UK: Climate indoctrination removed from schools

20 March, 2013 by

"Recite after me: In the beginning, Labor created the Climate Commission..."

“Recite after me: In the beginning, Labor created the Climate Commission and the carbon tax…”

Cue the headbangers going ape in 3, 2, 1… Because it had become impossible to have any kind of sensible teaching of climate change in schools, the UK government is proposing to cut climate change from the syllabus for children up to the age of 14. Huzzah and hooray.

And the headbangers are indeed steamed up, complaining that such a cut is “political interference”, oblivious to the fact that it was their relentless propaganda campaign to indoctrinate climate dogma in the classroom that forced this action in the first place.

The Guardian, naturally, gets hot under the collar:

Debate about climate change has been cut out of the national curriculum for children under 14, prompting claims of political interference in the syllabus by the government that has failed “our duty to future generations”.

The latest draft guidelines for children in key stages 1 to 3 have no mention of climate change under geography teaching and a single reference to how carbon dioxide produced by humans impacts on the climate in the chemistry section. There is also no reference to sustainable development, only to the “efficacy of recycling”, again as a chemistry subject.

The move has caused alarm among climate campaigners and scientists [!] who say teaching about climate change in schools has helped mobilise young people to be the most vociferous advocates of action by governments, business and society to tackle the issue. [!!!]

“What you seem to have is a major political interference with the geography syllabus,” said the government’s former science adviser Prof Sir David King. He said climate change should be taught alongside the history of – successful – past attempts to curb chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which is blamed for the depletion of the ozone layer, and air pollution caused by coal fires and cars.

The comparison with CFCs is facile, because while there are alternatives to CFCs, there are no genuinely affordable alternatives to burning fossil fuels, especially for the poor and developing countries of the world.

Note that it is the “climate campaigners” who are complaining the most, because they won’t be able to fill impressionable young minds with their environmental propaganda, and they won’t then go home and badger their parents into installing solar panels or recycling tea bags or switching their lights out for Earth Hour (fast approaching once again – stay tuned). See here for more.

In a way, this is a classic own goal, since students should understand the interaction between humanity and the environment, but since such interaction is inevitably portrayed as a one way street (ie. wailing that we’re destroying the planet), the only option was to remove it entirely.

There’s something called balance, and it’s sadly lacking from the climate debate.

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Ballarat museum indoctrinates children with climate propaganda

22 November, 2012 by

Climate indoctrination at work

This is truly astonishing. The Ballarat Fine Art Gallery has an “art trail” for children, which is basically alarmist climate propaganda on steroids. Here for example is the description on the museum’s web site for  A Bore on the Hooghli by Johan Jakob Bennetter (pictured):

A ship captain himself until the 1840’s, the Norwegian born Johan Jakob Bennetter attended the Christiania School of Design in Oslo before venturing to France in 1855 to further his studies. He was best known for his detailed and accurate depictions of ships at sea.

Painted after his return to Norway in 1880, A bore on the Hooghli relates to a natural phenomenon that is known as a bore tide.  These fast flowing  high waters occur following an extremely low tide when there is a rush of seawater into a narrow shallow inlet from a broad bay such as this, where the Hooghli River enters the Bay of Bengal, India.

One of two seascapes by this artist owned by the Gallery – the other, known as The first shot features a battle between a  ship flying the East India company’s flag,  and a French ship.of the Napoleonic era…  Both of these works and indeed several other early acquisitions, came  to Australia through the agency of Alfred Fletcher, an art dealer in Melbourne during the boom period of the 1880’s.

All well and good. But what does the “art trail” for children say?

“Climate change, bringing with it an increase in extreme weather and rising sea levels, means that phenomena like the famous bores on the Hooghli at the Bay of Bengal now threaten the lives and livelihoods of literally hundreds of millions of people. This is one of the places in the world most vulnerable to catastrophe arising out of rapid rises in sea level…

What other changes in natural phenomena do you know of as a result of global warming?

How will predicted climate change affect your life?”

There are many, many more in similar vein. Shame on the Ballarat gallery for peddling this blatant, extremist political propaganda at children who do not have the capacity to question it, and who will in all likelihood, accept it as fact.

Tony Thomas at Quadrant Online has the full shocking story here.

You may wish to register your displeasure by emailing the gallery at artgal@ballarat.vic.gov.au.

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Queensland: stop climate brainwashing in schools

14 July, 2012 by

Climate sense

A few days ago, The Australian reported on the fact that, in the Queensland curriculum, science is regarded as a “social and cultural activity”, an approach totally at odds with the concept of the scientific method:

“Science is a social and cultural activity through which explanations of natural phenomena are generated,” it says.

“Explanations of natural phenomena may be viewed as mental constructions based on personal experiences and result from a range of activities including observation, experimentation, imagination and discussion.

“Accepted scientific concepts, theories and models may be viewed as shared understandings that the scientific community perceive as viable in light of current available evidence.”

In other words, we are talking about here is “post-normal science” where objective truths are no longer paramount, and where various societal “interpretations” can be overlaid on bare scientific facts. As I quoted in a blog post back in 2010:

The guiding principle of normal science – the goal of achievement of factual knowledge – must be modified to fit the post-normal principle…For this purpose, post-normal scientists should be capable of establishing extended peer communities and allow for ‘extended facts’ from non-scientific experts…In post-normal science, the maintenance and enhancement of quality, rather than the establishment of factual knowledge, is the key task of scientists… Involved social actors must agree on the definition of perceptions, narratives, interpretation of models, data and indicators…scientists have to contribute to society by learning as quickly as possible about different perceptions…instead of seeking deep ultimate knowledge. (source: Eva Kunseler, Towards a new paradigm of Science in scientific policy advising)

It’s utter garbage of course. But nowhere has this new flexibility of post-normal science been exploited more effectively than in the teaching of climate change in schools. Political correctness and “social and cultural interpretations” have trumped scientific objectivity, so that students are fed a stream of eco-propaganda cut-and-pasted from environmental activist groups press releases, which masquerades as impartial science.

The typical line would go like this:

Man-made emissions of CO2 are causing global temperatures to rise and we should cut our emissions urgently to avoid the risk of dangerous climate change. A tiny minority of scientists (or “deniers” as we should call them), funded by large oil companies who want to maintain the status quo, are paid to state that climate change is not happening/is a hoax/is a Marxist plot/etc etc…

Dissent is suppressed at all costs and only the “authorised” line is plugged. If you think this is exaggerated, have a look at the extract from a geography text book at the end of this post (see original here).

But it seems that a number of Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) members are in favour of an overhaul of Queensland’s education system, specifically the teaching of climate:

LNP members have overwhelmingly voted to ensure the removal of “environmental propaganda” about climate change from schools.

The motion, proposed by the LNP’s Noosa State Electorate Council, calls on Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek to require Queensland schools to “remove environmental propaganda material, in particular post-normal science about ‘climate change’, from the curriculum and as adjunct material at exam time”.

The mover of the motion, LNP member Richard Pearson, railed against “those false prophets who would poison the minds of our children in our schools”.

“Few people understand that the so called science of climate change is really what can be defined as ‘post-normal’ science,” he said, arguing it went beyond traditional understanding of science based on experimentation and falsifiable theories.

Another member spoke against the motion, saying he was concerned when people tried to dismiss differing opinions and he believed children to have access to all information.

The motion was nonetheless passed with overwhelming support from the LNP members at the gathering.

At last year’s conference, LNP president Bruce McIver questioned the role of humans in driving climate change, arguing the climate was always changing and children were being “brainwashed” in the way climate science was taught. (source) [Update: The Australian has more here]

I guess we wait for the brainless alarmists to start saying that this is akin to teaching creationism alongside evolution or that gravity isn’t settled science or some other idiotic comparison. No, it isn’t. Whereas there are centuries of hard empirical evidence for both evolution and gravity, there are about 20 years of flaky computer modelled projections on which the entire climate scare is based, not to mention the massaging of temperature data to prop up The Cause.

Furthermore, whereas there are no political gains to be made from evolution and gravity, climate change has been swamped by political motivations of global organisations like the UN and the IPCC (which, having been infiltrated by environmental activist groups, have already made up their minds that CO2 is to blame and are just desperately searching for evidence to back it up) and national governments, implementing pointless gestures like the carbon tax to appear politically correct (and in Australia’s case, stay in power).

For anyone to claim the “science is settled” and that only the approved version be taught in schools is delusional. At least Queensland LNP is taking a stand against this brainwashing.

Extract from NSW Year 8 Geography text book:

Propaganda (click to enlarge)

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Corrupting impressionable minds – one book at a time

30 April, 2012 by

Harmless? Think again

Unpacking a delivery from Amazon this morning, I was faced with an attractive and well-presented children’s pop-up book entitled “How the World Works – A hands-on guide to our amazing planet” (see cover illustration right).

As usual, before passing it on to my children, I gave it a quick scan for any possible subliminal (or blatant) global warming propaganda, and suffice it to say, it’s going straight back to Amazon in tomorrow’s post.

Just for background, this book was the winner of the Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize in 2011 – and that just about tells you all you need to know. The Royal Society isn’t about impartial and rigorous science any more, its about environmental brainwashing and political activism, hence this book would have scored very highly. It was also shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2011 (“best book with facts” – no irony intended).

Driving your car kills the planet. Click to enlarge

The first three double spreads, about the formation of the planet were interesting and informative. By the fourth, however, on the water cycle, the usual hectoring tone of the environmentalists began to show through. The principle is that the planet is pure and undefiled and everything humanity does merely damages that purity. So we begin:

“How do we interfere [their emphasis] with the water cycle? Fertilisers and pesticides can seep into rivers and lakes, polluting the water [no mention of the fact that those chemicals allow us to feed the worlds population more effectively than any time in history]. Our vehicles release harmful gases into the air. This makes the rain acidic and affects wildlife [no mention of the fact that the global population’s standard of living has, in part due to the availability of global transportation, never been higher]”

And from there it just gets worse:

“Extreme weather. Weather can be dangerous! Winds and rain help move heat and water around the earth. But extreme weather can cause huge damage to homes, buildings and roads, and can even kill people. Scientists believe that human activities are changing our atmosphere and making the earth warm up. This might mean more extreme weather in the future.”

Gulf Stream - click to enlarge

And now for the Day After Tomorrow moment:

“What if the Gulf Stream stops? Scientists fear that global warming could affect the Gulf Stream. Melting polar ice caps will make the water at the poles less salty, preventing it from sinking and gradually slowing down the Gulf Stream. This would make Europe and North America much colder!”

Yet more global warming alarmism:

“The world has changed fast over the last hundred years. With an increasing number of people, factories, power stations and cards. We are constantly adding large amounts of carbon [sic] to the air, but the planet cannot absorb it any longer. We are meddling with the world’s natural carbon cycle, with worrying results (see ‘The Greenhouse effect,’ on the right.

Because there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, more of the Sun’s heat is trapped and the earth’s surface is warming up.”

And then, more lecturing on “green” living:

“How can we reduce our carbon footprint? The best way is to use less energy. We can start at home by turning down thermostats, hanging out the washing rather than tumble drying it, and switching off lights, televisions and computers when not needed. Transport is another big carbon producer. So walking, cycling or using public transport really helps.”

Environmental propaganda - click to enlarge

And as you can see from the images, it’s all dressed up in cheerful, kid-friendly artwork, with plenty of pull tabs and pop-ups so the message is cleverly concealed. Apart from the global warming propaganda, almost every page admonishes the reader and humanity in general for the evil it has done to the planet.

Because it’s a kids book, and the message must be straightforward, there’s no room for subtlety or shades of grey – it’s a blunt assessment that humanity is damaging the planet and we must change our ways, or else.

Gone are the days when children could grow up enjoying the wonders of the planet and the universe for their own sakes without being badgered or berated. Now even pop-up books designed for the very youngest in our society are packed with enviro-propaganda to make them feel guilty about the way in which humanity (and by inference the young readers of the book) have defiled Gaia. Tragic.

A link to the book on Amazon is here.

The publisher is Templar (link).

Christiane Dorion, the author, spent several years as co-ordinator of primary education for, wait for it, WWF. So here we have a committed environmental activist brainwashing children into Gaia-guilt when they are barely out of diapers… 

UPDATE: Apologies for the typos – quick copy typing unfortunately. Hopefully all corrected now.

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More indoctrination: Future Sparks website will 'fill classrooms with the buzz from the clean energy future industry'

23 February, 2012 by

Get 'em while they're young, right?

New Scientists wants climate indoctrination in schools, so it would be very proud of Australia, where such propaganda is disseminated widely thanks to Labor’s “Clean Energy Future” legislation. Yes, you read that right – a new website aims to indoctrinate school children with political propaganda on climate change.

This email popped into my inbox earlier today from the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency:

Engaging our future bright sparks

Australian teachers and students can now harness the kinetic energy of a soccer ball to charge a mobile phone or power a light bulb, as part of ‘Future Sparks – our clean energy show and tell’ program, which was launched on Tuesday 21 February 2012.

Read the full story ‘Engaging our future bright sparks’ about the Future Sparks program on the Clean Energy Future website.

So here’s the flannel from the website:

Green Cross Australia, CSIRO and the Clean Energy Council have joined forces to showcase the latest scientific and engineering developments to inspire and amaze students about the transition to cleaner sources of energy.

This initiative is proudly supported by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

The Future Sparks website is now live and has been designed to fill classrooms with the buzz and excitement from the clean energy future industry. The website features a video and persuasive writing competition giving students the chance to flex their creative muscle and participate in the wider clean energy future conversation.

CSIRO have provided lesson plans that are flexible and fun, catering for a wide range of school settings. Future Sparks is compatible with the Australian Curriculum, particularly with English and Science, and the cross-curriculum priority of sustainability.

This website also provides core information on clean energy options, climate change science, emerging technology and includes many links, videos and games enabling students to explore further. Schools can readily access most videos and animations as they do not require YouTube access. (source)

Wow – the “buzz and excitement from the clean energy future industry”. I can hardly wait. You want indoctrination? We’ve got indoctrination. In spades. And when you visit the website, which is colourful and pretty and instantly attractive to youngsters, the climate propaganda is all there:

The Earth’s climate has changed dramatically since the beginning of time, but evidence now shows that human activity is creating a sharp increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Scientists agree this causes the temperatures on Earth to rise, which influences the climate – more extreme weather events, more often.

In some areas, the sea level will rise – and this is very worrying for people who live on small islands, particularly our Pacific Island neighbours.

There are now 7 Billion people on Earth – more than any other time in history – and this number is expected to continue to rise, putting further strain on the planet’s resources and adding greatly to climate change.

Animals will have to seek out climates to suits them – this will be a problem for alpine species in Australia!

Diseases will spread to new areas where the changed conditions will now suit microorganisms that can cause them.

So the change in climate will bring widespread change to our way of life and environment.

Take a look at this really cool video made by some other students to explain climate change.  It is a perfect example of a Future Spark video – make sure you keep yours under 3 minutes for this competition. (source)

Click the video link (if you can stand it) to see how some children have been totally brainwashed already. It’s truly, truly shocking. Links to CSIRO propaganda feature prominently, as do photos of polar bears and bush fires.

This tidal wave of propaganda will continue until our government is changed, finally, and this kind of political indoctrination is taken out of the classroom. It is utterly disgraceful.

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New Scientist wants indoctrination, not balance, in climate education

23 February, 2012 by

Joke publication (from Jo Nova)

New Scientist (or “Non-scientist” as it should be more accurately called) continues to smear any attempt at balance in climate education with misrepresentations, straw men and half-truths. Citing the Heartland documents, it recycles the same, tired old arguments that we have heard a thousand times before:

Children should be taught honestly what we know about climate change, as well as what we don’t know and where the uncertainties lie. Yet a plan outlined in documents allegedly from Heartland would build a curriculum around statements such as “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy”. This is to create controversy where none exists.

There simply is no credible scientific alternative to the theory that humans are warming the atmosphere.

We all acknowledge that humans are warming the atmosphere. The question, and where the doubt lies, is in the magnitude of that warming, in particular relative to natural climate cycles. Why are supposedly intelligent publications incapable of understanding this obvious difference? If that warming is one degree, then this isn’t a problem. As we keep repeating, the catastrophic projections come from multiple positive feedbacks in climate models.

In 2010, a survey of 1372 climate scientists found that 97 per cent of those who publish most frequently in the field were in no doubt. They agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that human activity had caused most of Earth’s warming over the second half of the 20th century. By comparison with these scientists, the climate expertise of the small group of contrarians was substantially lower (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107).

Ah yes, science by head count, and the politicised statements of a political organisation, the IPCC.

In the face of such broad agreement, the leaked strategy smacks of tactics used by tobacco companies as the evidence linking smoking to fatal diseases continued to grow. They employed accusations of scientific conspiracy, selective use of evidence and dissenting scientists to contradict public health experts and confuse the public. Oil companies have already used such tactics in the climate change debate. (source)

Smears, smears and more smears. And hints at a scientific conspiracy and selective use of evidence were both clearly exposed in the Climategate emails, but that doesn’t seem to concern the editorial writers today.

Why do they bother? Only total indoctrination will satisfy the headbangers at Non Scientist.

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Government's climate indoctrination exposed (again)

14 February, 2012 by

Corrupting young minds

The problem with adults is that they have mature and developed powers of reasoning and logical thought. This means that adults can easily see through the government’s deceit on the carbon tax, namely that it will be of some benefit to the climate – it won’t – or that the rest of the world is racing ahead to take action – it isn’t – or that the planet is headed for oblivion if we don’t send our economy back to the dark ages – it isn’t.

Therefore, because they have no standards of morality or decency whatsoever, they are prepared to bypass the grown-ups and go for the impressionable minds of children. This is nothing new, as ACM has reported on many such occasions (see here, for example, and the CSIRO’s Carbon Kids program, a disgraceful propaganda exercise by our national science body, on which there may be more at a later date).

So the following is simply the latest evidence of government attempts to brainwash and indoctrinate the next generation with climate alarmism before they have the capacity to question what they are being told:

SHE grows awesome tomatoes and has an orange tractor. And now dirtgirl, the lead character in the popular children’s television program dirtgirlworld, has been enlisted to the climate change fight by a Gillard government struggling to convince her viewers’ parents of the merits of the carbon tax package.

Senate estimates was told yesterday the ABC show had been awarded a $150,000 grant “to reach currently disengaged families through childhood activities focused on reducing energy use”.

The hearing was told the government had $10 million left for an advertising campaign to back the carbon tax. But no decision had been taken on the future of the campaign.

Other recipients of Climate Change Foundation grants included Green Cross Australia, which was awarded $200,000 for a primary school show-and-tell competition.

The $3m grants program was announced last June in conjunction with the government’s paid advertising campaign to promote the carbon package.

The $10m remaining in the government’s advertising allocation follows its controversial advertisement last year backing the clean energy future package, which was found to have largely failed to sway public opinion on carbon pricing.

The Climate Change Department told yesterday’s Senate estimates hearing the advertisements had sparked 7500 responses to a call centre on the Clean Energy Future package. (source)

Aided and abetted as usual by Their ABC.

H/t ABC News Watch

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CSIRO's Climate Change science kit

27 December, 2011 by

"Seriously real science"?

More indoctrination from our national scientific research organisation. Reader KA sent me a photo of the kit on sale, which sadly doesn’t provide many details of the materials inside. However, I thought we could have a pretty good guess, so here we go:

Contents:

  • 1 hockey stick (broken)
  • 1 climate change calculator (multiplies everything by a fudge factor automatically)
  • software for deleting emails (Windows and Mac)
  • phone numbers of editors of all sceptical climate journals with handy script for threatening voicemail message
  • model windmill (self-combusting)
  • Himalayan glacier ice cube kit
  • application form for government funding (pre-approved)
  • plastic polar bear to create your own Al Gore-style weepy animation
  • model pink batts insulation experiment, with fire extinguisher and pro-forma writ for negligence
  • fake carbon credit certificates (actually real ones, but hey, they’re the same!)
  • guide to Freedom of Information legislation in 50 major jurisdictions
  • application for IPCC lead author status (pre-approved)

Have I missed anything?

A bargain at just $29.99 (or $48.50 after the carbon tax).

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Powerhouse Museum: "No more prawns on the barbie"

27 December, 2011 by

I saved the best until last. Prawns on a barbecue (“barbie” as it is colloquially known, as Aussies insist on abbreviating everything and suffixing “-ie”, “blowie”, “mozzie” etc) are a cliché and an institution at the same time. So naturally, it is an excellent target for the climate killjoys who try to blackmail us with scares and threats. None is more blatant than this one, seen in the Powerhouse Museum’s climate change exhibit (see yesterday’s post for more). The text reads:

“One third of the carbon dioxide we release dissolves in the ocean and turns into carbonic acid. Today the oceans are about 30% more acidic than they were in preindustrial times. High acid levels make it very hard for sea creatures to build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. These include corals, clams, prawns and plankton that form the base of the ocean food web. Without their shells they will simply disappear. Animals that normally eat them will be affected too.”

Propaganda masquerading as science (click to enlarge)

The oceans have in fact become marginally less alkaline, since today the pH is a few tenths less than it was pre-industrially. The 30% figure is derived from the increase in H+ ions – but since pH is a logarithmic measure of hydrogen ion concentration, absolute percentages sound large (which the PH has exploited for dramatic effect) but are really fairly small (an increase of just 1 full unit of pH would be a 1000% (10x) increase in concentration of H+ ions). The ocean pH is around 8.07, down from about 8.17 in pre-industrial times. Still well short of even neutrality (pH 7), let alone acidic.

And again, such dire prophecies, whilst great for scaring children, ignore nature’s remarkable capacity for adaptation and survival. We have had higher CO2 levels present in the atmosphere before, yet shellfish remain in the oceans… When we fail to look at geological timescales, we fall into the trap of thinking that everything we see today is “unprecedented”.

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Christmas Quiz: Powerhouse Museum's climate indoctrination exhibit

26 December, 2011 by

"EcoLogic" exhibit

A visit to the Powerhouse Museum to see the Harry Potter exhibition today was marred by an unexpected encounter with an area devoted to “explaining” climate change.

The purpose is clearly one of indoctrination and propaganda rather than a dispassionate and informative explanation of the subject, as evidenced by this video on display within the exhibit:

[tube]R21lnh21wR0[/tube]

In fact, according to the PH museum website, the science is settled, with a typical “flat-earth” style smear aimed at anyone vaguely sceptical:

“Scientific ideas aren’t always popular. It took 400 years for the public to accept that the Earth travels around the Sun, so it’s no surprise that there’s some public resistance to the notion of human-induced climate change. Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of centuries to debate the causes, so it moves into the realm of risk management.”

…

The world’s climate scientists say we should prepare now for hotter temperatures, rising sea levels and more extreme weather like floods and droughts. Consequently, systems that supply our food, water, clothing and shelter will be affected.  The exhibition explores options for adapting these systems and for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. (link)

So for a bit of post-Christmas fun, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to point out the errors, misrepresentations and spin masquerading as impartial science in the following exhibits [click to embiggenify if necessary]:

"trained to be (un-)sceptical"

"Agents of spin"

Antarctic, anyone?

Note the year…

"almost unanimous agreement"

Solar? Schmolar.

Wetter and drier, hotter and colder

Inconvenient Truth, anyone?

 

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