Climate Change movement may not be challenged or questioned under any circumstances. Those who dare scrutinize the conclusions, methodology, or prescriptions of “climate scientists” are categorically dismissed as a “Climate Denier”, an excommunicated untouchable whose opinion is no longer valid on any subject.
Questions and critical inquiry aren’t merely dismissed or refuted. The unfortunate heretic immediately experiences a relentless ad hominem onslaught of scorn and hatred from the political and media left, and is often subjected to accusations of outright murder. Simply question the effectiveness of a “carbon tax” and you may find yourself tied to a stake.
There is no tolerance for questioning the Climate Change movement, and thus it clearly meets the second warning sign for unsafe groups.'
I'm sure many readers of this blog will have more examples of their own to show a good match to these two, and the others on the list.  Here are Will's concluding paragraphs:

'The Verdict: It’s a cult

According to the established, scientific guidelines developed by cult experts, the Climate Change movement fits the bill for a potentially unsafe group.
When I looked up these established warning signs, I honestly expected Climate Changeists to meet two or three of them, NOT TEN! The disturbingly religious nature of this supposedly “scientific” movement should alarm any thinking human being, especially since the movement now openly seeks to nationalize the entire economy.
It’s time for conservatives to realize what they are dealing with, and act accordingly. Rather than debating Climate Change activists, it may be time to start staging interventions.
If someone you know is a member of the Climate Change Movement, and you are interested in intervention strategies, please visit https://culteducation.com/prep_faq.html.'
Now this is of great interest here, since finding ways to help the victims of climate scaremongering is a preoccupation of the blog.  The Cult Education link leads to this immediate advice;
'How should family and friends act when they suspect that someone is involved with a potentially destructive group/leader?
REMAIN CALM. You may be wrong. Don't be confrontational or jump to
conclusions. Instead, investigate thoroughly and discretely discover as 
much information as possible. First, check the Internet, library and public 
records for specifics about the group/leader. You might also make quiet
inquiries with local clergy, police, social services and public safety in the 
community where the group/leader is located. Organize a file for notes, 
articles and other information that you may gather.
  • How should family and friends react to someone when they know that person is involved with a potentially destructive group/leader?
Be nurturing, loving and attentive, which may contrast with the treatment 
they receive from the group/leader. Don't rush to judgment. Remember that 
doing nothing is always an option. It is also crucial to maintain meaningful
 and positive communication and seek support from family and friends. 
Don't be negative and critical and remember, when in doubt, don't act. 
If you are not sure, seek out and gather more information.

Staging an intervention with a professional is another possible option, 
but be sure to make a carefully considered and informed decision 
before taking any action. Always focus on the facts and your own 
specific situation. You can also simply wait and see, or possibly discuss 
your concerns at a friendly meeting if and when the person involved
 raises some doubts about the group/leader and/or when their involvement
 raises increasingly serious issues. However, waiting may allow the 
group/leader time to increase control, which will make an intervention 
more difficult.'

Interesting stuff.  The professional intervention is an 
expensive route, with illustrative fees at $100 per hour, 
but at this stage who knows what will be required in
some cases?  We are dealing here with 'deprogramming',
that is helping people discard what seem to be deeply held
beliefs pushed into them by others.  
Care is obviously required. 

Note added 18/4/2019.  The Medium article has now been re-posted 
at WUWT where no doubt there will be some discussion of it in due 
course in the comments.