A reader Russell writes in to tell me his Year 9 son Jordan and his friend, Tom, took on their teacher’s sacred belief in man-made global warming. Given no warning, and called insulting names in front of the class, they took up the challenge with gusto and stayed up til 1am that night to put the presentation together. Not surprisingly the teacher tried to pull out the next day, but the class would not let her.
One of the slides quotes Al Gore mocking “the tiny minority”, like the ones “who still believe that the moon landing was faked…”. Then it shows and quotes four Apollo Astronauts and Burt Rutan (the first private astronaut).
One of the ten slides
From reader Russell:
The other week at school my eldest son (15) was challenged by his teacher to present to the class why he is a ”climate change denier”. He had to do this presentation the next day.
At the start of his class the next day he advised the teacher he was ready. She told him she wasn’t interested now, maybe another day. His classmates started heckling her saying ”You Chicken Miss”. She eventually agreed and got another teacher to sit in as well. Before my son spoke she showed the class the promo to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. After his presentation the class gave him a standing ovation. There is a lot more to this story, the above overview sort of explains what occurred.
To start his talk he read out five quotes from the ”US Senate Minority Report” below, then his power point. She made him stop the Prof Carter video 3min into it, the Prof Ball podcast about 5min in and let the class watch the other 10min video all the way through.
May there be a thousand young rebels following in their footsteps, says Jo.
Russell explained his son and friends get a hard time at school, though it seems, give their teachers a pretty hard time in return:
“…They [the boys] question everything they being taught and who’s the messenger. They know the truth about AGW, Sustainable Development, UNESCO,OECD, over population, open borders, media, communism, politics, the list goes on. One his mates sent the 10min video ”Agenda 21 for Dummies” reply all on the schools email, even the teachers received the link.”
“… there is some history with the boys and this teacher, she is a true socialist. One example of this is she told Jordan ‘His opinion is irrelevant, and only when you become an adult people will listen to what you have to say. Shut up, I am the TEACHER and you’re here to learn.’
I expect the teacher in question will not forget this lesson (though possibly she will interpret her mistake as being to let students speak).
The powerpoint presentation (800k .pptx)
Sources and video links below.
Russell says that skepticism is alive and well in teenagers, despite them being raised on the climate dogma:
Some sources:
- Hockey Stick: How the IPCC tried to re-write history by getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period. [John-daly.com]
- Climategate: The greatest scientific scandal known to man [Wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/]
The Western Climate Establishment is Cheating by David Evans [Joannenova.com.au and PDF] ”How many excuses does it take? The Western Climate Establishment has allowed egregious mistakes, major errors, and obvious biases to accumulate — each factor on its own might be hard to pin down, but the pattern is undeniable”. - Surface Stations: Peer reviewed paper exposing more IPCC corruption. [Wattsupwiththat.com]
- Quotations from The U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Scientists Continue to Debunk Consensus by Senator James M. Inhofe16/version [Scienceandpublicpolicy.org Reprint]
The Videos / Audio track
- Sydney Mining Club presentation “Bob Carter”.
- Unstoppable Solar Cycles Willie Soon, David Legates
- Radio Interview “Eye Spy”. Big-government and CO2 (Tim Ball interview)
- Chris Horners Youtube “Cooling”.
Can I suggest another great resource for students is Ian Plimer’s book How to get expelled from school. ;- )
FANTASTIC !!!
632
I will second that. FANTASTIC.
112
It’s my experience that “people in the street” don’t believe in the climate changeTM scam. The only believers are the greens and the troughers profiting from the scam. I suspect most of the troughers don’t believe in it either, so that only leaves the greens, and they are only green because green = gullible.
992
[1] During the prohibition era, Baptists believed that banning alcohol would stop people from drinking, whereas Bootleggers believed that banning alcohol would deliver them a monopoly market and monopoly market profits.
[2] When the Montreal protocol was enacted, Environmentalists believed that banning Freon would save the Ozone layer, whereas Dupont believed that owning the patents too the replacements to Freon would deliver them a monopoly market for refrigeration gasses and monopoly market profits.
[3] When CAGW was proposed, Environmentalists believed that implementing Carbon Trading would save the planet, whereas international banking and engineering firms believed that implementing Carbon Trading would provide them with a monopoly market controlling access to energy that would deliver monopoly market profits.
On one side are those who believe in prophets – and on the other side are those who believe in profits.
On one side are predatory, pragmatic realists, on the other side are useful idiots – I leave it to the reader to determine which side is which.
632
Two good analogies.
40
It’s only a rort if you’re not in it!
Dunno who said it first but it’s right.
20
GREAT, finally some one who is aware of the great global fluorocarbon scam.
The success of this scam lead to the even greater hoax of human caused warming.
How were you ever a warmist with your insights????
40
I used to be intellectually lazy…
Or rather – working two jobs for 11 years and just reading the MSM.
40
I agree, Phillip, and from what I’ve gleaned a lot of people treat any sustained attempt to browbeat them, in news, science shows or advertising,as just another ad to ignore while you refresh your cup or glass!
20
I think you need to realise that most high school teachers, especially those in the social science, really have NEVER done any research into the scientific
fraudcrapwhat-ever… that is climate change.They are fed the lines of BS, and lap them up and regurgitate them un-thinkingly.
Thing is, when they run into a student who HAS done the work, they have NO ANSWER. !!
The teachers that really worry me are the science teachers who accept the BS, without any thought what-so-ever. I often wonder how they ever became science teachers and what it means for their students, if the teacher themselves is incapable of rational thought. ?????
973
AndyG55: How dare you suggest that science involves rational thought. Science is listening to the authorities who KNOW things and regurgitating those ideas to the students. Where did Michael Mann ever mention the idea of rational thought other than to say “rational thought is agreeing with me–I am the expert”. All other thought is irrational.
(sarc/)
400
Science teachers are like any other teacher in our school systems – they are Education majors who might have a minor in science.
40
If the science teachers Down Under are like those in the USA, they are the light weights who can’t make it through the math to be a real scientist.
I went for my BS in chemistry with a minor allowing me teaching creds. Most chemistry teachers from my school had a BA and not a BS in chemistry and took less intensive courses.
Out of the ~ 1000 students going for a teach degree it was about 50% English, 50% history, 3 physics majors, a dozen chemists and maybe 25 math types.
I often wonder how many people teaching science actually have any creds in science at all!
30
It’s wonderful. Smart kids can always detect the rubbish that’s designed to be pitched at their level by people who are trying to be groovy. It reeks of phoniness, and it just gets the little barbarians’ blood up.
Too many teachers, also, have read too much educational theory and not enough Lord of the Flies. Never give a child a platform unless you want to be utterly humiliated.
672
Lord of the Flies!
Fantastic
151
Peter: And the teacher was the ‘Lord (OK, Lady)of the F…. lies’
70
Better than Lord of the Files (like Mann and Hansen) 🙂
100
Your last statement rings true. It is probably also why teachers don’t give children platforms.
81
Children turn into humans after all. Pity.
20
An excellent example of how young adults with that rare quality – Character – can successfully challenge groupthink.
Russell, you should be extremely proud of your son.
And as for the teacher – using an inconvenient truth was as lame as it was pathetic.
790
“using an inconvenient truth was as lame as it was pathetic.”
As I said, points to a basic lack of any thought or research into the issue.
461
OT:
Tim Wilson .. human rights commissioner
Sweeeeeeet… but won’t the totalitarian lefties get their knickers in a knot !!! Love it !!!!!!! 🙂 🙂
370
Yeah, got the media release this morning. Great bloke, that Tim.
SICK ‘EM REX!
140
One of the most popular sites on the internet has just banned “denialists” from posting.
They see people (including high school students) waking up so they resort to censoring their opposition.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/reddits-science-forum-banned-climate-deniers-why-dont-all-newspapers-do-the-same/
100
Original version of my Astronaut graphic:
http://a2.img.mobypicture.com/8e1234d649766adfef528feb438395b9_large.jpg
…to which I can add the former head of NASA:
“I have no doubt that global—that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.” – Michael Griffin
-=NikFromNYC=-, Ph.D. in carbon chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)
600
Great quote Nik!
70
Silly argument. How do you get to be the head of NASA and still make third rate arguments?
It may not be the best climate for us humans, but it is the one we’ve spent several thousand years adapting to. Therefore, like a bug sitting in the bottom of a bowl, any direction is up – that is, any change is a negative – at least initially. Later on, maybe it will be better – who knows.
544
Oh John, so confident in your wailing then you end with “who knows”???????
FnA!
I’d say there are two possibilities re the head of NASA. I could agree with you that his arguments are third rate and thereby impugn everything NASA says about climate. On the other hand I could talk about Hansen.
I guess maybe there is only one possibility………..
70
John, you submit that it may not be the best climate for humans but say that any change has to be negative. That is a contradiction. Couldn’t you see that?
Anyway, which climate do you mean when you say any change would be negative? People live in lots of climates, ranging from tropical to polar.
Obviously evolution doesn’t require humans have the most ideal climate to flourish. The most natural is not always the best. More pole die from not not being able to artificially heat themselves in winter than die from too much solar heat in summer.
I gave you a green tick. It was an accident. I meant to hit the one beside it. My bad.
80
“Silly argument”
The yapping Chihuahua is heard again.
You are an insult to yourself, John..
80
Make that 3 million years of human development in climates way hotter and way colder then today. No matter what happens with the climate humans will adapt. The only thing that will slow our adaptation is policyies and useless green schemes that slow our technological progress.
80
The same way you get to be president and still make 3rd rate arguments.
The head is politically, not meritoriously appointed.
30
You wouldn’t be a science teacher at all would you Mr Brookes.
20
That’s not true, even though your assertions are faked based. The thing is any normal person of any given intelligence would know that 2 + 2 ≠ 5 unless they are brainwashed to believe otherwise. And secondly, any able bodied person nonchalant or not would exit the smoked filled waiting room, again unless they are brainwashed or remained instructed. That’s the problem with the whole environmental movement the warmist take their cue from media scaremongers, politicians and tried to remain unconcerned with natural weather.
But still, I have a friend, well.. a pen pal (I hope) who regularly believes the earth warmed because of AGW . His name is Al Gore, he has not replied to any of my emails yet, I guessed he’s been a bit busy of late, you know… being its Christmas time…snow…and then follow by more snow you got the idea.
10
Well Russell , I hope you are very proud of your son. Not because of the AGW bit, but because he and his friend stood up for what they believed to be correct and put in the hard yards to produce the evidence in a very well thought out professional manner. The exercise in doing what he and his friend did will probably be the best they learnt in school this year and also what they learnt about themselves will be invaluable ( even though they probably don’t realise it right now).
580
Yes. Standing up for something, even if its wrong, is pretty brave. There have been several experiments where kids are put in a fake situation where everyone insists that 2+2=5, and most of them just cave in and go with the flow. Another experiment had people in a waiting room all acting nonchalant as smoke billowed out of a door. Most people took their cue from the others, and tried to remain unconcerned.
Still, I have a friend who regularly argues strongly, whether he is right or wrong, and it gets a bit painful after a while.
229
You have a friend?
240
The process of education is a two-way street. The primary task of the teacher is to deliver information, the primary task of the student is to receive it. Then comes the second phase: The teacher needs to confirm that the student has received the information, and the student has to show that he understands it. The second phase can only take place by debate and in this phase there is an exchange of information from which both teacher and student can benefit. In the classroom, the teacher should guide the debate so as to enhance the learning experience, which presupposes an understanding of both sides of the argument. From the brief description of events above, the teacher in this case was not interested in giving her students the information to develop an understanding of Climate Science, but to proselytise the narrative of CAGW by the use of polemic. “I am the teacher and you’re here to learn”. to an engaged student eager to develop his knowledge of a subject, is the cry of the incompetent and ignorant teacher overwhelmed by the student’s knowledge of the subject and so insecure that a last resort to Authority is her only ploy.
The teacher will no doubt remember this lesson, and will be using the system to re-establish a failing authority. Marking down Jordan’s grades will be just the start. 15-y-o boys ( I have four sons) are born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, and Jordan is a dead cert to be involved in some sort of scrape that gives her the opportunity to exact her pound of flesh. If I were Russell, I would be looking for a new school for his son to finish his education.
500
This is unfortunately true. Russell, make sure you make it clear to the school that you will not tolerate and retribution from the teacher toward your children for the embarrassing disclosure of her lack of knowledge to the class.
I might also add that you must also question the dogma that is being fed to your children at the highest level in your school. While the curriculum says they must teach global warming, it does not say that the teachers cannot balance it.
I wrote a letter to my sons school Principal, and Science master with a few facts and basic math regarding Climate change – Jo has the posting somewhere or maybe is was in an e-mail , I can no longer find the letter. Jo might post it here as an example. Don’t demand a switch, point out that CAGW has two sides, about the links to the carbon cycle (how CO2 is good for plants) about how we cannot know how warming might manifest. That is (30+20)/2 is 5 degrees warmer than (40+0)/2 but which climate would you prefer to live in?. Point out that the right way to teach this is to put forward the hypothesis and let the children research the truth for themselves both pro and anti arguments, even host a debate. This is how science really works, not by consensus but by disagreement.
What you want to get going is a staff room debate on how this topic should be presented to the kids. Demand the school tells you how this topic will be taught to your children.
One of the problems though is external exams, EG Naplan, Matriculation (do they still call it that?) etc. You can’t influence how political ideology is tested in those and your children may have to be taught to lie in order to pass those.
Jo, if you could pull my letter from the archives for Russell it might be a help?
—-
I’ll have it. Will forward. Thanks, Jo
170
How’d I trip over the moderation filter with such a moderate post ???
[Sometimes we don’t know why the filter does what it does. It’s not personal] ED
00
Links? Too many sends it to moderation.
00
When my niece was in school, she had a teacher that was very anti-gun. The teacher moved to our state from a very anti-gun state and made comments about laws and guns that were inaccurate in Wyoming, where guns are readily accepted and a part of life. Rather than confront the teacher straight on, we agreed to pay for her to take a class offered locally as a prerequisite to obtaining a concealed carry permit (not so she could obtain the permit, but so she would understand the laws and guns in general). She accepted, and was very surprised to find that Wyoming laws were not at all what she believed them to be. She learned, and in a way that was not embarrassing or uncomfortable to her.
270
When I was at school (a long time ago now) learning physics (among other things), we told how and why things worked the way they did, based on what was then known. We were also told what the examiners would expect to see in the answers to questions about physics (based on a more mechanical view of the subject). It was really that blatant.
Peter Ustinov used to tell a story about a music exam he once took at school. One of the questions was, “Name a Russian composer”. His answer: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The “correct” answer was “Tchaikovsky”.
100
Kevin: While moving the son to a different school might be tempting, one might want to wait to see how things work out. It may be the son develops a worthy skill if he stays there–that of how to deal with people who don’t like you yet have power over you. It’s a handy skill for one to have in the workplace.
161
Sheri. You have a point, but if the personal problem is one of blind malice and a desire for revenge rather than merely a personality clash. then abstraction from the scene maybe the most pragmatic option. Don’t forget that the Stalinist structure of all but the best State schools, both in the UK and in Oz, gives all the cards to the staff – however poor or wrong they may be.
130
Yes, I do realize that the situation may blind malice and extraction may be the best option. I grew up in an age where there was little chance to change schools and if one particular teacher did not like you (for whatever) reason, there really was no way out, short of dropping out of school. You just learned to cope. Today, i would say that if the child is totally miserable and cannot find a way to deal, by all means, move them.
50
Sheri,
I went through the public schools and since my parents couldn’t have afforded a private school I also had no way out. I had only one incident with a teacher and since pushing back seemed not worthwhile I simply stayed silent and took the criticism. No problem ever came of it. My grade was what I earned (don’t ask because I don’t remember).
My real problem was with bullies — seems that’s a big topic these days, probably too big. Since I got no relief from the administration I finally solved the problem with a right cross to the jaw.
Mind you, I don’t advocate that but when there’s no other way out, a physical confrontation can do wonders. Bullies are cowards by nature and when they’re set back on their heels as I did, they leave you alone thereafter. Unfortunately these days we have some much more vicious bullies to contend with.
00
We were also too poor for anything but public schools, but boy did my mother threaten us with Catholic School every time we misbehaved! Some people have Agoraphobia, Acrophobia, etc. We had Papadidaskaleinophobia!!!
00
Having seen similar situations, I wouldn’t take a laissez faire approach. By the time the situation clearly hasn’t “worked out” and has been fled from, the teacher is capable of doing substantial damage. The lesson learned may be the wrong one. I’d act immediately at the first sign of trouble OF ANY KIND, affecting ANY student.
40
How, then, does the person learn to work in the real world? Somewhere along the way, some very annoying, nasty person will stand between the person and their goal. I suppose I regard childhood as the time to learn these lessons because you have parents to help and you probably don’t end up in jail. I worry that when moved at any sign of any trouble, a student learns they cannot cope with life, develop no coping skills and when confronted by a boss that resembles the teacher, they quit work and then what? It’s just what I see.
60
I think it is a matter of timing. IN the years described (9th), the student is still in the “sponge” stage soaking up all knowledge available. Once they leave high school and start into college, that is when they need to learn to overcome obstacles.
College (the first 4 years) is not necessarily about teaching you to be experts in a field. It is teaching you how to make learning a life long experience. The real world does not give you simple math problems to solve. They are all word problems.
00
I suppose retribution is possible, maybe even probable. But what would you council, Keven? Knuckle under and stay silent never wins the day. We’re where we are today because far too many people do this already. If retribution does occur, you fight it. There’s no other way an honest man — in this case young but still a man — can live his life and keep his self respect.
Let’s applaud someone with the gumption to stand up and yell, “Bullshit!” when it was bullshit.
Has any trouble materialized yet? Seems like the key question to me.
60
What would I counsel? Well, I’ve already counselled a Plan B – move the son. On the information available I wouldn’t go any further, My own experience is that in a Teacher/pupil conflict the facts rarely matter. The school construct a narrative – the teacher is right – and you find yourself in a “Rule One”, situation. I spent several years as Chairman of a Local Authority School Appeals Committee, dealing with amongst other things placements and exclusion appeals. I found that if the situation had deteriorated to the point where in the case before the Committee, right or wrong had little bearing on the case. Personal relationships had broken down to the point where the system required the removal of the pupil from the school for the good of the pupil.
Clearly Russell will wish to avoid the nuclear option and will attempt to smooth things over. At 15 exams are a mountain range in the middle distance and to disrupt a pupil’s education at that point will likely damage his life-chances. If the Head is amenable, in-school solutions, such as changing classes or re-assigning staff, is a possibility. However, it could be in this case that the teacher in question has been given a top-stream, senior class on the premise that her under-developed classroom presence will be put under less strain than if teaching a less able, more rumbustious class. If this is the case another series of options are available, but we are now well into fantasy planning, so I’ll stop.
20
Kevin,
I already respect your judgment and your opinions and now your experience in such matters as well. But I think this was a good thing to happen. A whole classroom full of students got their eyes opened to the fact that there’s another side to the story. And the teacher, who obviously didn’t expect to be held to the agreement of the day before by the whole class, got an eyeopener too (a good lesson about keeping commitments).
I sincerely hope there’s no retribution. But if there is, then I would fight it. I have trouble sleeping with myself if I compromise with the truth. If I’m proven wrong then I’ll admit the mistake. But in the meantime, my principles mean something to me.
20
Roy. Thanks for the vote of confidence. In the short term, I agree it was a good thing to happen, and have no doubt that a high degree of learning took place in that lesson. My experience of the way State -run schools work, in the UK at least, indicates that in the longer term with the wrong sorts of personalities in executive positions, things could go very wrong for the pupils involved. For example, A weak Head, an over-strong unionised staffroom and an acquiescent School Board is all that is needed to turn a molehill of a divergent view of an issue into the mountain of a personal disaster for the pupil. I probably come across as, “pint half empty”, on this issue, and I make no claim to be prescient, but this is one of those times I’d rather be wrong. Maybe,” Praise the Lord, but keep your powder dry”, best sums up my thinking.
20
Kevin that was great.
Another way to interpret the event is to consider the different approaches taken by the two protagonists.
The clarity of ones vision was reduced by the obscuring dust of acquired knowledge.
00
.
Hold on, stop the presses!
The “pause” in global warming comes from bad data.
Hit the link for the super convincing article and video.
http://io9.com/new-study-shows-the-pause-in-global-warming-comes-fro-1484259046
“. . . the “pause” is a fiction, the result of bad data and bad statistical reasoning.”
739
Sorry, how rude of me. I should have responded to the article first.
Great to see that not all kids have fallen victim to the scares.
Im itching for the day one of my kids comes home and starts sprouting off about climate change. Im wondering how early in their school education the brain washing begins.
Excellent work Jordan and Tom!
240
Warcroft, it starts about grade 3, before that they are too worried about teaching them to
writeuse a computer50
When it starts that young, you KNOW its purely indoctrination.
I have NEVER met a primary teacher who had even the most basic understanding of anything to do with science. !!
101
Hi AndyG,
Maybe not all, my wife a primary school teacher, took umbrage when a fellow primary school teacher gave her year 5 students a project that was one sided on the Global warming issue.
She basically told her that the job of a teacher was not to push an agenda but teach kids how to research a topic by looking at all sides of an argument.
One of the parents also complained to the school about the topic so I think people are starting to push back a little.
80
I’m somewhat puzzled about global warming in education. It just doesn’t seem like a school level topic. It deserves a mention, just like dry land salinity in the West Australian wheat belt deserves a mention (at least if you live in WA). But I can’t imagine you’d want to go into the theory of AGW in detail.
Looking back at my schooling, was there much taught that later turned out to be wrong? I can’t really remember. In grade 5, a teacher made a lasting impression with his loathing for Otto Niemeyer, who came out from the Bank of England to Australia to make sure we didn’t follow sensible economic policies during the Great Depression. It would have been 5 minutes he spent on that, and he was old enough that he’d probably lived through it. It wasn’t part of any official subject that we were studying. And 45 years later I remember it.
17
Climate change should only be discussed in Science or Physics in high year 10, to year 11, 12 by teachers who are prepared to present a balanced view.
Primary age kids, by primary teachers with only propaganda knowledge.. this should NOT be occurring. It’s indoctrination.
Social Sciences should also not have it in the curriculum. It is a science topic… isn’t it !!
170
My son comes home from school spouting about about global warming i have a great time knocking down his/teachers arguments
41
Had a quick look. More holes than a trawler net. and people get money for this sort of thing.
180
Sadly, there is only an abstract available with paying an exorbitant fee. Perhaps later. However, this quote:
“There are two other facts to keep in mind. One is that rising temperatures in the ocean are in the deep ocean, not on the surface. So a surface temperature measure does not reflect actual warming in the oceans. And two, climate is a chaotic system. We will see jumps and dips and pauses all the time, on the scale of a few years. But when you look at the trends decade by decade, you can still see an obvious trend upward in global temperatures.”
Until at least half way into climate change dogma, no warming of the oceans was mentioned. It did not go “public” until the atmosphere reportedly stopped warming and climate change had to find the heat somewhere or lose the theory. Second, the statement “climate is a chaotic system” is say “We Do Not Know How Climate Works or What Drives It”. Meaning the claim that CO2 is the main driver is admitted to be wrong by climate change believers. Somehow, they miss the fact that this falsifies their theory…..
I will agree that all the differences in temperature data sets and statistical methodology does confound the whole theory–which, again, proves the theory to be totally lacking and in need of replacement. If the theory depends entirely on “proper” choice of data sets (and yes, more is usually better), it can hardly be considered a viable theory. One of the pitfalls of “average global temperature” and climate change is the reality that ANY change in data input can result in wide variations. The trend line drawn can go up or down depending on where one starts and ends. The entire idea is flawed.
120
The term that describes that, is “coherence”. It is used in political analysis to assess, or weigh, sometimes conflicting evidence, from multiple sources. Climate science has always had a very low coherence value (due to all of the ambiguities), which is a clear indicator that the meme only continues because the politicians want it to, and not because it is real.
80
I’ll skip the easy pickings. quote”…on the scale of a few years”. While refering to a chaotic system.
Fractal:
A curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. They are useful in modelling structures (such as snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth and galaxy formation.
In common language; self similar at varying scales.
I’ve studied fractals and made one of my own. They are fascinating.
00
Looks to me like the writing style and veracity of Popular Science still lives, albeit in a zombie like state.
20
Wow! Ive never had more than a couple of down votes before. Either theres a huge influx of trolls or you are mistaken for which side of the fence Im on.
80
I once made the same mistake as you have just done yourself, found an article full of total B.S. posted a link without making it clear I didn’t agree with the article, and had only posted as an example of the baseless drivel that passes for expert opinion and got more red thumbs than J.B usually gets.
Blew me away, that I had been so misread.
40
Wellllllll people usually paste links to documents that support their own view more often than the opposite. If people disagree with something they link to it’s explicitly communicated in the sentences surrounding the link. So it’s stereotypical reasoning to assume you agreed with the linked item, and yeah, just because you paste a link does not logically imply any particular judgement about it.
But… surely you must admit that from our point of view that might be a little bit… confusing.
20
referencing that Ton of Cowpat, was probably not a good move 🙂
40
Also, one votes on the article presented, if you post a simple link as you did, readers interpret the posting to be about the article. If you post commentary, they will consider the commentary. It’s not and shouldn’t be a fan club, so I shouldn’t worry, no one’s gonna “send the boys around”.
PS: you just needed a /sarc tag.
60
Poe’s Law in action.
10
Again!? Seems like only yesterday I said the same thing about JJ’s outburst. There was no sign of sarcasm in it and I had to google his previous comments here to figure out if he was serious.
Poe is finding frequent employment in this forum.
The remedy is, paradoxically, for commentators to think inside the box.
We aren’t mind readers. The words commentators type inside the comment box will be interpreted as the commentator’s own beliefs and will be the only thoughts we attribute to them.
Taking a literal interpretation to the words inside the box before clicking Post Comment will eliminate most of the confusion.
20
Some people don’t pick up irony very well. I appreciate your dead-pan humour, you got a green from me. It’s the way you tell it.
10
I’ve always thought the voting here is about how well a post contributes to the quality of dialectic on the topic at hand, not about which ‘side of the fence’ a poster seems to be sitting. I think the utility of the tallys is as a tool to focus on the highlights of the conversation while ignoring trolls.
I sensed right away that you were being critical of the article you linked, but I can’t see that it bears on Jordan and Tom’s valiant stand at their high school against institutionalized indoctrination into Luddism. As I read your comment and noticed the high number of downchecks I assumed they were mostly on account of being off-topic. Apparently some of them were for poorer reasons; I hope those were the exceptions.
Your link was well worth sharing. ‘Weekend unthreaded’ discussion might have been a good place for it, or someplace where other commenters had brought the ‘pause’ into the discussion.
10
We need the ability to use the Sarcastica font. I think most people missed the sarcasm this post was dripping in.
10
Refreshing to hear of this. Sure, kids have rebelled against ‘conventional’ wisdom since Plato, but this could be indicative of a general groundswell against the gentrified AGW theory touted by the bewhiskered or bun wearing teachers. Hope so because young ones not only have emotions but a vast amount of science based facts to back them up.
110
You aren’t the Edwina I know are you?
00
All I know is I’ve been posting on here as Edwina for ages.
00
Fantastic article Jo, huge kudos to you for finding it and putting it up here for the world to see. I’ll bet my remaining molars there are smart, skeptical & rational kids like this everywhere. The teacher is an idiot, kids are fantastic existentialists and live for finding adult hypocrisy, especially from authority figures like teachers. The statement “Shut up, I am the TEACHER and you’re here to learn.” has no place in a class discussion. That’s the ultimate sign of disrespect for the pupil’s intellect. That’s not teaching, it’s disseminating political propaganda by force.
200
Yep, just hope those kids don’t cop the victimisation that occurred with my daughter.
Was talking last month to the enrolment person that my girl will be educated next year on line.
My daughter is not alone and many are pulling their children out of the public system because it offers nothing.
200
Sorry to hear it came to that scaper, I hope your daughter gets plenty of social interaction with friends etc.. as I’m sure you know it’s important for young development.
Maybe you could find others in the same situation and network into an online skeptics school?, just an idea. 🙂
90
Yonniestone, the girl has very good friends, her age and others up to five years older. She works part time making kebabs although she is not of legal age and has plenty of interaction behind the counter with customers of all ages.
No need for a young sceptics network as none of her friends believe in the rubbish and the others that believe in global warming will wake up soon enough…one would hope.
Done an interesting exercise not long ago. Set out a chronology of our daughter’s educational experience. Sent it to a Minister of government I know to pass it on privately to Christopher Pyne. I did stress the global warming indoctrination of our youth and the denial/revision of our history which is the basis of our evolving culture too.
Offered no advice in the communication as not my bag but on review of the chronology it was quite clear what needs to be done and it is outside the government’s remit.
It comes back to personal responsibility of the parents. The responsibility of the parents to nurture their children instead of cocking a leg, spitting them out and then sheeting the responsibility on others through childcare to basically be the surrogate parents whilst they either pursue their careers or maintain their lifestyles of welfare dependence. Seen too much of this.
The quality of educators leave much to be desired but not all as my daughter had a few teachers that engendered in herself the inspiration to not only learn but question the status quo. Again, outside the government’s remit because the issue is a state government responsibility.
Curriculum and funding are yet again grey areas as the states control such and indeed a rocky road as exemplified by the attempted takeover by the Gillard socialist government.
My thoughts.
20
Good to hear scaper, I personally have seen the changes made in early childhood development over the past decade and I fully agree with the you on the socialist description of this indoctrination, keep an eye out for anything labeled as “Framework“
10
You are the parent and in Australia at least you do have a significant amount of power to have teachers that take retribution on children discliplined, or to have your child switched to another teacher. On the other hand, kids are really good at spinning the “teacher hates me” argument, and thus you need to be sure of your facts before you make any accusations.
Schools are bound to provide explanations of what they do with your children if you ask. Be involved, and demand to know what and how your children are being educated. Talk to their teachers supervisors where necessary, particularly where they are disseminating ideology or counter factual information – see my earlier comment.
Also, be aware that the curriculum says they must be taught the errant consensus view about AGW, the best you can hope is to get the school to also present the counter arguments and mark them on their endeavour in understanding both sides of the argument and the application of the maths and science rather than the consensus opinion. (For opinion is all it is)
50
LOL,
My kids go to a private school and the school priest doubles as teh science teacher (apparently he is legit) anyway even he would not subject the students to this type of indoctrination
10
Maybe I’m missing the point, but if a kid holds some odd belief (e.g. they are a muslim in a christian school), the standard method of dealing with it is just not to bring up that subject. There are a great many other things to talk about and do, so there really is no need to emphasise the aspect that makes the kid “different”.
09
The trouble is that it isn’t just one subject. Political correctness, as now systematically taught in public schools, covers too many areas to avaoid.
40
That’s, “avoid”.
00
So to stop the school teaching Global Warming fantasy, we just need our kids to say it’s against their beliefs, and the schoool will just stop? In spite of the fact that the Labor government wrote it into the National curriculum. You think that would work Brooksie?
30
Jo,
Good Article!
My local small newspaper sent an opinion piece on global man-made global warming last week and I sent a letter to the editor on this.
In it I told the opinion person to do their own homework and not follow what the media is reporting and showed what the climate models were missing.
I have yet to get a reply.
160
I believe I may have read those Joe, good on ya mate 🙂
70
We chipping in for a book on the life and time of Gallileo for these young men or what?
Go hard Boys and remember… Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Why? Then you’ll know who’s lying to you!
140
Yes, that’s a good variation the , ‘Don’t ask a question you’re not ready for the answer to’ maxim.
10
Congratulations to your son and his friend Russell, a nice little victory. I have found schools to be a very difficult environment in which to educate anything outside of the so called consensus view. One of my sons questioned his year 9 science teacher on erroneous climate change “facts” and was threatened with removal from the class. Another example, a high school teacher mate of mine planned to discuss with one of his classes the problems with wind turbines. When the other teachers in his staffroom discovered his lesson content he was told “you can’t teach them that”. Thankfully he dug his heels in and went through with the lesson. As a 4th year student teacher myself I am appalled with the hard left philosophies of the teaching profession. It’s taught that all conservative views on pedagogy are bad and progressive pedagogy is good. No direct instruction, everything must be “discovery based learning”. I even had one class where the weekly reading identified the family as one of the major impediments to good education.
190
Graeme
In my profession, which is Medicine, if I introduce a new form of therapy, I am at the very least honour bound to evaluate it against existing treatments with regard to success rates, side effect profile, etc. Even if promising in clinical trials, the therapy would have ongoing in situ assessment as to any unforeseen issues by practitioners and prescribers, a recent example being the drug “Posicor”, a Calcium channel blocker anti-hypertensive which was withdrawn from the market due to adverse events (I reported 3). While not a perfect system, at least the attempt is there to weed out ineffective or dangerous treatments in favour of the best possible management approach or combination of approaches to benefit the patient in their illness.
In teaching, however, the reverse is true. The implementation of self-directed learning, the propensity toward whole word language acquisition rather than phonics for English, the abolition of rote learning regimes for Mathematics foundation, the abolition of meritocratic pedagogy in favour of Marxist doctrine lowest common denominator teaching, have all been adopted without any effort (that I can see) to evaluate it objectively against traditional teaching methods as to student outcomes. The whole point of a national curriculum is, IMHO, to avoid healthy competition between states, and to further entrench unchallenged and unevaluated teaching strategies that are failing our children. As our standards inexorably slip compared with the rest of the world, particularly with respect to our near Asian neighbours, not one teacher’s voice seems to have been raised to suggest that the obvious major reason, among many admittedly, is how we actually teach. It is as if teachers have lost sight of the whole aim of the exercise, to produce intelligent, inquiring and analytical minds.
281
Well said Winston, I totally agree with you on all points.
20
Winston,
I ‘did’ education but was not a teacher. My feeling is that the ‘progressive’ version of education is to remove power from the student, especially by the whole word reading method -phonics allows the student to decipher words for them-self.
‘Discovery’ learning is pretty well impossible when a child cannot read efficiently so all the activities are dumbed down.
100
Winston, could it be that the last thing they want is “to produce intelligent, inquiring and analytical minds”. Mind’s like those are good at spotting BS which is somewhat inconvenient when your striving for a conformist mediocracy. ( I think I just made up a word, sounds right though).
20
Again, I don’t quite get it. At school, we sometimes had religious education. As an atheist, I didn’t believe any of it, but there seemed no point to actually saying this, at least not to the well intentioned religious person taking the class.
But I wasn’t at a catholic school where eternal damnation would have been flogged. Maybe in that environment I’d have felt compelled to argue 🙂
08
They had “scripture” at my high school. I would have been 12-13 at the time.. I told mum that I thought it was a waste of time, and I’d rather be doing maths or science.
So that’s what happened. 🙂
60
John, it’s promising that you can see the similarities between religious education and environmental studies 🙂
80
John,
Do you really know anything and are you in touch with reality. I am not a Catholic but went to a Catholic school. This has been and still is common not only in Australia but around the world. All that is required is that you show that you are of good character. Where on earth do you get idea that “eternal damnation would have been flogged”from? You really need to get out more mate.
20
I did go to a Catholic school for my entire education. To begin with Hell fire was awaiting the unholy, those like me. By the time I left school, Hell was a bit of an embarrassment and one either didn’t hear about it or received a watered down version of it.
Like many ‘Christians’, I managed to get through school without actually even knowing what the Gospels were. Had I learned as much about the Bible as I’ve learned since, I would not have been able to resist challenging my teachers.
Having said that, I am now reluctant to see Christianity go. Not because I believe in it or anything like that, but because of the more dangerous nonsense waiting to replace it. Political correctness and Islam come immediately to mind.
81
well on one hand the teacher isn’t really qualified to talk about that topic, so she is not able to falsify what kids said…
Let s be realistic, if kids had made a presentation like this about twin towers they could “win” the debate saying that they found evidence of conspiracy.
Sale with big bang explosion, or evolution…teacher are not qualified.
But as far i know you don’t have taxes on big bang or taxes on evolution.
We know kids are indoctrinated at school..the scandal is not the doctrine to be false the scandal is you don’t even have the right to say it can be wrong.
190
I fail to see any connection to the twin towers.
10
I read the comment as referring to the “debate” about whether or not, the twin towers were actually demolished by airplanes, or by Semtex, with the film footage being captured through serendipity, or manufactured ahead of time, and whether the eye witnesses for the second plane hitting the towers were genuine observers, or planted shills that are sworn to secrecy for the rest of their lives.
10
The idea of big conspiracies has been around for all of history. One big one is about Pearl Harbour. USA had intelligence Japan would attack in order to wipe out the carrier fleet. But the carriers were ‘sent’ to the south away from the obvious direction. The battleships were left as sitting ducks. Prior battles such as against the Bismark and the Prince of Wales showed battleships as inferior and defunct. So their loss couldd be worn and used as an excuse to change public opinion for war. True or false, it worked.
10
False.
Your example of motivation needs a little work. The Bismarck was sunk by battleships (after being disabled by airplanes). At the time of Pearl Harbour the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were afloat, although they were shortly after that sunk by land based bombers, causing a change of mind in some quarters.
But most of the sunk battleships in Pearl Harbour were re-floated, refurbished and played a part, along with new battleships in the Pacific War.
Much of the basis of a conspiracy was based on dislike of Franklin D. Roosevelt (thinking he was a devious, untrustworthy bastard, which he was) and a wish to see him guilty of some crime. No credible evidence has ever surfaced that Roosevelt knew an attack was imminent; besides George Marshall would have also known, and no-one would accept that he would have beed a party to such behaviour. This did not mean that there was not some concern; the story of the post office motorbike rider who rode through the air raid to the Army fort with a message (containing a vague warning for the future) for the Military Commander comes to mind. As he was of japanese origin there was a little delay before the General got the warning and threw it straight into the rubbish bin.
30
It’s off topic I know, but interesting nonetheless.
It’s an odd thing, but what happened at Pearl probably foreshortened WW2 in the Pacific.
The Japanese made 4 vital mistakes.
The first, and most obvious, hence the most quoted, was that all the Carriers were out at sea.
The other 3 were in fact probably more vital.
Admiral Chester Nimitz made these comments when asked for his opinion after touring the site. ‘Chet’ was a glass half full man.
He said that the major mistake was that the Japs, seeing all those big fat Battleships lined up got carried away, because directly opposite them were the dry docks, totally undamaged, not one hit.
Chet said that most of the ships, including a number of ships other than those big Battleships, were in shallow water, and could be raised, towed by one tug across the short distance to the dry docks and repaired. Had those dry docks been bombed and severely damaged, they would have had to either leave the bombed ships there, or tow them back to the American mainland for repair. The ships they did raise were all repaired and back at sea long before the first of them would have reached the mainland towed by a fleet of slow tugs and vulnerable to further bombing.
The second mistake was that the attack was on Sunday morning, and nine out of every ten sailors was ashore on shore leave. Any other day, and they would have lost considerably more men.
The third was that ALL the Pacific fuel storage (every drop, not just the fuel oil for the ships) was in above ground storage over a small hill, less than 5 miles from the Harbour where all the ships were, and one solid strafing run from one plane would have blown the lot of it up.
Incidentally, that other famed U.S. WW2 Admiral, ‘Bull’ Halsey was on board one of the Carriers.
Tony.
(Just one Source of many)
20
Well now this Thread has been replaced by a new one, I can stay off topic, because no one will come back here and read this.
Another of those great U.S. WW2 Admirals was John McCain Senior, a 4 star Admiral, who led the Carrier Fleet with distinction during WW2.
His son, John McCain Junior was also a 4 star Admiral, who served with distinction post WW2, after serving with distinction during that War as a Submarine Captain.
Junior’s son was John McCain lll, the current Senator, who retired from the Navy as a full Captain, just one rank below Star Rank, a unique occurrence in U.S. Naval history.
Incidentally, John McCain Senior was a young Ensign in 1907, when America’s youngest President ever (and IMHO their best President) Theodore Roosevelt, sent what became known as The Great White Fleet on its World tour to wave the flag for the U.S. During that tour, the Fleet visited Australia, and was seen by more than a million people. Those ships would be greeted by protests these days as they were all coal burners.
I know I’m touting my own Posts, but information on that Great White Fleet can be seen at the following link.
The Great White Fleet
Tony.
10
A coincidental off-topic! Only in the last week I watched an online documentary on Pearl Harbor. Those mistakes made by the Japanese, that you presented, were included. Perhaps you might also do a brief description on the Battle of Midway, which I watched afterwards. I found the 70’s movie to be fairly complicated. But like PH, it seems to me that, with a few relatively small changes, the BOM and the war could have gone the other way.
00
G day Tony,I dont mind reading old comments,what about the story that the poms knew about the jap sneaky but kept it to themselves to get America in the war
00
Okay, add to your 4, 2 more.
#5 – They did not invade. They did not have to hold the islands (but very well could have for a time at least), but the invasion would do what the bombardment did not – make the islands useless as a forward base for a period of time.
#6 – Neglected the submarines. For much of 42 and half of 43, they were the only thing keeping the Japanese fleet from doing pirouettes in the middle of the pacific. Not that they actually crippled the fleet, but the FEAR of them caused a greater hesitancy in Yamamoto’s actions.
But the common thread of almost all the major mistakes is that the Pilots (or the admiralty) saw “big fat targets” on the BBs and ignored all else.
00
Don’want to belabour the point but you are right about the Prince of Wales. I guess I should have mentioned the destruction of the Italian fleet in harbour by biplanes (stringbags) of the British. The Japanese not only hoped to rid the battlewagons but carriers in the harbour as well. The point was they weren’t there. Yamamato feared the USA carriers might get him if he sent a 2 nd wave. Then there is the famous shutdown of the radar just as the Japanese were detected. Why?
00
Edwina,
the radar was on peace and holiday time. It wasn’t even supposed to be running that late, but the operators took the opportunity for some extra working/training time because their transport was late that Sunday morning. Such “slackness” was common in peacetime, and in the UK up until early 1942 – hence the passage of the Channel by the German ships.**
Esmond, who got a posthumous VC, was sent out with 6 Swordfish to try to delay the germans. He KNEW that he was going to certain death, as were most of his men (3 out of 18 survived).
Note: since the Japs came in from due North, they couldn’t tell which direction they came from and the post battle search was directed due South.
** The torpedo supply depot was notorious and didn’t reach the air base (20 mile away I think) with the torpedoes until after the Germans had reached port. There isn’t any truth that they were greeted with “you’ve arrived, and in the same war too”; that was an afterthought.
00
Edwina
My dear old mum was FIRMLY convinced that it wasn’t the Japanese who bombed PH but the British to force the Americans to enter the war. No amount of logic would sway her away from that opinion and she carried that with her for 65 years until the day she died
00
It’s and example of an argument that can be won.
Whereas AGW is an argument that can’t be won, because the cure is to tax people. So how can you prove that it worked?
00
That is a seriously good question Greg because any answer given tends to be subjective and informed by philosophical belief. I think pollies love tax because people are shallow and easy to bribe at election time. It’s just a case of cunningly juggling the Peters’ and Pauls’ in such a way that the bribed benefactors end up in the majority.
00
This is a heart-warming story to me. In my day as a Generation X and a 16/17 year old sceptic I was still tolerated by teachers and my desire to go against the grain has, I believe, stood me in good stead for life and influenced the person I have become. And yes I was even going against the grain of AGW in 1987 as a 17 y/o – my economics teacher was John Daly who wrote the Greenhouse Trap.
Then as a business person employing Gen Ys I actually started to fear for this generation. I had no dislike of Gen Ys, to the contrary, I employed them and a few became good friends, however, I still could not stomach how they (even my friends) would stand in line, absorb and believe the socialist line propaganda from the left wing media about AGW and other matters like an NBN so they could download pirated movies faster.
In the last two years my Gen Y friends have got better, they at least don’t think I am the devil for being a climate skeptic.
I was of course ready for propaganda against my daughter’s education, she is 17 now, but it never eventuated. It got close mind you, but with respect to the school they kept it in check.
So in the story behind Jo’s post where the school’s socialist teachers got out of hand I think it’s fantastic to know that some brave 15 year old Breaker Morant types are willing to stand up.
170
Is that a good example to follow? You know what happened to the Breaker.
00
I don’t think there is any left wing media.
118
To you, even the ABC would look right-wing. !!
101
Damn tootin!
02
Left of whom, Stalin?
30
Denialist!
40
You should have stopped there. You would have been more accurate.
40
This to me is the most uplifting post on your site to date. It must have taken a great deal of courage for those young kids to stand up to their teacher in that way. That the class gave them a standing ovation is icing on the cake. That they are actively thinking for themselves and not swallowing group-think is heartening for our future.
140
Great stuff!
Unluckily for me I graduated from high school a couple of years before the global warming climate change nonsense began in earnest but I would
Have joined the fray that’s for sure!
To the boys, don’t let those imbeciles get away with teaching lies in your school! This is about far more than just scientific honesty and strikes at the core of what Australians are and what we believe in – and that is NOT Agenda 21 “sustainable development”.
160
School was pretty boring in my day, and to cope with the tedium I used to sit at the front of the class and look for things wrong with what the teachers were saying. To their credit, most of the teachers could handle that, and the sparring was generally lively and good humoured.
But most second-rate teachers hate that sort of thing, and the best way to deal with it is educate people so badly that they are incapable of forming or expressing any judgements at all. Governments like that too, because then the great unwashed are less able to critique their policies. Hence, education in Britain today is a complete shambles.
120
Hi Jo,
Remember you helping my daughter do this back in 2010 when she was in year 12 and faced the same problems.
She gave the presentation as if she was you (this was a requirement of the talk). I am not sure if you still have her presentation let me know if you want a copy to post.
110
Scott, thanks for reminding me. I have it – she did a great job, I’ll send you an email. Silly me, back then I didn’t realize these projects would be so widely popular…
120
Should the lad put any of that into an examination question, he’ll get failed for it.
That’s the real problem.
150
Yeah, but only an idiot puts an answer they know will be marked wrong in an exam. Just write what the teacher wants to hear. Its not hard.
113
That comment speaks of INDOCTRINATION, and if you really believe it, you are truly a sick, sick person.
81
That’s right John. Never mind the reality, stick to the narrative. You’ve obviously done OK by that.
40
Probably LIED on his job application.
Whatever it takes…… the far-left mantra !!
30
Andy, Kev, Gee,
Much as I hate to admit it Brookes is right, I have advised many students to ignore what THEY think and just write what the teacher thinks. That’s the way to pass exams.
I learned this at high school when asked in a test – what do you think the Author meant by this (passage of text). I answered truthfully and was marked wrong. How can I be wrong, I was asked for an opinion and I gave it…. By definition I must be correct.
I have never forgotten that valuable life lesson. Be true to yourself, but mindreading the teacher gets you an A.
00
If you cant be true to yourself and only do what you think others see as right,then you condemn yourself to just being another sheep.Having your own opinion is uncomfortable at times,but its easier to live with.
20
Once you finish studying and doing exams, I agree, until then lie.
00
” Much as I hate to admit it Brookes is right, I have advised many students to ignore what THEY think and just write what the teacher thinks. That’s the way to pass exams. ”
In that case, there are *two* answers to every question! An ‘on-book’ (as in keeping an honest ledger) answer (the one the teacher requires) and an ‘off-book’ (under the counter ledger) answer which maps to reality!
+1000 on the head post too! Way to go HS students!
00
That teacher has no right working in her profession, her biased damaging ideals make her as dangerous as a drug addicted surgeon operating.
171
OH FFS. A teacher is not a god. Kids are quite capable of forming opinions on the merits or otherwise of teachers. Just because a teacher pushes an idea you don’t like is no reason to stop them teaching.
18
When the AGW junk is forced on yr 3 students purely as indoctrination.
Students that age do not have the wherewithal to understand they are being LIED to.
And any teacher who is teaching this in high school MUST be prepared to put forward a BALANCED view.
Otherwise its just PROPAGANDA !!!!
But that’s what you want, isn’t it JB.
81
When a teacher is the only adult authority figure for that time then yes a child will elevate that teacher to whatever level of respect that teacher earns, you mentioned God not me.
Oh and if you think you can answer me with “FFS” then just leave now little man and go back to your one mate blog where your stupidity is inflicted on the only person that deserves it, YOU.
30
One of the basics that I constantly remember is that teachers and most pure academics have never left school and lived in and worked in the real world outside of academia and it shows in spades.
They do not understand the need to make a profit to survive and to make a decent living that you have to produce something at a price people are willing to pay for and for which, unlike teaching and other academic pursuits, you can’t force people to pay for without any optional cop out.
Most of them don’t understand, having never lived in the real world, that you need to entice customers to spend the odd dollar or so on your produce and production
In my time a long long time ago admittedly, the ex tradies, those who had lived in and had to make a living through practicing their craft and skills were by far the best teachers in the more practical arts.
But the example above again is showing the power of the internet.
Those kids obviously downloaded a heap of information which they would have had to sort through to find what they wanted.
In doing so they would have been exposed to a whole range of thinking and would have had to do some thinking for themselves based on what their parents no doubt had instilled in them through their formative years as well as measure that information against all the other information they were accumulating as knowledge over their few brief years of life.
Just reading of those other instances mentioned where the kids stood up for what they believe should be starting to create some serious alarm within science circles and academia.
If those kids refused to swallow the claimed alarmist science that as being forced fed to them then, to me, it indicates that there is an increasing loss of respect for the pronouncements from science of every type.
Understandable today as so much good, indifferent and seriously bad science is now communicated by press release as is sports, money, companies reports, gambling and etc.
So why should the kids give much credence as far as they know it, to just another probably over hyped up, bodgied up and partly spurious press release claim from some completely unknown and claimed expert scientists who nobody has ever heard of before?
All those press releases by so called scientists are just reinforcing the deep down, increasingly cynical attitude towards the constant over exposure and constant bombardment of publicity that now also has become most of science’s modus operandi in the public sphere.
In short what is now different to the way in which science is promoting itself compared to any other over hyped attention seeking advertising money mining commercial outfits that we are all over exposed to every day of our lives.
I suspect Science in effect is just becoming another of a vast range of similar in operation publicity seeking outfits and appears no different to any other money and publicity orientated outfit and therefore will be treated with a level of cynicsm and disdain by the new generations that are up and coming in our society.
My generation of some 75 years ago now regarded science with awe and deep respect and I think that respect was justified as most of the scientists up until the end of the 1970’s had been through the hard trauma of the WW2 and it’s aftermath in one way or another which shaped their attitudes and lives forever after.
Interestingly a comment from a future to be scientist [although he didn’t know it at the time as he got a rainmaking apprenticeship with the CSIRO in 1967 because of his gliding skills ] whom I taught to fly gliders nearly some 50 years ago and who went on to his doctorate in cloud physics and to being head of Tasmania’s Hydro’s rain making division .
He was grateful for the type of tutors, those of the generations [ before about 1980 which was his cut off point for any respect for a lot of scientists,] he had had as a student but held most of todays’ CSIRO scientists in considerable disregard and some in outright contempt.
Science indeed has a great deal to worry about in it’s future if this disdain and cyniscm of the next generation becomes the public mores towards the science of tomorrow
And the stories above might be the canary in the coal mine indicating a significant diminishment of respect and tolerance for science and it’s many foibles and faults amongst the public of the near future..
Brought on entirely by the excesses that science has now apparently adopted from the commercial world in an attempt to make itself a major political and policy setting force within society.
121
“the ex tradies, those who had lived in and had to make a living through practicing their craft and skills were by far the best teachers in the more practical arts.”
That is also my experience from ages gone by. I especially remember my 9th grade science teacher, a retired Air Force colonel. We did actual, real world experiments in chemistry and physics. One of the more exciting was making fuel-air bombs to illustrate the narrow burn range of natural gas, and why gas leaks led to explosions rather than fires. We set off 15 or so FA bombs in class.
Today, even if he didn’t get arrested for teaching terrorist methods, we would have only seen a video. Instead, each studebt lab pair constructed from scratch and blew up their own bomb. Good Times 🙂
Not as exciting, but just as real-world oriented, was the retired banker who taught history and economics.
Both left me with the attitude that theory is important, but it must be tested and demonstrated in the real world. So far, the acolytes of the Church of Global [whatever it is now] haven’t managed to test or demonstrate their faith in the theory.
80
Ahh, the days of fun experiments. These days you can’t even buy half the chemicals you could when I was a kid. I luckily escaped my chemical adventures without injury. But I feel sorry for the kids of today not being able to have fun with exotic chemicals.
But there are still some good ones. You can buy sodium hydroxide in the supermarket, and if you dissolve some of that and chuck in aluminium foil, you get a nice reaction producing hydrogen. It starts slowly and then gets more vigorous. Its strongly exothermic. But with a bit of care you can make hydrogen balloons.
Still the current explosion (so to speak) of meth labs goes to prove that there is still a strong interest in chemistry.
34
My god, I find myself agreeing with JB twice in one day. Must be dreaming or something
20
“You can buy sodium hydroxide in the supermarket, …”
Sadly, this is no longer true in the US of A. It seems to be a victim of the marvelously successful War on Drugs. (Was a sarcasm tag required? I thought not.) Time was you could buy Red Devil lye easily, or if less picky, Drano. Now Drano is made unusable due to additives for anything other than pouring down the drain to clear clogs. Food grade lye is only available from a limited number of sources.
You can’t make proper pretzels without lye. Sodium carbonate won’t do the job even in a saturated solution. Bah!
00
Wonderful news! Well done those youngsters, and the rest of their class for insisting on their presentation. As Jo says, may this be the start of thousands following in their footsteps. Given the pressures on teachers to conform to the establishment’s dogma on climate, this avenue for getting a calmer and more balanced view out in the open in schools may be a crucial one. If the teachers start banning this too, and I suppose they will try in due course, then the pupils can create their own climate classes and share their findings on the internet.
120
Well done to those kids.
When my son started his new school parents were invited for a “sample” lesson to see how it was done or just in case we had forgotten.
One of the subjects was “Geography” which in turn was about energy – specifically wind farms. We were asked to sit on one side of the room if we thought they were planet healing “good things” and on the opposite if we thought otherwise.
It was really meant as a platform for the teacher to show off – she had the usual arguments prepared as different presentations – bird kills, climate change, how ugly is a nuclear station etc.
She didn’t last long. Although only about 1/3 of us sat on the “don’t like them” side most of our points went unanswered – lots of hand waving, lots of “scientists predict” etc. When asked for her sources they were WWF, Greenpeace etc.
I would have pressed my points more strongly but I could see my son getting a hard time in return – teachers are not the most fair or intelligent of creatures after all, so I fell silent.
I also don’t force my views on my son, its up to him to make up his own mind as long as it is his choice.
120
Very clever students. Their parents should be proud. The teacher ought to be sacked. It would be like a teacher telling his/her students that 1+1=3. Besides I thought teachers were not allowed to teach religion.
130
It wasn’t so long ago that, I believe on this fine blog, that we discussed that the best way to fight the AGW gullibles was to keep challenging them; having them to make ever more extreme statements; thereby losing what credibility they may still have amongst the sane and thoughtful.
And so it went with that “dear teacher”: Providing not just a platform for rational analysis that would otherwise not have been available; but more valuably; an audience that included one of her peers.
In the public eye, where recognition of logical fallacies isn’t part of life, the only leg that the gullibles have to stand on is that of authority. But when they themselves undermine their own credibility, they also lose that authority.
110
Perhaps that’s why they don’t reach Philosophy in schools (except in French schools). They couldn’t cope with the challenge to Authority
40
One of the most supportive things a parent can do is to present a book called, “Sophie’s World”, by Jostien Gaarder, a Norwegian, to their children. The book introduces teenagers to philosophy and logical thought, skills which will sustain them through life and help them to map their way through the trials the World will send their way. Especially the understanding they will develop will help them to formulate and pose pertinent questions and to discern the difference between a world-view based on facts and logic and a world view constructed from narrative, thus insulating them somewhat from the Left/Green ideology.
100
So is Tom, the [snip, you didn’t have to post it- J] This is easily found … – or is this a ruse to try to catch the unwary? If my mention of the name is inappropriate then you might want to strip the file of such info.
[snip that bizarre bit of speculation too. Not remotely.]
—
Info is stripped now. – Jo
014
Oh but it does have bearing on the debate, in fact it’s the whole point here. To the teacher’s regret, she made the mistake of allowing debate. She probably quickly realised her mistake, but by then it was too late.
Love it.
140
gee Aye I don’t know why a normal rational adult would draw attention to that information unless that person was not normal rational or adult in the first place, people here give you some leeway because you like to project an easy going nature but I think you just exposed your true one.
80
maybe I’ll pass on Russell’s story to my senators next time they are looking for a homily.
119
No, you won’t want to pass it on to anyone.
You submit arguments of iron.
Lung, that is.
60
The adverb you’re looking for is “inevitably.”
The Green/Left always tries to stifle debate, because since they argue from an emotional rather than a rational position, they always lose a debate.
Recall the lengths they go to trying to stop Monckton speaking in Australia. (And the unhappy pasting of those who did try to take him on — Redfearn, Lambert.)
The Left/Greens cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, so their only strategy is to close down the debate: “The science is settled; the debate is over.“
120
What a good news but let’s realize that this is not a normal educational situation. Children intuitively know that adults know more than they do and are eager to learn. But who introduced this sectarian nonsense into our schools? At about the age of six children have discovered that Santa Klaus does not exist and there are many reasons to prefer Santa to the AGW horror story. It requires courage to do what Russell’s son did.
100
Yes, courage & character. Did he get that from going to school ?
60
OT. Congratulations to Australian cricket for finally winning a test series against anyone. The shambles that turned up here in May and then got humiliated by India finally got it together and played some fine cricket against the better side and have won handsomely. I shall now go to the cabbage patch and eat worms.
70
There is hope for humanity when one realises the various political Left movements are pretty much based on exaggerated narratives…To the point that the younger generations can see right through the lies.
In the last 5 years, I’ve come to see the Modern Leftie has very distinctive traits…
(1) There is no low they will go.
=> Indoctrinate children.
(2) They are emotionally irrational.
=> Common sense seems frightfully absent.
=> If you try to debate with them honestly, they can only respond by attacking you personally. Calling names, etc.
(3) They are economically illterate.
=> See the Budget left behind by the ALP/Greens minority Govt.
=> Carbon Tax, Emissions Trading, Spend-tax-borrow more, etc.
=> Spend your way out of debt/deficit. ie: When you’re in a financial hole, keep digging!
=> Seriously, they are NOT mathematically inclined!
(4) They honestly believe “the end justifies the means”.
=> This is how they see things getting done.
=> They do NOT care if they kill a few people in the process.
(Collateral damage is acceptable to them if it means achieving their agendas.)
(5) They will destroy the rights of others in order to cover their own bums.
=> Gillard went after the media because someone got too close to her past.
=> Nicola Roxon tried to amend the Anti-Discrimination Act 2012. (So it would become “presumed guilty until proven innocent”.)
(6) They have no concept of what science, engineering, mathematics, etc really is.
=> They treat these as some unquestionable authority you must blindly obey; instead of avenues to exploration, discovery, and progression of humanity.
==> “They science is settled”.
(7) The only free speech they love is the narrative they have created to support their agendas.
=> They hate opposing speech and open/honest debate. Because such conversation will show them they can be wrong!
=> They’ve even created their shield for suppressing speech. Its called Political Correctness. ie: You don’t agree because you are a racist, homophobe, sexist, etc.
(8) The only “Equality” of their “Social Justice” they offer is the equal misery towards all.
=> Notice how everyone seems to suffer and become frustrated when the Leftie activist is around? And the annoyance suddenly disappears when they are absent.
=> The perfect example is Gillard herself. The “gender war” has suddenly gone when she is!
(9) They have two standards.
=> The Double Standard. => One rule for them. One rule for everyone else.
=> The Mediocre Standard. => Tear everyone down to the level of the group they feel sorry for. They don’t want people to stand on their own feet. They need “victims”. The kind of victims who will vote for them!
(10) When given power to govern. They are incredibly incompetent.
=> A direct result of being propped up all their lives by various interest groups and special rules they create for themselves. (Like racial or gender quotas).
(11) They don’t offer any real, tangible value to society.
=> It certainly explains why they need to “create a problem that only they can solve or advise on” through the endless funding of taxpayer’s money.
=> JoNova and the community of readers need to look at this in regards to Climate Change.
(12) They have extremely fragile or sociopath character.
=> Their political agenda is their whole being and existence. (Which means if you challenge their beliefs, they will fiercely fight you in very irrational ways.)
=> They selectively pick the best parts of their past to paint themselves in good light.
=> They don’t like honest self-assessment…Because it can review they have flaws.
=> They always go on meetings which involve collective patting on one’s backs (never-ending self congratulatory BS for accomplishing nothing).
(13) They go nuts when they become desperate.
=> This is especially true with the Climate Change clowns and extreme environmentalists. Now, any weather event is due to man-made Climate Change.
(14) They are emotional manipulators and bullies.
=> Ever notice they preach tolerance, open mind, etc when they themselves behave with extreme intolerance to others who don’t agree with them!
=> They will use language and words to try to shame and guilt trip you into supporting their agendas.
(15) They love power and control.
=> In order to fulfill their utopia, they cannot lead people to achieve it. Simply because no one would follow their BS! This is where they will use the force of the Govt to achieve their goals.
So what’s the good news about the Left?
* Time is not on their side.
=> The counter starts ticking when they lie and exaggerate. Because people are waiting to see if their BS is true or not.
* Their ideas are not consistent, and are often in self-contradiction.
=> When they want more wind turbines at the cost of killing the airborne capable wild-life, you know its no longer about environmental conservation.
=> Remember, these folks feel more than they think.
* You fight them by constantly pointing their hypocritical behaviour.
=> Which is what JoNova and others do.
=> The objective is to show the public that they are NOT to be trusted!
* Always follow the money trail.
=> Turns out they are not very bright in covering their own butts. One eventually finds dodgy behaviour if they bother to look. (Something the mainstream media no longer does!)
340
That is a very good analysis. I am impressed.
The only thing I would add (and you may have covered it) is that they are tribal. Each group has its own “dances”. These must be learnt and demonstrated by any outsider before they will be admitted to the group. It is an initiation, or a rite of passage.
You have to have attended the “right” conferences, and be able to quote the “right” texts by the “right” people. Any suggestion of thinking for yourself, from first principles, will get you instantly ejected from the tribe.
140
I am reminded how honey bees do a dance to inform those around them of the location of available pollen … aptly fitting, they do it in a ‘hive’ too …
00
I can understand (but do not agree) with Grade school teachers basically taking an attitude of “This is the lesson- learn it”. most children in those years really are not as mature as these 2 students and have not thought things through.
But College is different. You are on your own, literally. You are EXPECTED to be an adult and make adult decisions. So I have no patience for College Professors that pull that number. Unfortunately, too many do. I got my degree. And then decided to go back later in life to supplement it. I was as old or older than most of my professors. And I would not tolerate their crap about “my way or the highway”. Needless to say I was not popular, but the ignorance among college professors is astounding.
While a PhD shows that you have learned a lot, for most with the degree it means they know it all. And that means they are not as smart as the most stupid student they pretend to teach.
120
“While a PhD shows that you have learned a lot,”
chuckle. If that’s what you think, I won’t disillusion you. 😉
61
I was being generous. 😉
30
ps.. hopefully in a couple of months, it will be Dr. AndyG55 🙂
10
But you ALREADY learned a lot! 😉
Congratulations! Dr. Andy! (If I may be premature).
10
PhD = “Piled higher and Deeper” is the definition according to our local Ag scientists.
60
not if you do your research by believing the unfettered TRUTH on the internet,and instead stick to the lies of peer reviewed research.They’ll stop you.
00
What’s the definition, “a PHD is someone who has learned more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing”
Disclosure, this really isn’t a criticism of doctorates, it’s a commentary on the narrowness of the specialisation the doctorate is awarded for.
90
That’s a good point, bobl. A PhD is almost always in a tiny little niche, by its very definition and requirements.
20
Yep! With notable exceptions such as our Commenter here. 😉
00
Jo, linky no work (extra “http” at end) should be http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/ppt/schools-education/year-nine-school-presentation-climate-by-students.pptx
Nice presentation 🙂
—-
Thanks, fixed. – Jo
20
Clicking on the powerpoint presentation links tells me this…
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
AccessDeniedAccess Denied
63B325484F7EE112
3MIFvgkh5J6zymRTuwOq6oPdYdZmipVn4T67bxc7+qFoaMVJEhskLQvW4RF44zxi
Meanwhile, huge plaudits to the two lads who did this!
20
I hope young people who are reaching an age of reasoning for themselves see the world in varying shades of grey and not as universal right/ wrong or true/false as dictated by authority. Nothing is the whole truth, but nowadays those who push dogma like ‘the science is settled’ should be seen as the old ‘one mind, one view’. Hitler comes to mind.
People are thinking for themselves and the green thought-police need to update their propaganda techniques.
40
[…] So I was somewhat heartened today, on reading JoNova’s blog, by a remarkable case in Australia where 2 plucky students took on a teachers challenge, and demolished her socialist outpourings, to the delight of fellow classmates. I’m not going to recount the story, so go and read the whole thing here. […]
10
Clear case of bullying by the teacher. No matter that your child won, you could take the bullying issue with the school. (Climate BULL-ying)
80
Nice to hear this, Jo!
20
For the students at universities, it can be much, much worse.
Those who graduated from Monash may want to send Christmas Wishes to the University’s chancellor for this effusive spruiking for BMW’s i3 on their ABC:
I suggest sending a bag of straw. This is all that I could manage today.
Ferdinand Porsche’s design for the Lohner company was an petrol-electric hybrid that held the land speed record in 1899.
50
Wait until the Australian Youth Climate Coalition hears about this. They’ll go ballistic.
The two students responsible for this disruptive but entirely respectable dissent should hit the social networks, both meatspace and cyber, and tell Grade 10/11/12 kids in other schools of this experience. When a fuddy-duddy (present company excepted of course!) tells a teenager that a difficult task can be achieved it does not always result in credulous faithful acceptance and action. But when peers describe what they’ve done it is more believable and can encourage work, learning, and improvement in a way that the wrinkled ones can’t match no matter how wise the advice may be.
They may even be able to start a new movement… Skeptikids?? Maybe that’s too cheesy. Forget I said it.
Anyhow, these students can take the climate skeptic argument into the battleground where few others can venture: the classroom. Make the skepticism contagious. An antidote to authoritarian gloom can’t be too hard to sell.
120
Apparently the new age progressive teaching methods work as well with climastrology as it does with the arts and sciences: abysmal failure. What they don’t seem to understand that it is the natural tendency of many/most teenagers to rebel against the the establishment force feeding them crap.
30
Just say that I was a teacher and a climate sceptic, and one of my pupils said that she believed in global warming.
If I verbally abused the child, the word for my behaviour is “bullying.”
50
You mean like calling the child a “Denier” being a reference likening climate change sceptics to those who deny the data based accounts of the Holocaust? That sort of bullying?
50
It is great to hear stories like this. Free thinking in an increasingly regulated society cannot be a bad thing, likewise explaining the facts as they really are to those who are supposedly more knowledgeable.
I understand this blog has circa 50,000 regular readers. I wonder how many are teachers?
My guess, it might only be in single figures.
Back in the days when teaching was a worthy and respected profession and not a job for left leaning idealists, teachers were hungry for the truth. Now they seem only concerned to ensure the subject matter conforms to Julia Gillard’s or Cherie Blair’s version of how they think things should be.
I am not sure I have ever seen a good word here about either of those two for very obvious reasons.
120
“Back in the days when teaching was a worthy and respected profession and not a job for left leaning idealists, teachers were hungry for the truth. Now they seem only concerned to ensure the subject matter conforms to Julia Gillard’s or Cherie Blair’s version of how they think things should be.”
Or, whatever makes the union ‘steward’ happy. Speaking as one from the states where powerful teacher unions rule in quite a few cities/states …
00
What a breath of fresh air to hear of this. What an inspiration to hear of young people willing to stand up for the truth and fight against the propaganda indoctrination by the Socialist Left which has attempted to take over the education system.
It is an excellent example of young adults with the rare quality of Character and Intelligence.
Russell should be extremely proud of your son.
The teacher probably does not yet understand anything more about Climate but probably understands more about the limits of Propaganda.
60
A personal experience in this area.
At the height of the Qld tree clearing furore I got an email from one son with a link and the message
“Hey Dad have a look at this load of BS”
50
Cheering tale, what fools they who lie to children, for they will reap what they have sown.
Funny how the same nitwits who manipulate children, attempt to brainwash those in their charge, are the first to complain that the youth of today, have no respect for authority.
Irony abounds, perhaps its the simple observation, a fool never suspects they could be one.
Hence the absolute certainty of the IPCC cultists.
60
My 10 year-old son had a very similar experience.
They had been ‘studying’ Global Warming all term, and had to prepare a speech on how we’re destroying the planet. My son came home sheepishly, saying that he was having trouble writing his speech, because he didn’t believe the ‘facts’ being taught. We decided he needed to present what he believed in and spent all weekend putting actual facts together, comparing the predictions that were been made by the Alarmists, to the actual outcomes.
His speech was the only dissenting voice and unsurprisingly he was not chosen as a finalist for his year, even though he was complimented on the structure of his speech and is one of the better public speekers in his school.
As an example of what was an acceptable topic, one of the finalists linked how playing games on a computer was killing the world’s coral reefs.
I couldn’t be prouder of his bravery, and he seems to be enjoying the banter from his fellow students as he tries to convince them of the real life facts.
110
well done. however – anyone want to critique the video presentation in here?
16 Dec: NPR: Tania Lombrozo: Global Warming Explained, In About A Minute
On a pleasant day in 2011, researchers roamed San Diego’s public parks in search of volunteers to fill out anonymous surveys about global warming. In the end about 270 responses were collected from a mix of park visitors and nearby community college students. The researchers wanted to know how well the average American understands the basic processes responsible for global warming, and whether there’s a relationship between this basic understanding and the belief that global warming is actually occurring.
The results were sobering. While a majority of volunteers believed that global warming is a reality (80 percent) and that human activities are a significant contributing factor (77 percent), only a slim minority was able to explain even rudimentary aspects of the mechanism…
In a second study reported in the same paper, Ranney and his colleagues presented college students with a somewhat longer version of this explanation (a full 400 words), and found that doing so not only increased students’ understanding of global warming, but also their acceptance that it’s actually occurring. This and related research has led Ranney and his colleagues to launch a new website, howglobalwarmingworks.org, that educates people about the basic mechanisms of global climate change…
Ranney, a cognitive psychologist and professor in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, was kind enough to answer a few questions about this line of research…
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/12/16/251437395/global-warming-explained-in-about-a-minute
00
This is a GREAT story !!!
10
It is the natural result of teaching children to question everything. If you spend your time teaching them to question, why the surprise when they do?
40
Anti-indoctrination Law in UK School Act (1996)
Section 406 says that education authorities “shall forbid…the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school”. Controversial topics, under Section 407, requires that students “are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views”.
When Gore’s film was shown in 2008 in class without any balance a father took the issue to court. He won, was awarded 2/3 costs against the Government and changed history in that any future showings of the film in UK government schools must follow these:
GUIDELINES for showing “An Inconvenient Truth”
1. State that 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 and guilty of political indoctrination.
3. Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
Error one — A sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”. The judge’s finding: “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ”wake-up call“. It was common ground that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water – “but only after, and over, millennia.”
Error two — Low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls are already “being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.” Judge: There was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
Error three — The film described global warming potentially “shutting down the Ocean Conveyor” – the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to Western Europe. Judge: According to IPCC, it was “very unlikely” it would be shut down, though it might slow down.
Error four —Two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed “an exact fit”, said Gore. Judge: Although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”.
Error five — The disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming. Judge: The scientific consensus was that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
Error six — The drying up of Lake Chad was used in the film as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. Judge: “It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution. It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.”
Error seven — Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans was due to global warming. Judge: There is “insufficient evidence to show that”.
Error eight — For the first time, polar bears were being found that had actually drowned “swimming long distances – up to 60 miles – to find ice”. Judge: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.” That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued – “but it plainly does not support Mr Gore’s description”.
Error nine — Coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors. Judge: The IPCC had reported that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt. But separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult.
40
18 Dec: Guardian: Turning up the volume on climate change isn’t changing behaviour
The scientific message on climate change is already loud and clear, but we persistently ignore it, writes Jonathan Rowson
(Jonathan Rowson is director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts)
PHOTO CAPTION: Students from Edinburgh University changing behaviour by encouraging cycling. But despite a broad scientific consensus on climate change, many are in denial.
The scientific message is already loud and clear. The planet is getting hotter, we are causing it, the warming represents an imminent existential threat to humanity’s only habitat, and we need a sharp global reduction of carbon emissions to minimise the already inevitable impacts…
So what are the alternatives to turning up the volume? Today the RSA publishes a report: A New Agenda on Climate Change: facing up to stealth denial and winding down on fossil fuels. There are four main points to our argument…
First, and most politically, we need to recognise that anthropogenic climate change is driven primarily by the economic logic of global fossil fuel extraction…
Second, climate change badly needs reframing…The problem is ecological in nature, but it is driven by economic activity and has significant implications for public health, immigration, industrial policy, pensions, financial stability and energy security…
The third challenge is to face up to ‘stealth denial’, which we believe applies to about two thirds of the British population (63.9%). A nationally representative RSA/Yougov survey of over 2,000 people in May 2013 revealed that those who accept the facts appear to disavow the connection with their emotions, personal agency and daily lifestyle…
The fourth and most practical challenge is to clarify the call to act on climate change. We give details of eight recommendations for the UK at the end of the report, to help move the discussion from a generic call to action, to a debate about particular acts…
3) Create public platforms for people to speak to each other about climate change for extended periods…
5) Support and promote divestment in fossil fuels…
6) Campaign for the reduction of fossil fuel subsidies and the ***dismantling of the European Emissions Trading Scheme…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/behavioural-insights/climate-change-denial-behaviour-change
00
That should have been a warning right from the start. Anyone who read on after that deserves what they get.
30
something to look forward to in the New Year!
6 Dec: Yale Daily News: Hannah Schwarz: FES students warn of warming Olympics
In February, five students from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies will warn the world that the winter Olympics may someday be an event of the past.
While the long-term effects of climate change are hard to detect, Team Climate plans to make the impact of global warming more tangible by highlighting its impact on many events at the winter games…
“By targeting the winter sports community, we’ll be reaching spectators or sports fans who don’t normally read The New York Times and aren’t interested in climate change,” said Diana Madson FES ’14, one of the students working on the project.
The Yale group, which received funding both from external foundations and F&ES, found Olympic athletes passionate about climate change by tapping into the Protect Our Winters Riders Alliance, a group of about 50 winter sports athletes who have pledged to join a climate change-awareness campaign, said Taylor Rees FES ’14…
The team is currently in the process of contacting mainstream news outlets to encourage them to cover the impact of climate change on winter sports…
According to the World Health Organization, climate change is responsible for around 150,000 deaths per year.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/12/06/fes-students-warn-of-warming-olympics/
00
This is the most inspiring thing I’ve read for a long time. A HUGE thank you to Russell for sharing this story and another HUGE thank you to Jordan and Tom, and their classmates. This tells me more clearly that truth and common sense will win through regardless.
These boys are heroes. They might not know it yet, but their generations will mop up the mess and finish the fight that we are struggling with. It might be that we will get there first, true, but the Watermelons are hiding in the classroom and are trying to bring up a new generation of anti-capitalists to be ready another day. This heartening story tells me that their plan is not working.
Russell – please pass along my warmest regards to your son Jordan and his friend Tom. May they go from strength to strength always.
40
These kids give hope to us all.
I was an undergraduate at Caltech when one morning, one of my physics professors came marching into the lab and proclaimed how ridiculous the Cold Fusion claim was that was announced the day before. “I am going to show those [blankety blanks] they are wrong!” or something like that. And he did.
Cold fusion is a pathological science. As it turns out, human caused global warming has the same characteristics.
In my day, there was a saying that nobody believes the computationalist, except the computationalist. Everyone believes the experimentalist, except the experimentalist. That is still true in engineering, but not in climate.
When I first looked into AGW, it was to understand the mechanisms. CO2 is certainly a minor greenhouse gas, and temperatures have been increasing lately (this is around 2000). I assumed, like so many, that the researchers had done a diligent job. I wanted to go deeper than the abstract, into the physics. My background is computational fluid dynamics, heavy in thermodynamics. I work with integrating engineering software for complex systems. I should be able to understand it.
What I found was appalling. Data was fudged or invented in some cases. Important natural effects were ignored (water vapor variation, solar output variation, geological activity). Attempts at modeling important effects (cloud formation, land use changes) was woefully inadequate. I was hoping to find that great progress had been made since my college grad student friend, a solar astronomer told me, “We have no f-ing idea how the sun works.” He was using hyperbole, but sadly, he could say it today in the context of climate models.
It is really very simple to show that AGW is valid: Show that the predictions match observations. They were compared. They don’t match.
I cannot say that CO2 does not have some effect. As almost 5% of the greenhouse gas effect, it surely is some number greater than zero. (water vapor is 94%. Is anyone irrigating the deserts?). But I can say that the only “proof” that human emissions of CO2 is a significant and ongoing cause of global warming is from models, which failed their validation test. That means, the models are wrong, and the way CO2 interacts with warming is not understood. In fact, it is so bad, that even natural effects are not understood. If the climate is not understood, let alone man’s impact on it, we cannot, we should not make policy decisions based on what we know is wrong.
It should not be a surprise that I know many engineers and scientists. They all have the same doubts about the researchers’ quality of conclusions. We all recognize that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. None of us believe the case has been made to show that human emitted CO2 is a major driver of climate. Nature is a high barrier to get over.
Question everything. Throw rocks at the scientists until you cannot through anymore. Then we may understand.
70
There was a sign on the wall of a lab, where I worked in the ’80s, that said “Question Everything”.
Somebody had put another sign below it and to the right that said, “Why?”.
And below that and further to the right was yet another sign that said, “Because that is what we pay you for, Dummy”.
The biggest sin, in that particular lab, was to assume anything (including that the measuring equipment was accurate to the precision implied by the number of digits on the display).
Sadly, that sort of culture has been lost in the serious intensity of post normal science.
70
Techer
December 18, 2013 at 9:12 am
Techer Thanks
I have followed the climate warming science since the mid 2000’s and have known of the many points you have just made.
But yours was the simplest, clearest and most up front enunciation of the state of climate science from a scientist’s point of view and no doubt of much other supposedly cut and dried science I have seen for many a day.
And yep, over the last couple of years, the skeptics, and now slowly but surely the MSM are starting to join in, in the science aimed rock throwing exercise.
And I think it is starting to work as there are quite good indications that some of climate science is starting to get a bit defensive and admitting [ AR5 ] that a lot of those previous claims of certainty are basically complete hog wash
And as a former trustee for 28 years of our local large Agricultural science institute I can humbly claim a level of notoriety for always asking some very awkward questions of scientists whenever I have attended one of their get togethers which was quite often as I have been interested in science since my school days.
Some of my questions have led on to other ways of considering problems but thats another story.
My cultural background was that the eldest son goes back on the farm and at 15 years old that was that for my schooling.
30
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Techer December 18, 2013 at 9:12 am · Reply
These kids give hope to us all.
…
Cold fusion is a pathological science.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Agree on 1, MIT seeks to educate on the 2nd:
Part 1, Cold Fusion 101 Dr. Peter Hagelstein at MIT 01/22/2013 (Day 1 Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkScFIFR2Y
00
15 Dec: NYT The Ethicist: Chuck Klosterman: The First Amendment Right to Nonpolitical Homework
KATHARINE LONDON, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. For my daughter’s high-school biology class, the students are required to take a public action addressing climate change. They have a wide range of options of what they can do: write a letter to a public official, design a website, develop a public-service announcement or organize a flash mob. They are required to submit proof that they presented their work publicly — that is, that they mailed the letter, launched the website, etc. Is it ethical for the school to require students to speak publicly on a specific issue? Or even to give extra credit for doing so? Does the students’ right to free speech also give them the right not to speak publicly on this topic?
KLOSTERMAN: What’s so interesting about this situation is that it seems as if the school (or at least the biology teacher) is consciously courting controversy in a wholly unsubtle manner. To teach climate change as hard science is not a problem, any more than teaching evolution is a problem — an overwhelming majority of those in the science community agree that the data supporting these ideas is sound. A science curriculum doesn’t need universal community support in order to be valid. But is it reasonable to assume any concept accepted as factual should just as legitimately serve as a call for activism? …
So the question here is not the reality or unreality of climate change (and I hope people who comment on this column do not use the opportunity as a springboard for that debate). The question is whether a school should create a mandatory assignment that requires publicly supporting a divisive idea.
I would say the problem is the inclusion of the word “public.” …
The value of the assignment is not relevant. In this case, the biology teacher has gone one step too far. The educational track is fine, and the motive for the assignment is fine. But the implementation of the assignment outside the classroom should not be part of the grade. You can make a kid write a letter, but you can’t force the kid to mail it. If a student who writes a well-argued letter to a public official still wants to send it, the teacher can say: “That’s great. That’s exactly what I was hoping you would do.” But it should not be part of the grade.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/magazine/the-first-amendment-right-to-nonpolitical-homework.html?_r=0
FROM THE COMMENTS:
(several have variations of this one) “The teacher only requires a public action “addressing” climate change. It doesn’t say the student has to accept or believe in climate change. A student could very well write a letter or create a website espousing their beliefs that the climate is *not* changing.”
” Does anyone actually believe that, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a student who publicly stated a lack of belief in climate change, or who merely voiced his indecision, would be anything other than downgraded?
By the way, I believe that human activity is changing the climate. But I do not believe that any teacher has the right to compel a student to publicly state a political position on the issue. The teacher and the assignment are, to my way of thinking, highly manipulative and extremely objectionable.”
“Its a science class. If they do research it will support global warming.”
00
Jo,
I had a look at the video “Agenda 21 for Dummies” here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM
if what they say 1/2 correct it really is pure altruistic socialism masquerading as thinly veiled environmentalism and climate is being used as the pointy driving edge.
40
O/T but comments from TonyfromOz would be appreciated:
18 Dec: Bloomberg: Ehren Goossens: Wind Power Rivals Coal With $1 Billion Order From Buffett
Turbine prices have fallen 26 percent worldwide since the first half of 2009, bringing wind power within 5.5 percent of the cost of electricity from coal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), yesterday announced an order for 1,050 megawatts of Siemens AG (SIE) wind turbines in the industry’s largest order to date for land-based gear.
Wind is the cheapest source of power in Iowa, and the deal indicates that turbines are becoming profitable without subsidies, according to Tom Kiernan, chief executive officer of the American Wind Energy Association trade group. That’s a boost for suppliers including Siemens, General Electric Co. (GE) and Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), and a threat to coal miners such as Peabody Energy Corp.
“If Congress were to remove all the subsidies from every energy source, the wind industry can compete on its own,” Kiernan said at a press conference at a Siemens factory in Fort Madison, Iowa, yesterday, when the order was announced…
Wind Forecast
The industry is expected to install about 32 gigawatts of new wind capacity worldwide this year, down 28 percent from last year, according to New Energy Finance, in part because of low demand in the U.S. in the first half after the production tax credit lapsed. It was renewed at the start of 2013. Demand next year will rebound to about 43.7 gigawatts.
Power from coal costs about $78.30 a megawatt-hour to produce and gas costs $69.71, compared with $82.61 for onshore wind farms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…
The cost and reliability of coal will ensure that it remains part of the energy mix, Vic Svec, head of investor relations for St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the biggest U.S. coal producer, said in an e-mailed statement…
Siemens has also agreed to supply turbines for Cape Wind, the proposed offshore wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts that faced opposition from local residents including the Kennedy family. The company said the project will qualify for a key federal credit, the investment tax credit, which is also set to expire Dec. 31…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/wind-power-rivals-coal-with-1-billion-order-from-buffett.html
02
Good, then let’s do that then.
20
You beat me to it. I bet Tom Kiernan won’t get too many Christmas cards from wind farm owners.
10
The schools are all infested with these Lefty loony liars. It’s a total disgrace. We need to have a serious purge to get ’em all out of their jobs for good.
30
12 Dec: ecoRI News: Tim Faulkner: Brown President, Students Craft Climate Legislation
PROVIDENCE — After a setback with its divestment campaign in October, Brown University students are moving forward on two fronts to tackle the climate-change issue.
The campus group Brown Divest Coal is still demanding that the university withdraw its endowment funds from the dirtiest U.S. coal companies…
In late October, Brown’s divestment movement suffered its biggest defeat, when after a year of rallies and grassroots lobbying, the school’s board of trustees turned down the divestment request, a decision that was backed by (President Christina) Paxson.
“I believe that although the social harm is clear, this harm is moderated by the fact that coal is currently necessary for the functioning of the global economy,” Paxson wrote in an Oct. 27 letter announcing the trustees’ decision.
Students vowed to fight on…
After discussions with students and faculty, Paxson authorized payment for two consultants to help craft legislation addressing climate-change mitigation and adaptation in Rhode Island.
Meetings have already been held with faculty and students from the RI Student Climate Coalition and the bill’s expected sponsor, Rep. Art Handy, D-Cranston. For several years, Handy has introduced legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Rhode Island. None of the bills has passed…
The RI Student Climate Coalition, which is organized by Brown students, is reaching out to Rhode Island student groups and local environmental groups such as Fossil Free RI and the Sierra Club to join the legislative campaign…
Bill McKibben, a national environmental leader and strong advocate for civil disobedience, has twice visited Brown University advocating for college divestment from coal…
http://www.ecori.org/climate-change/2013/12/12/brown-president-students-craft-climate-legislation.html
01
NOTE: The A2C2 (Action Against Climate Change) project is a collaboration between PACMAS and the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning (PACCSAP) Program and aims to showcase “voices of youth” to raise awareness about local climate change solutions. It is a partnership between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation through the Australian Aid-funded PACMAS, the Australian Government Department of the Environment, and implemented by Apidae Development Innovations.
http://apidae.com.au/A2C2/
5 Dec: TheJet: Pacific youth share their stories in new climate change media
Twenty-two pieces of compelling, youth-driven media were launched internationally today as part of the Australian Aid-funded PACMAS initiative A2C2 (Action Against Climate Change). These media pieces include TV, radio, online and print stories on climate change science and solutions. The productions are now being disseminated through a new website (www.apidae.com.au/A2C2/) dedicated to sharing the ‘voice of Pacific youth’ on climate change.
Over the last 4 months high school students from Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, and Tuvalu as well as university students from the University of the South Pacific (USP) and the National University of Samoa (NUS), have been script writing, producing media products and presenting their work at national and regional showcase meetings…
Not only can these stories now be shared regionally across the Pacific but our aim is for them to reach an international audience as well. We hope this will be a useful resource for people and other agencies to hear the voice of youth on this important issue,” said Joelle Auffray, Co-Founder of Apidae Development Innovations, the implementing partner for the initiative…
For example, one group of students from Maluafou College in Samoa created a flashmob, a rap song and a blog, while a group of students from Central school in Vanuatu wrote a TV drama about gender and climate change…
We hope that by sharing these stories, not only will decision makers see the level of concern and engagement from youth on climate change issues, but that they will also see that youth, as the future leaders of their countries, are taking action,” said Dr. Adam Bumpus, Co-Founder of Apidae Development Innovations.
To complement the website, a DVD is also being produced that will include all of the media and will be distributed to key partners and stakeholders in the region.
http://thejetnewspaper.com/2013/12/05/pacific-youth-share-their-stories-in-new-climate-change-media/
01
In year 7 my son did a presentation on wind turbines. He showed that they are an environmental disaster, and not much use for producing electricity. Teachers didn’t seem to mind.
50
It’s good to see kids wising up to the scam using real science despite the leftist propaganda peddled by some teachers. This is in contrast to the approach used by the global warming alarmists such as that horrific TV add where students in a classroom not toeing the Green agenda were exploded with blood and guts everywhere.
20
A few years ago my son had to endure AIT during a science class, before they began my son asked the teacher if he could list all the errors prior to viewing the movie. The teacher replied “i know it is full of errors but i need to show the movie” and “you dont have to accept what is said”.
He said this to the whole class.
now where would a year 9 student get that information from…………:-)
10
See Comment #55 above.
In 2008 a tough Dad in the UK took the Gore film showing — without balance and disclaimers — to court. He won. It was BIG news. Your son, and the teacher, through Internet searches, would easily find the 9 errors that had to be discussed in class if the film was to be shown thereafter
Too bad there was not a hand-out with the 9 errors so that the WHOLE CLASS could watch for them to appear and then discuss. That’s what I’d like to see in schools when propaganda or controversial matters are presented.
10
You don’t have to look very far for the full Monty on Gores High Court Errors,as presented by a key witness.
00
Reminds me of this letter.
Disclaimer – urban legend status remains undetermined.
00
BIG CLIMATE IN BED WITH BIG OIL BIG-TIME.
Reuters tries – by including ‘The (New York) Times noted the big oil companies’ “slow evolution on climate change policy”‘ – to suggest Big Oil has just come to the CAGW party.
ostensibly, this is Reuters’ report on the IEA Medium-Term Coal Market Report, but no mention of “additional coal production capacity of a half‐million tonnes per annum will be added worldwide … each day”:
18 Dec: Age: Reuters: John Kemp: Coal ‘prime culprit’ behind climate change but can we live without it?
Coal is climate change
China accounts for more than half of the growth in coal consumption in recent years and is forecast to retain that role over the rest of the decade. As a result, it is often said: “Coal is China, and China is coal.”
But given the role of coal-fired power plants in releasing carbon dioxide, it could also be said “Coal is climate change, and climate change is coal.”…
Two broad options have emerged.
***The first, favoured by climate campaigners and gas producers like Shell and Exxon, is to replace coal with renewables and cleaner burning natural gas, leaving the coal reserves in the ground unburned…
Shell and Exxon are now among the world’s largest gas producers, and both have been quietly lobbying governments in favour of policies that prioritise the use of gas over coal, including carbon pricing and curbs on power plant emissions.
***The aim is to guarantee future demand for gas and make it relatively insensitive to prices by ensuring power producers do not revert to burning more coal if gas prices rise in future…
Grassroots campaigns such as Bill McKibben’s 350.org and the Carbon Tracker Initiative are pressing fossil fuel companies and governments to stop exploring and drilling new reserves…
Not all fossil fuel companies are equally vulnerable. As with other divestment campaigns the Smith School notes “some players are able to avoid disapproval, while others face intense public vilification.
“A handful of fossil fuel companies are likely to become scapegoats. From this perspective coal companies appear more vulnerable than oil and gas,” the Smith School concludes…
“Due to the phased nature of the process of stigmatisation, investors seeking to reduce their fossil fuel exposure in general are thus likely to begin by liquidating coal stocks.”…
***But the divestment campaigners’ most powerful allies are in the oil and gas industry…
If oil, gas and coal each comprise roughly one third of global fossil fuel resources, and two-thirds of reserves must remain unburned, putting coal off limits leaves a bigger share of the carbon budget for oil and gas firms.
Five of the biggest oil companies (Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP and Shell) are among 29 major companies operating in the United States that are planning on the assumption the U.S. government will eventually put a price on carbon, according to the New York Times (“Large companies prepared to pay price on carbon” Dec 5)…
As the Times explains: “ExxonMobil is now the nation’s biggest natural gas producer, meaning it will stand to profit in a future in which a price is placed on carbon emissions. Coal, which produces twice the carbon pollution of natural gas, would be a loser.”
***In the war on coal, as coal producers term it, the coal miners are almost friendless. Major oil and gas producers, as well as the renewables industry, are all willing to join with climate campaigners to point the finger at coal to secure a bigger share of the energy market and divert attention from their own emissions…
Policymakers are under enormous pressure to provide more electric power and ensure its reliability. It is not clear how the enormous unmet demand for more power can be supplied without coal…
***(FINAL LINE) In the meantime, divestment campaigns will also support the profitability of gas and oil producers.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/coal-prime-culprit-behind-climate-change-but-can-we-live-without-it-20131218-2zju9.html
16 Dec: CarbonBrief: Robin Webster: Five graphs that tell the future story of coal
Per capita consumption tells a different story.
It’s easy to lay the blame for increasing coal-fired generation at China’s door – or to a lesser extent other Asian countries. But that doesn’t tell the whole story, as the following graph of coal consumption per capita demonstrates…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/12/five-graphs-that-tell-the-future-story-of-coal/
00
Joanne, the problem I have with some of the rationale behind your blog entries is that your superb moniker of: ‘tackling group think’, seems to get a bit lost. I think that the whole notion of what is correct simply loses credibility when you start to champion the fact that the number of scientists or non-scientist people who don’t believe the alarmist prophecies are growing. What scientific significance is it if half the kid’s football club have a particular view on the ‘climate debate’? What significance is it if Johnny gets a standing ovation from him classmates for his views? That is mostly all ‘group think’, not just a fortunate and coincidental gathering of insightful individuals sharing a common view. Has Johnny got true insight here or is he just reflecting the same thoughts, opinions and beliefs of others like his parents?
It is very obvious that the number of believers and non-believers in this ‘climate debate’ have come to simply reflect political ideologies – again ‘group think’. The reasoning that adherents to a particular political ideology are more likely to be ‘correct’ in their ‘scientific views’ is ridiculous.
Personally I find that minority views are usually a lot more palatable than those of a majority. I think it is more of a badge of honour to be considered an out-there-looney. Some of our greatest scientists were out-there-loonies in their time. Most scientific discoveries don’t come about by some growing consensus.
I think it would be fair to say that the majority of the world believes in some super being with super powers who creates things and controls us, and much of that is not evidence based or at all ‘scientific’, but purely ‘group think’, arguably on a much bigger scale than this climate scam.
Humans are just too prone to this ‘group think’ mentality regards of whether things are ‘facts’ or not. Look at us here doing our ‘group think’ in these comments, giving each other the ‘thumbs up’ for approval (the standing ovation) or the ‘thumbs down’ (throws rotten fruit) for disapproval.
32
Its a fair point. I wont even add anything except to say that Neville Kennard had it nailed…
“Being curious may bring you back to the conventional wisdom, or it may not; but at least you’ve arrived there of your own accord and not just followed the crowd. Be a sceptic, a contrarian, an iconoclast even, if you have the where-with-all for it. Most don’t, so it will never be a crowded field.” Neville Kennard 1937-2012
There needs to be less mindless adherence to the dogma that suits any personal take on matters and more of Neville’s approach basically.
40
This observation is true. The old analogy about having cancer and would you listen to the 97 doctors or the three sceptics. My answer is that I might note the views of the 97 doctors, but the cure is gonna come from one of the three doctor that didn’t follow the consensus.
00
Restores the faith of even old dogs like me.
I had come to believe Anna Rose was largely indicative of the emotive, ill informed young folk who hold strong opinions on AGW without ever seeking more information than they hear from The Greens.
Great to see there is a smidgen of intellect and independent, critical thought still out there.
40
A bit O/T, but I loved this catastrophe du jour in today’s SMH, headed, “Global warming to end ‘carbon sink’, say scientists”, particularly the punch line, “The study used seven different computer models to simulate the effects of global warming on plant life.”
I just hope those models are more accurate then the 100+ models they rely on for climate predictions.
20
A person with one watch knows the time. A person with two watches is never sure. [Old saying]
I would presume from that, that a person with seven computer models will be confused to the seventh power.
30
You have to hand it to them i never thought they would stoop this low
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2524582/Climate-change-causing-Earths-poles-DRIFT-claim-scientists.html
10
I would not be surprised to see the global warming alarmists stooping much lower given time. What still worries me is a lot of people actually fall for it. But then again if enough people do fall for it then they get what they deserve if we ever elect a government again that’s part of this scam. Not so for the rest who know it’s all a scam; in fact the biggest scam ever.
00
Its up there with climate change affecting the tectonic plates resulting in geological instability and the Japanese Tsunami.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/06/can-climate-change-cause-earthquakes/
It seems pretty obvious now that climate change crucified Jesus and assassinated Kennedy. How could we have been so blind?
20
Antarctica discovered to be a vast reservoir of carbon.
00
Brilliant story!
Notice how dictatorial the teacher was? I guess the whole child-centered learning thing that lefties love doesn’t apply when their dogma is challenged.
30
The history of nonsense is littered with infamous nitwits…
“Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” Gore said in 2008.
Meanwhile back in reality…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25383373
And some good news
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10519371/Australia-to-be-an-energy-superpower-by-mid-2017.html
10
from that second link..
“By then Australia would be a major force in global energy production, with LNG and coal exports together matching the country’s vast iron ore shipments. ”
Coal , iron ore.. now if only the unions would get sensible, we could actually make the end product, and actually have full control of the real pollutants, rather than dumping them onto China, and hoping they will/can make the effort that we would, to keep the production clean.
20
So right Andy & Safetyguy.
With so much LNG & Coal etc we should be leading the Asia Pacific region. The CO2 Tax, RET’s, investments in Bat Poppers, Wave Energy, Solar panels etc are the reasons industries of all varieties are closing down.
Carbon Tax the reason.
1. Peter Macks, principal of Adelaide-based insolvency firm Macks Advisory, said the carbon tax was “quite debilitating” for a number of hotel operators who he said had been “struggling for a long time”.
2. Todd Gammel, a partner with HLB Mann Judd, likened the carbon tax to pulling a leg out from underneath a chair.
3. Grain Products Australia former managing director Rob Lowndes said the carbon tax and other environmental levies had added “significant” costs, of around $500,000 a year. The carbon tax, he said, was not the “primary factor” why GPA went belly-up but it was “certainly an added cost” which was making it hard for manufacturing to survive in Australia.
4. “There’s no doubt the carbon tax is driving higher electricity prices for businesses across the state,” said NSW Treasurer Mike Baird.
5. Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief economist Greg Evans said: “Rapidly escalating energy prices caused by the carbon tax and other green programs are taking their toll on many Australian businesses.
6. AMP Capital chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said the carbon tax was contributing to the demise of firms across the economy.
7. Guy Roberts, Penrice Soda CEO, says up to 70 jobs will be lost, with the firm deciding it will import soda ash used in the production of glass and detergents rather than continuing to make the chemical. Penrice Soda had negotiated a deal with the Government to reduce its carbon tax bill from $8 million a year to $1 million but Mr Roberts said that was “still effectively the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
8. Campbell Jaski, a partner at PPB Advisory and head of its Resources Group, said the carbon tax “has definitely added an additional layer of cost and burden”.
The majority of large companies closing is also due to Unionised high wage rates, the CO2 Tax, and increased electricity.
Things will have to change drastically for a return of large scale manufacture and industry in Australia.
Get rid of – all windmill, solar panel, wave energy, etc feed in tariffs, RET,s, Renewable Grants, Green tape and bring back negotiable workplace agreements.
20
Yeah I have always had a problem with the fact that we seem to just dig stuff up and flog it off.
I am as many of you know am left leaning type when it comes to social welfare, wages and conditions, health, education etc. I have often described myself as a capital socialist because I believe in the power of the free market to generate wealth, but that some of that wealth must be collected in taxation to fund at least adequate if not generous systems which are designed to provide well for the basic needs of people in the community who require assistance.
I do not agree with total free market economics and almost no health and welfare ala the USA, nor do I agree with the spend like a drunken sailor even if you have to borrow it, mentality of the former Government. An excellent example of which has been listening to Bowen and Shorten crying their eyes out over GMH and suggesting more money needs to be pulled rabbit like from the magic hat of Govt. funds to “fix it”. I also enjoyed a VIC union leader say in response to the Govt. assistance package for manufacturing that it “needs to be billions not millions”. Another person who clearly cannot conceive of the notion that money is finite and has a source.
Even as a left leaner on aspects of economics, I still maintain that the greatest achievement of modern Australian unionism has been to price its membership out of the market. If we lived in the EU maybe what the AU unions have achieved could be applauded, but in our region, we are seeing the effects in a constant stream of work heading off shore, year after year and industry after industry. There seems no end in sight.
With 45% of the worlds uranium, abundant coal, gas and iron there is simply no reason we cannot be the manufacturing and energy hub of SE Asia except for vision, cahones and ideology. No leader from either party has had the vision, no union group has had the cahones to confront its membership with the idea that a little less for the individual in the short term could mean a lot more for the society in the long term, including a return to pre “austerity” wage levels. Finally the ideologies of both sides, Labour/Greens with no appetite for industrial development and Liberals with no appetite for business assistance, neither side is likely to take the steps needed to realise Australia’s potential.
Warmists can bleat till the farting cows come home about how the kids of the future might be in danger. But I will tell you this with absolute certainty, the kids of the future will look back on what we did with our natural resources, particularly uranium and curse us bitterly. We dig it up and we sell it…. madness… just madness… so much potential, so little vision.
10
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Safetyguy66 December 18, 2013 at 5:04 pm · Reply
Yeah I have always had a problem with the fact that we seem to just dig stuff up and flog it off.
I am as many of you know am left leaning type when it comes to social welfare, wages and conditions, health, education
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Meaning, you have no issue at all with the tax authorities coming round with arms to force me to pay for your (and pols) programs?
Isn’t the gist of it? No one really takes issue with social welfare, wages and conditions, health, education otherwise …
Heaven forbid we would simply help our neighbors without the armed force of govt sticking their noses in (and skimming off a good portion for themselves!)
00
Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it.
Since leaving office, President George W Bush has taken up painting.
Now leftist liberals are accusing him of being in the pay of big oil paint!!!
Tony.
(Hat Tip NewsBusted)
30
Tony,
Does he do interior as well as exterior? 🙂
30
His handiwork gets a big reaction; from most people it’s just… Shock and Awe.
10
A great story but it will never be allowed to receive abider audience.
00
sorry that’s A WIDER audience
00
Allen Ford –
Physorg had more on the sink models:
16 Dec: Physorg: Four degree rise will end vegetation ‘carbon sink’
The Cambridge research, led by Dr Andrew Friend from the University’s Department of Geography, is part of the ‘Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project’ (ISI-MIP) – a unique community-driven effort to bring research on climate change impacts to a new level, with the first wave of research published today in a special issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
***The ISI-MIP team used seven global vegetation models,including Hybrid – the model that Friend has been honing for fifteen years – and the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) modelling. These were run
exhaustively using supercomputers – including Cambridge’s own Darwin computer, which can easily accomplish overnight what would take a PC months – to create simulations of future scenarios…
For Friend, this research should feed into policy: “To make policy you need to understand the impact of decisions…
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-degree-vegetation-carbon.html
00
My sympathies go out to all those poor deluded horticulturists who heat their glasshouses to apochalyptic temperatures, while pumping up the CO2 levels similarly, in a vain attempt to boost plant production, and profits.
Strange that this strategem works!
20
Yeah, weird isn’t it..
But the models say it doesn’t work.. so obviously it doesn’t 😉
10
There’s hope for our youth after all.
30
something on topic for once
http://virginiafreecitizen.com/2013/12/15/hunger-games-climate-games/
00
Children have no excuse for being conned anymore. In this example their teacher follows Al Gore who said a few km under the surface of the Earth the temperature is,”millions of degrees”
Al Gore also made predictions about an ice free Arctic by 2008, then 2013 and now he is silent because his predictions are always proved wrong
10
That’s because he thought his mouth and his bank balance were umbilically linked. He’s since found out that they unfortunately are.
00
[…] is wel degelijk hoop tegen deze indoctrinatie die al vroeg -op de scholen- begint. Wordt blij van dit goede nieuws uit Australië. Een 9-jarige scholier die zich niet ‘laat doen’ door de lerares en met een […]
00
Nearly a year ago, Reddit’s r/Science forum banned “climate deniers” from the forum because “The evidence simply does not exist to justify continued denial that climate change is caused by humans and will be bad.”
Yesterday a paper was published by Wiley entitled “Climate change and apocalyptic faith“, with part of the abstract reading:
“For at least as long as the birth of environmentalism, discourses of ecological crisis have adopted, both consciously and unconsciously, themes and concepts derived from Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. … More recently, references to apocalypse have accompanied the study of climate change specifically. However, they have tended to do so without more than a superficial engagement with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of apocalyptic faith. …”
I find this mildly amusing.
00
It seems Reddit banned a lot of things–their reputation for “openness” is just another lie.
10
The problem is that the academic ability of teachers varies enormously: the best have post graduate degrees from the likes of Cambridge or Imperial and the worst have Batchelor’s Of Education from some very poor institutes. The best teachers have experience of working in industry or the armed forces, others move from suburban life to poor university back to school.
Part of the advantage of the population going through war was that people learnt the difference between theory and practice. We now have the vast majority of the populace who live in an existence where a mistake does not result in death, injury or loss of money. Consequently, many people can create a reality which flatters themselves: this seems particularly true of middle class left wing arts graduates working as administrators in the public sector, NGOs, the media, columnists,teachers ,etc, etc. .
When it comes to models it is time to reveal what is calculated. It does not matter how powerful a computer is ,if the maths does not match reality, no matter how fast and how may calculations are made, predictions will not be accurate.
20
Those kids are not alone. Read what the Albemarle County(Virginia) School system finds to praise in turning school food into compost:
http://virginiafreecitizen.com/2013/12/15/hunger-games-climate-games/
00
Great, another arrogant, know it all, disrespectful teenager brainwashed by his parents into their religion. Just what society needs more off these days, not!
I notice that virtually all of his sources are from opinion blog sites or scientists in the employ of mining. Yep, a really balanced and scientific point of view, again not!
Funny that plimers book would be recommended, a pariah in scientific circles, his book has been line by line debunked by many scientists.
19
Disrespectful? He followed all the rules and skunked the teacher!
So to mtr, disrespect is using science to prove a point. Well, that pretty much explains why his students never learned a thing.
20
More projection , Professor Realist??
30
Society needs MORE youngsters that are able to think for themselves.
Otherwise we will end up with a society full of Michaels, a society of zombie parrots,
and society would collapse into a black hole of brainless moronity.
60
Honour your word Michael:
You said:
Go.
20
I can’t find the original post?
03
That’s OK,
I found it earlier, that’s where I copied the quote from.
🙂
10
So who employs all of the climate scientists, would you say? In a piece of research I did about eighteen months ago, for a client, I found that …
Slightly over 60% were employed by Universities, from grant money supplied from industry (in particular industry that makes “renewables”) and from the oil and gas industry (who are in a competitive war with the coal industry, and would like to see coal shut down in favour of gas);
About 15% were employed directly by Government.
About 10% were employed directly by one of the alarmist NGO’s.
Around another 5% were contracted by the UN for ad hoc research projects (and may overlap with one of the other categories).
And the other 10% or so, were indeterminate.
So, what was your point again?
00
what a fantastic story.
i concur, i hope they grow this into a movement of youngsters who do the math, work and then present the facts.
more strength to their arms.
mike mckee NZ
00