Bishop Hill How's that new AGW communication strategy working out for you?
Aug 13, 2011 Climate: other Education A snippet from Damian Thompson's blog at the Telegraph:
This week, I met a 17‑year-old pupil from a girls’ public school that, in the past, has been more famous for turning out Sloaney husband-hunters than for filling its pupils with useless scientific facts. But the stereotype is out of date, it seems. The GCSE syllabus ranges far and wide, taking in the physics, chemistry, biology, geopolitics, economics and ethics of climate change. In English lessons, girls “debate” (ie, heartily endorse) the proposition that global warming will kill us all. And guess what topic has been chosen for French conversation?
But parents shouldn’t worry that their girls will turn into eco-loons. “Honestly,” says my informant, “we’re all, like, sooo bored with climate change. I can’t wait to leave school to escape.”
Reader Comments (53)
'bored' is so much better than 'scared witless', but at what expense for her interest in, or respect for science and politics in the future?
Perhaps a great many children are not as easily manipulated as political plotters would like to believe. Thank goodness if that is the case.
Jolly hockey sticks WHAT-OH!
Agitprop for the debs ain't working - how sweet.
Propaganda, even kids suss it, it's really not: 'the age of stupid'.
Small wonder they [adolescents] hate the establishment and the intelligentsia - who are all the time pushing pap like AGW at them.
TEACH THEM REAL FACTS NOT FICTIONS.
Eventually, someone will realise the game's well and truly up [politicians always last - they are the dregs of society - not the kids] and AGW will be a bad memory, one problem, the eejits who raddled and tainted the educational system with this utter rot, will be long gone and with knighthoods and generous stipends to boot.
So:
She is taught the economics and ethics of climate change.
She is now in a position to research the subject for herself and debate (i.e. argue for or against) the proposition "global warming will kill us all".
Finally, she will be able to express scientific, economic, and ethical concepts in French.
Can't see what is wrong with that.
As she isn't staying on for 'A' levels, perhaps they are still turning out "Sloaney husband-hunters" with no grasp of "useless scientific facts", after all.
My wife is a GSCE examiner among other things and she marked thousands of GCSE geography question answers recently (all done online now). Of course she had the papers and the marking schemes in hard copy.
Read them and weep. That our kids are being taught this utter trash is a scandal. GSCEs are of course mainly rote learning, but the questions and answers just need to be seen to be believed. I cant even be bothered to go into detail but let me assure you it is a real eye opener. It is at least as bad as you think - probably worse.
This reminds me of the classic rant [on a Telegraph blog in November 2009] by a totally fecked-off science teacher who could take no more:
"This article is the last straw. For six years I have had to bit my tongue while force-feeding this climate anthropogenic global warming nonsense into the increasingly sceptical minds of my science school learners. They all know it's a scam. I know it's a scam. They all know that we will be notionally 1010ed if we don't all toe the party line, give the "government approved" answer in the exams, fill in the approved plans, but carry on as normal. I cannot seriously go into a school next term and carry on like this.
Consequently I hereby declare that, metaphorically, the next parent, head of science, head teacher, school governor, local education authority jobsworth, central government apparatchik, or UK energy minister who tells me have to teach this climate porn to under-16s or lose my job will be kebabed on a hockey stick and fed to the polar bear packs currently massing under my window seeking warmth. And any kid who dares to submit an assignment consisting of material cut'n'pasted from these Louise Gray's WWF press releases will be spreadeagled on a stationary wind turbine in the North Sea.
I call upon all teachers to join me in this declaration, and to organise a welcome back party to all UK attendees from Cancun."
source: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/11/30/quote-of-the-day.html
I'm a maths teacher in a secondary (11-18) school and I have been universally derided for my skepticism of AGW.
The Science teacher accused me of being a 'conspiracy theorist' and another implied that I had been 'hoodwinked' by Big Oil propaganda.
However, what do the kids have to say?
When they see the graphs I have on my classroom wall showing the MWP, the last decade's flat-lined global temperature, and the logarithmic effect of CO2's absorption ability, the kids start to ask genuinely inquisitive questions and ask for more information from me.
What do I then tell them?
I tell them to be skeptical of any science they see or read about (including what I have to say!), never accept things on faith alone, and always look for empirical evidence. This amazes them somewhat, as the rote-learning they have been used to in their Science lessons has never really given them the chance to be truly skeptical scientists.
PS what really summed-up the poor state of Science education in England for me was when one student said to me, "why have you got Science graphs on your wall when you're a Maths teacher?"
@Andy,
A table-top experiment will open a few eyes.
Freeze some water in a shallow plastic bowl.
Now pop it out and float it on water in a bigger bowl. Put some plastic polar bears on top and maybe plant a flag to represent the north pole.
Carefully mark the sea level on the edge of the bowl. Now ask everyone what will happen to sea level when the ice cap melts. Ask the science teacher last - in front of the class.
Now wait until the ice melts...
(You may want to weigh the whole thing in case the science teacher is tempted to falsify the facts in aid of a greater good. And make sure the ice is floating like the ice at the north pole)
And Andy do put little life jackets on the plastic polar bears so they won't "drown" and whatever you do DO NOT PRESS THE RED BUTTON.
I think Andy is hitting that other red button that creates two new skeptics every time when pressed.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
If they feed them such horse sh1t on this, and presumably, other topics, is it any wonder they turn out on the streets and riot?
Back to the three Rs and the cane, like when I was at school!
The new, improved communication strategy doesn't seem to be working very well for the IPCC - whose big guns seem to be in, well, conflict of scenarios vis a vis conflict of interest:
Duelling scenarios from the IPCC on the birth of its conflict of interest policy
So, we have global warming in science, geography and French lessons. What is wrong with history? Most people, including sceptics, will agree that it is important to know if the climate is changing and how it is likely to change in future. Therefore it is obviously important to know how the climate has behaved in the past.
Does anyone know whether or not climate change is taught in history lessons? If it is not, why not?
Roy
Wasn't the India Rubber Man a staple at Victorian Freak Shows?
"Roll up! Watch him tie himself in knots!"
Obviously an ancestor of The Great Pachauri.
"Roll up! Watch him tie himself in knots!"
I'd missed that Economist interview. Cheers up my Sunday no end.
Schools should take the opportunity to use real world examples of green economics in math or business classes. This may help make lessons more relevant and encourage critical thinking. As an example
You have a business park with a 24,000 person capacity stadium, a 200 bed hotel with conference facilities and 4,500 people working on the business park. You want to provide facilities for electric vehicle charging. How many charging points would you need?
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2097927_worlds_first_turbinepowered_car_charger_
Aug 14, 2011 at 3:46 AM | Jack Hughes
I find it astonishing that some people are still so uninformed on this subject, that they don't, even now, understand that the concern is over ice sheets which are on land, melting into the sea. The children in the schools you're all dicussing know this, Jack Hughes ignorance shows how important it is that this generation grow up understanding the problem properly, by learning it in schools.
The trouble is that when ice on land melts, there is a tendency for the land mass relieved of the weight of the ice to rise up and distort the measured sea-level. You then find yourself having to make annual adjustments to the observed sea-level in order to bring it back into alignment with the models. It all gets very messy and hardly likely to inspire good science at school level.
ZDB
Not in my country.
O Level Geography replaced the study of Glaciers with the slums of Rio.
Ahhhh.. the United Workers of the World mindset, "Anyone Can Be Brainwashed!" Sounds an awful lot like the old Chinese Water Torture technique - drip..... drip.... drip.... drip... I just knew that once all those hippies and "flower children" got all that "Make Love Not War", "Give Peace a Chance", and "Hell No We Won't Go!" stuff out of their systems they were going to screw up everything else they set their minds to. Life's a beach!
Jack Hughes,
Thanks for the idea about the plastic polar bears experiment - a bit of hands-on demonstration is always a powerful learning tool. In fact, my friend (a home educator) thought it was so great he's going to film it and put it on YouTube.
Sorry ZedsDeadBed - the students aren't aware that it's melting land-based ice that will raise sea-levels. They all think its melting icebergs that will cause sea levels to rise, probably because they've seen so many of those ridiculous Photoshopped pictures of polar bears standing on a melting chunk of ice. Of course, I will be telling my students about the melting land-based ice - I will then tell them to research the predicted small level (and relatively slow rate) of rise and then compare these data to Al Gore's ridiculous predictions of a 67m rise. (unfortunately, the students have all been shown the ridiculous 'Inconvenient Truth' in their Science lessons)
Add to that the "slurring" of the message by the PR experts and it's not surprising that some non-scientists are misled. There are plenty of people quite happy that they should continue to be.
Remember, as Schneider told us,
ZBDee
"I find it astonishing that some people are still so uninformed on this subject, that they don't, even now, understand that the concern is over ice sheets which are on land, melting into the sea. "
Is it any wonder when the Huffington Post has hysterical stuff like this (1 google, top result) :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/03/arctic-melting-sea-levels-climate-change_n_856924.html
INTRO: "-- A new assessment of climate change in the Arctic shows the region's ice and snow are melting faster than previously thought and sharply raises projections of global sea level rise this century...
...It also shatters some of the forecasts made in 2007 by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change.
The cover of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, for example, is shrinking faster than projected by the U.N. panel. The level of summer ice coverage has been at or near record lows every year since 2001, AMAP said, predicting that the Arctic Ocean will be nearly ice free in summer within 30-40 years."
Quoting a report from Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program it says"
"...that Arctic temperatures in the past six years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system have now started kicking in.
It also shatters some of the forecasts made in 2007 by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change."
After more hysteria it finally (paragraph 8) mentions Greenland, though caveated by commas and not contxtualized:
"The melting of Arctic glaciers and ice caps, including Greenland's massive ice sheet, are projected to help raise global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches "
Note the "Including". Nowhere does it say that the melting of Arctic sea ice DOESN't cause sea levels to rise.
So excuse us for being uninformed in the face of such uninformed propoganda.
And it's worth adding that though Greenland may be being nibbled away at the edges the ice cap is fine, thankyou. Talk of chunks of ice "the size of Manhattan" falling off it need to be put in perspective!
ZDB
Ever hear of the several Ice Ages we had in the past? Or "Snowball Earth"? If we had things your way we would still be under several kilometers of ice and snow. A little melting is not necessarily a bad thing. It helps the flowers to grow.
Man is so ingeneous when not constrained by government nannying. I can't help thinking how much better off we would be if the world were totally ice free and human ingenuity were let loose.
Reading that Huffpost huffpuff again, I've just noticed this:
I thought we were already in a "death spiral" and the summer ice would all be gone by last year .... or next year ..... or 2013.Now it's "predicted" to be "nearly" ice-free by about 2040-2050.
Is it any wonder that those who aren't really interested don't know what to think and those who try to follow the science are becoming increasingly sceptical of the whole shooting match?
Guys, have you ever thought about giving us the facts (the known knowns) as far as you know them, telling us the uncertainties (the known unknowns) that you are aware of and leave the unknown unknowns to the readers of entrails, ecological masochists, and Bob Ward?
Sometimes I am amazed by how ordinary people (i.e. non-academics) seem to have a nose for bullshit!
I don't really know how they do it, because superficially the AGW story has some plausibility, but like the girls in your post, I find most ordinary people have discounted AGW long ago!
Perhaps part of learning science involves learning so many strange concepts - quantum mechanics, etc. - that we lose our sensitivity to bullshit!
Phillip Bratby
But Phillip, how would I ever make a decent Tom Collins?
David Bailey
I think it's because most of us live in the real world and you develop a nose for bullshit or you go under.
Certainly there is plausibility to the AGW story; in fact it is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that there is more in it than sometimes we believe.
But if that is the case then why don't they do as I just suggested: tell us what you know; tell us what you aren't sure of; stop trying to "sell" us something which flies in the face of what experience and history and a lot of other people with qualifications and a track record as good as yours tells us (doesn't mean it's wrong, just needs a bit more explaining on your part).
And shut the political activists up because they are the ones who trot out the armageddon scenarios which are forever contradicting each other and those of us who have been around a decade or two know that they will lie through their teeth to get their own way (because they would never ever ever get elected on a true bill of goods) and virtually anything they say can be discounted at once.
Got it? :-)
If I think of any more I may come back later!
Don Pablo
Settle for warm beer; the English have been doing it for centuries. Whart do you think we built an Empire on?Lapogus..fecked-off Aug 13, 2011 at 8:17 PM.
Interesting how this Irish word (Scots also) is cropping up quite frequently nowadays. It is the poor relation of the other 4 letter word (F***) but without the much more vicious meaning.
So, when I was a kid, if someone told me to "feck off" I wouldn't be offended but if I used the F**k word with "off" after it, it was off to tell the priest in confession.
Luckily I never used the latter word much and anyway confession is a thing of the past.
Yes - it's strange that none of the billions spent on CAGW research goes into looking at the benefits that might come from a slightly warmer, moister, CO2 rich environment.
Warmer = much lower winter death rate in most of the planet (if you check - even in warm climates most old people die in the winter months from cold related respiratory disease).
Warmer = less energy demand for heating and food preparation in the developed world (negative feedback on CO2 emissions).
Warmer = huge increase in cultivateable area in northern regions.
Warmer + wetter + more CO2 = better yields from all forms of food production plus better growth rate of trees and natural vegetation (positive feedback on CO2 absorbtion).
Plus - maybe some of that energy saved from not needing heating could be used to irrigate desert areas and improve food production in tropical zones.
Now - these are simply the untaught, amateur ramblings of an old engineer, but the point is - I've never even seen them discussed in AGW science.
Mike 7.35
Here is an informational video from the IPCC explaining why the predictions of doom keep changing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag
Foxgoose <\b>
You've neatly summed-up all the benefits of a warmer world.
We never hear about them because it goes against the Greenies' alarmist propaganda.
Again, my students have all been taught in their Science lessons that a warmer world means lots of deaths (maybe we'll all fry?). Then I give them some real maths and show them the stats on the many cold-related deaths compared to the far fewer numbers of deaths from too much heat. Once again, they are surprised to hear the truth backed-up by empirical evidence, and once again, the Science teacher gets annoyed with me ;)
Whoops, sorry about the huge amount of bold in the last post.
I screwed up my HTML :)
Good luck with your crusade Andy. If you manage to inspire just a few of your students to ask questions about the 'certainties' that they've been exposed to since their Primary School years then well done!
As for your colleagues, I have less hope. The longer that many spend in teaching, the less likely that they will stray from their initial positions.
In another life I taught Physics at Secondary level. My first post was under a Principal teacher who I really got on with at first.
One day he proudly admitted that under his direction he'd never had a failure at 'Higher' grade. To his surprise I went ballistic. I was much younger then, of course, but am still exercised that he only presented candidates who would not put his 'peerless' record at risk!
His pass rates were fantastic. His record of integrity was zero. If you might fail, you don't get a chance.
Moving to the present, give the 'wrong' answer in a raft of subjects wrt climate consensus and you rock the boat.
Andy, again, best of luck mate.
On a slightly related topic to Jack Hughes's sea ice experiment, I was wondering if anyone would care to comment on this curious looking piece of research from RGU in Aberdeen, that apparently links global warming to obesity.
http://www.rgu.ac.uk/news/researchers-suggest-link-between-obesity-and-global-warming
The theory is that fat people exhale more CO2, which is a GHG, therefore fat people are contributing more to "global warming"
Is this for real?
Andy, more than likely. Volumetrically the cube of their body-mass will poison the planet more than the square of their surface area. Or is that the other way about?
Whatevever the maths. Global Warmistadors hate profligicacy, unless it's planet-saving and respectable.
Mr Anderson of Jethro Tull once, almost said.
'Planet phreaking'
'Big Fat Jokers'
'They polarized the Grant-seekers.
Consensus directed
Bottom feeders,
Salaried and Gubment funded'
....
My point is that people breathing, regardless of their size, produce CO2 from food that was grown using CO2., and hence is part of the closed carbon cycle.
Did I miss something in this ground-breaking research?
andyscrase
As RoyFOMR correctly pointed out, the answer is "yes", but they also tend to die at a younger age, so we can't be sure of what the total "carbon" production over the lifetime of the individual is as compared to a normal weight individual. We should apply for a grant to determine this vital information.
this is apparently for 7-10 year olds and is in some schools and Joanna hopes it will change the climate for the better. it is published by Scholastic Inc - nice!
Scholastic Inc., 2010 - Science: The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge
by Joanna Cole, Bruce Degen
Like it or not, global warming is a hot topic, and it will affect the younger generation the most. So why not turn to the teacher kids like the most, Ms. Frizzle! Only the Friz can boil all the hoopla down to the scientific facts in a fun and informative way.
With trademark simplicity and wit, Joanna Cole explains why the earth is getting warmer, and Bruce Degen's bright, action-filled illustrations make the science easy to understand and fun to learn. This team brings a new, improved understanding to climate change, engaging kids and empowering all. Teachers will cheer!...
A note from Joanna Cole:
While I was writing The Magic School Bus and the Climate Change Challenge, all I could think about was the kids who will read it. I wanted to give them hope. More than that, I wanted to tell them how their own actions as children can help solve the crisis of global warming. You will see a real blueprint for this in the book.
Our young readers will be voters before we know it, and educating them today will influence their actions as they grow older. Wouldn't it be wonderful if The Magic School Bus could help change the climate for the better?
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Magic_School_Bus_and_the_Climate_Cha.html?id=DX8QTkEeiDAC
Thankfully NZ schoolkids will be spared Ms Frizzle and her magic schoolbus today as most of the country is buried in a once in 50 years snowstorm
We shouldn't be too concerned about the effect on the kids. I was still teaching back in the eighties, when the propaganda lessons were about how acid rain was killing all the pine trees in Germany etc.
These lessons were treated with absolute contempt by staff and pupils alike.
Andy at 1.20 AM I would have thought that obese people are sequestring carbon, while their thinner higher metabolic companions are emitting much more CO2. Trouble is when they are dead and burried it all goes back to the environment.
andyscrase
While food consumption for fat people is as you say largely recyled CO2, don't forget that most obese folk need to wear very large (XXL or XXXL) and very stretchy (i.e. polymer) clothing, and this is made from fossil fuel extracts which if burned or in some other way destructed when no longer required, then this CO2 is directly added to the atmosphere.
In addition, fat folk tend to get fatter, so replace clothing more quickly than thin folk, and die sooner, so release all these polymers into the environment more regularly than thin folk.
More research needed, I would guess.
steveta_uk
Your comments about increased consumption requirements for "larger people" is understood. "Larger people" need big cars, bigger clothes, more airplane space, etc etc.
However, my point is whether this is part of the RGU research, or whether it is merely the increased CO2 from respiration, in which case it is, in my view, part of a closed loop.
This leads onto my favorite hobbyhorse of taxing farmers for cows methane emissions, but that can save until another day.
At least Damian Thompson's 'bored' informant could escape the b*llsh*t by leaving school...
steveta_uk and andyscrase
Excellent points! Clearly some definitive research should be conducted. I would suggest a 50 year longitudinal study of obese and lean people in some place with a good climate (no use in being uncomfortable) funded at say £ 30 million PA?
RoyFOMR
Only just returned to read the comments a day later than my last post.
Just wanted to say: the best wishes are appreciated!
Cheers,
Andy
Don Pablo, that's just jumping the gun and putting the cart before the horse!
First we need various conferences in Bali and Acapulco to determine the short-term research strategy, followed by EU or UN funding to allow a serious approach to be formulated.
The longitudinal study of the obese and the lean would need to be latitudinal as well, surely, and could be subtitled Fattipuffs and Thinifers.