Booker on Climate Control

Christopher Booker covers the Climate Control report in the Sunday Telegraph, recounting a story from his column a few years back that is a stunning indictment of what is going on.

In 2012, I described an A-level general studies paper set by our leading exam board, AQA, asking for comment on 11 pages of propagandist “source materials”, riddled with basic errors. A mother wrote to tell me how her intelligent son, after getting straight As on all his science papers, used his extensive knowledge of climate science to point out all their absurd distortions.

In related news, Richard Betts tweets his conclusions on the report:

...GWPF have form on distorting the science - which makes me sceptical of their school report.

Some more responses

A couple more responses to the Climate Control report have appeared, of decidedly variable quality.

Left Foot Forward's take is, as you might expect the kind of thing you would expect from that less than august organ, mostly written without reference to the report at all and not really addressing anything we said in it. Author James Bloodworth has this to say for example

According to the GWPF, telling kids to “avoid polluting the world”, “recycle” and “reduce their carbon footprint” is “brainwashing” carried out with the express intention of turning children into “foot soldiers of the green movement”.

But hang on a minute. What exactly is objectionable about teaching children to safeguard the environment? If you can avoid doing so, don’t go around polluting the world – it’s hardly revolutionary advice.

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Climate Control in the Mail

I'm a bit busy with Easter hols at the moment, but this is a thread to record the Mail's coverage of the Climate Control report, which can be seen here.

I'm aware of one very feeble critique of the report here and there have been tweets from Doug McNeall, who seems to think some things that I objected to are "hilariously neutral" (although I haven't quite worked out what yet) and Alice Bell who found it "badly researched".

+++Michael Gove responds to Climate Control+++

According to Breitbart London, Education Secretary Michael Gove has issued a statement in response to the Montford/Shade report on climate change education:

A spokesman for Michael Gove, has said that teachers who do not offer a balanced view on issues like climate change are breaking the law. The Department for Education's comments came after a report from The Global Warming Policy Foundation raised serious concerns about the lack of balance in British classrooms.

Read the whole thing.

Climate Control coverage

The Voice of Russia has covered the Montford/Shade report on climate change education in schools...

Andrew Montford, blogger and author of a new report on climate change in education, says children in England and Scotland are being brainwashed over climate change. He blames the United Nations for setting an agenda which has been blindly adopted in schools. VoR's Scott Craig asked him to explain

as has James Delingpole at Breitbart.

British schoolchildren are being brainwashed by a deep green environmental curriculum which fills their heads with "confusion, ignorance and fear", says a new study by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Update on Apr 9, 2014 by Bishop Hill

Here's Tony Thomas in Quadrant.

The affair suggests a similar independent inquiry into “climate teaching” in Australian schools would be worthwhile. Anecdotal accounts of brainwashing by activists masquerading as teachers in our primary and secondary schools are legion.

Climate control

The following press release was issued by GWPF yesterday:

London, 8 April: A new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation is calling for Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to institute an official inquiry into the way environmentalism and in particular climate change are being taught in schools.

In the report, authors Andrew Montford and John Shade describe how environmentalism has come to permeate school curricula across the UK, featuring in an astonishing variety of subjects, from geography to religious education to modern languages. Passing examinations will now usually involve the ability to recite green mantras rather than understanding the subtle questions of science and economics involved.

The authors review in detail the climate change teaching materials currently used in British schools, with disturbing results. There is ample evidence of unscientific statements, manipulated graphs, and activist materials used in class and even found in textbooks.

The report also describes how activist teachers try to make children become the footsoldiers of the green movement, encouraging them to harass their schoolmates and pester their parents to bring about “behaviour change”.

The use of fear of climate change to alter children’s behaviour is also highlighted. This is undoubtedly having harmful consequences on children’s development and surveys indicate that fear of the future is widespread. The report quotes one child as saying:

"I worry about [global warming] because I don’t want to die."

Author Andrew Montford says: “The brainwashing of our children for political ends is shameful. Those responsible for education in the UK need to take action and take it quickly”

The report has been the work of many months and I must say I think the results are an appalling indictment of what is going on in schools. I just hope people take notice.

The full text is here.

Quote of the day, research edition

In the modern British university, it is not that funding is sought in order to carry out research, but that research projects are formulated in order to get funding. I am not joking when I say that a physics lecturer called Einstein, who just thought about the Universe would risk being sacked because he brought in no grants.

From a letter to the Times by Prof Sir Fergus Millar.

Official policy: put kids in mortal danger

The Telegraph reports on a wind turbine in the grounds of a school in Thurso was destroyed by a brisk breeze:

Two blades were ripped from the 18m high turbine in the Scottish Highlands and thrown up to 60 yards away after it was hit by 40mph gales. A third was left badly buckled.

The risk to the lives of children is obvious, although mercifully nobody was injured on this occasion.

Readers should be clear that putting wind turbines in school grounds is not something that is done willy-nilly. It is officially encouraged, part of the sustainable education strategy put in place in 2006 by the then Labour Education Secretary Alan Johnson.

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What goes on in schools?

Earlier this week I had a very pleasant lunch with John Shade of the Climate Lessons blog, who was down in my neck of the woods for a holiday.

Our conversation turned to what is taught about climate change and environmentalism in schools. While we are both aware of plenty of dodgy stuff in curricula, course materials and school-facing activist websites, we were less able to put our hands on evidence of what is actually said in the classroom, or the extent to which activist material is used.

Is anyone able to throw any light on this question, either through personal experience or, better still, from data?

Iain Dale is shocked

Iain Dale has been shocked by Ed Davey's attempts to have global warming sceptics silenced, and even tried to get the great man onto LBC radio this evening so that he could explain himself.

Davey, it seems, suddenly had a pressing appointment elsewhere.

Dale, meanwhile, is also pretty disturbed by some of the things his callers are saying to him about the slow strangulation of the school curriculum by environmentalists. Read the whole thing.

Education cuts

The Guardian is reporting that someone has decided that global warming propaganda might not be the thing for small children, in England at least.

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.

Many activists are quoted as opposing the move - David King, John Ashton are the most familiar ones. The views of parents were apparently not of interest to the Guardian.

Update on Mar 17, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Joe Smith is worried.

A despotism over the mind

American schoolchildren are to have what looks like a monolithic view of global warming imposed upon them:

New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation's classrooms.

They recommend that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that "human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming)," the standards say.

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Art for warming's sake

Tony Thomas was touring the art gallery at Ballarat, Victoria, when his eye alighted on the children's trail around the gallery. It was not a pretty sight. Take this excerpt for example.

In this vision we have poisoned our environment with toxic waste and used up all the natural resources until the earth could no longer support us…In this painting, people are just a memory. The earth has survived and with it some of the plants and animals which lived in harmony with nature, only taking what they needed and adapting….

We have become reckless with our consumption, buying bigger and better things with more and more packaging. [blah blah, insert here more Greens Party boilerplate].

Who should be responsible for the effects of our heavy consumption of resources? How can we reduce the cost of sustaining our natural resources?”.

Read the whole thing.

Down with universities

That is Matt Briggs' provocative theme in his post today.

The idea is sound. Ignore the old system, which hasn’t any hope of being repaired, and start again. Let those who wish pile up debt, collect “womyn’s studies” “degrees”, and be taught by adjuncts at Behemoth U do so. But for those students who actually want to learn, we have to do something different. Nothing radical. Just return to the roots of what a classical liberal education was meant to be. 

Teaching solar power

Five lessons on how to waste  money.

Thanks to Max Farquhar for this link.

http://www.maxfarquar.com/2012/10/1010-itshappening-again/

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