The 841-page National Climate Assessment released by the US government last week has been described as “sobering”, but Americans do not appear sobered.
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
The Financial Times, a major international business newspaper, the main competitor to the Wall Street Journal, has just published an article, highlighting the insignificance of the impact Obama’s National Climate Assessment has had, on American public opinion.
According to the FT,
“Americans have been receiving such warnings for a decade. None has managed to rouse the country from its seeming indifference.”
“… the authors seem to have forgotten that weather is not the same thing as the climate.”.
“Former US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman wrote recently of having watched a debate at which “all the Republican candidates chuckled at a question on climate change – as if they had been asked about their belief in the Tooth Fairy””
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31320b68-d6ae-11e3-b251-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz31OwBG0TQ
(Note – you only get one viewing of this link, due to FT content policy. If you try to click this link a second time, the site will likely demand you buy a subscription)
The Wall street Journal summed it up this way:
Obama’s Climate Bomb
He’s flogging disaster scenarios to promote his political agenda.
Supervising the Earth’s climate—or at least believing humanity can achieve such miracles—may be the only political project grandiose enough for President Obama. So it shouldn’t surprise that after reforming health care and raising taxes, the White House is now getting the global-warming band back together, though it is still merely playing the old classics of unscientific panic.
On Wednesday the White House released the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, an 829-page report.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304885404579548453104239932
Actually, the link does not allow one beyond the cover page, you can’t read the article this post is about.
Managing the Earth’s climate is the only thing big enough for Obama? Sure…he’ll pay half assed attention to it for a year or so then become bored. Then frustrated. Then disappointed in the world for not coming up to his standards. Then he will create a website to combat it and it won’t work.
Seen this movie before.
Then he will put Michelle on Twitter with a sign saying #SaveThePlanetPleaaase! then outsource to her an address to the nation about Carbon Pollution is Killing Us . She has been a pretty reasonable Deputy Vice President (DeViPOTUS) in my opinion. Beats the hell out of whatshisname. I wonder if she’ll run against Hilary? Makes sense in Obamaworld.
“The Financial Times, a major international business newspaper, the main competitor to the Wall Street Journal, has just published an article, highlighting the insignificance of the impact Obama’s National Climate Assessment has had, on American public opinion.”
Or anything else he says, at least to those who are not addicted to the kool aid. Unfortunately, that is only about half of the US population. The other half are getting ‘free’ stuff and will believe whatever they are told with, of course, the help of the major media outlets.
I substitute teach high school and, sadly, common core supports AGW as a fact. Until we take back the educational system and media in this country, we are fighting an uphill battle.
No one trusts Washington. Period.
If you like your lies, you can keep you lies. Period.
The problem with Washington, DC is everything coming out of there is driven by political agenda, usually far-left. There is no honesty, just manipulation.
If you google the title of the article you will be able to read it in full
With U.S. foreign policy in disarray, turning again to the kool aid drinkers and true believers is an obvious move to revitalize a flagging presidency, where the war on coal is already an indelible stain on Mr. O’s legacy.
Some people call it ‘sobering’ while others remain silent. Why? My guess is alarm fatigue. I stopped being alarmed about 2007/9. Then I became shocked, then sceptical, then angry, and now I’m as mad as hell.
you can enter your email details and get 8 articles per month for free.
Still the regulatory machine grinds on. Obama’s EPA has proposed green house gas (GHG) rules limiting CO2 emissions on new power plants. Once the final rule is written it will wind its way through the inevitable legal challenges. In June, Obama will propose GHG limits on EXISTING sources that from leaks looks like a recasted cap and trade program. It, too will face legal challenges as it is bound to go beyond language written in the clean air act.
Truth is this…as long as he gets away with it he will continue. The ONLY way to stop this crap is at the polls. Get the Senate this year and the executive branch in 2016.
The early comments on the article are almost entirely by catastrophists. Repeating the same old stories: “funded by oil interests” “same people as smoking” “the science is settled” et cetera.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
I also think you can read it if you register with them. That costs you nothing. The summary here was sufficient, however. Reading it does not get you a lot more.
The only thing I find sobering about the National Climate Assessment is the wholly inept and meretricious mendacity of the Obama administration, regarding climate change.
Anything coming from WashinKton is a load of dog dooo, and Obummer is the top contributor to the pile.
I don’t see where the surprise is….
…we’ve had people saying with the right sacrifices we can control the weather….. since the beginning of time
Witchdoctors, shaman, snake oil salesmen, etc
It’s all been about the weather….
Are we really that advanced……..no
….there’s still plenty of people that believe in witchdoctors
What is disheartening is the tsunami of the same old, same old, True Believer dogma interspersed by an occasional burst of reason. Post in the comments if you can people, science needs your support.
Here we go again. And I am getting really tired of it. The scare mongering regarding the CCSS is as bad as climate change scare tactics. And neither group has any grasp on the subject yet they try oh so hard to sound well-read. Yet all they have for evidence are beliefs. Most of us here understand that belief trumps data every time and is why AGW proponent articles are so bad. So from now on I am calling out both groups with equal Irish bitchyness regarding their beliefs. And am putting them on notice that a correction is in order when stupidity peppers their keyboard.
Jim G has not read the Common Core State Standards yet he thinks himself capable of commenting on them. If he had read the entire document he would have to admit that there is no mention of climate change, anthropogenic or otherwise in the entire document. So he is either a very bad sub teacher with regard to the standards, or is lying.
My great-grandmother was the first Principal of the Lostine High School in 1900 (which only went up to the 8th grade back then). If you wanted a diploma back then, you had to take an exit test and pass it. This test, called the Common Exam, includes questions and formats that are similar to the new high school 11th grade Smarter Balanced Assessment examples that are based on the CCSS. I challenge Jim to pass this test. I doubt he can. He would actually have to meet the high school standard of Common Core to have a chance. Common Core reverses the long dumbing down trend In standards that has put the US behind so many other developed countries. And it’s about frickin time.
So Jim, pass the 8th grade 1912 public school exam and issue a correction to your CCSS statement WRT climate change.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/no-youre-probably-not-smarter-than-a-1912-era-8th-grader-19949041/?no-ist
I would wager none of of commenters thus far have read the 841 page NCA and are much less capable of understanding it. Therefore I submit all heretofore do not speak from knowledge.
Suggestion: Read, understand, speak, in that order.
The wise speak because they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something. para.–Plato–
Which would you rather be?
My worry is that once all the regs are installed and the treasury income it generates, the opposition won’t change it (meaningfully) once in power. Even the Aussies elected on such change have been underwhelming. I remember in Canada P.M. Brian Mulroney introduced the dreaded goods and services tax which the opposition had as their platform to undo. When they saw the income it brought in, they simply left it in place. They are all harlots.
If one just simplifies this to “Give us more money and we’ll change the weather”, then anyone should be able to see how much bulldust all of this CAGW is!
Jim, read up on CCSS before you spout anymore drive-bys.
From: http://www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/FAQs.pdf
“Are there plans to develop common standards in other areas in the future?
CCSSO and NGA are not leading the development of standards in other academic content areas. Below is information on efforts of other organizations to develop standards in other academic subjects.
Science: States have developed Next Generation Science Standards in a process managed by
Achieve, with the help of the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers
Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. More
information about this effort can be found here.
World languages: The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages published an
alignment of the National Standards for Learning Languages with the ELA Common Core
State Standards. More information about this effort can be found here.
Arts: The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards is leading the revision of the National
Standards for Arts Education. More information about this effort can be found here.
Attempting to run the executive branch of government bores Obama. Much of the duties are beneath him. Running the global climate seems like a much better fit for his unique talents and abilities.
He is an incompetent, bumbling, ill-educated, pathological liar, but I’m sure redirecting the entire energy sector and deconstructing the industrial base and economic foundations of America are well within Obama’s capabilities./
Not a persuasive precedent, this President – and his Manns.
Is my understanding correct that the IPCC admits it doesn’t understand the net warming or cooing effect of clouds even though it is presuming a net warming? if so then the AGW logic, including some consideration for the precautionary principle, boils down to this?
1. The earth will uncontrollably and irreversibly warm as X increases in the atmosphere
2. This is shown by models.
3. The models have failed to predict major temperature trends as represented
5. The models admit that they do not understand how a major factor Y works
A. Whether Y works to warm or cool the earth
B. How X affects Y.
6. We do know more X will make a greener planet.
7. We should drastically at nearly any cost reduce X anyway.
Not my idea of clear critical thinking.
News Flash: No one trusts Washington on anything!
Jim G says:
May 11, 2014 at 8:34 am
“I substitute teach high school and, sadly, common core supports AGW as a fact. Until we take back the educational system and media in this country, we are fighting an uphill battle.”
————–
Right you are. The public school system is nurturing “new” believers in the junk science of CAGW …… twenty plus (20+) times faster than one (1) of them can be re-nurtured (converted) to believe the actual, factual science.
And the colleges are graduating more of the same like-minded Teachers of CAGW, etc.
Folks,
Y’all are just wasting everybody’s time, dontcha know?
Obama: Climate Change Deniers Are ‘Wasting Everybody’s Time’
“Rising sea levels and more severe storms, those are bad for the economy,” Obama said. “So we can’t afford to wait and there’s no reason why we can’t even go further than we are so far by working with states and utilities and other organizations to change the way we power our economy. climate change is real and we have to act now.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/09/obama-climate-change-deniers-are-wasting-everybodys-time/
“Supervising the Earth’s climate—or at least believing humanity can achieve such miracles—may be the only political project grandiose enough for President Obama.”
I’ll give you Republicans a grandios political project, get rid of the neo-cons. We probably wouldn’t have this (the science is settled) dufus in office if it wasn’t for them. Obama is so stupid he kept the neocons around. He possibly would be too busy achieving world peace and prosperity right about now to be instead pumping climate disaster scenarios. This is a good read…
What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/
In comments that I submitted to the government on its National Climate Assessment when this document was in draft form ( see http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ), I pointed out that the document drew conclusions from equivocations, that is, from arguments in which one or more terms changed meanings in the midst of the argument. To draw a conclusion from an equivocation, the “equivocation fallacy,” is logically illicit. I recommended disambiguation of terms of the language in which the document was written for the purpose of eliminating the equivocations and pointed out that doing so would reveal the absence of a scientific basis for regulation of CO2 emissions by the government. (It would additionally have revealed the failure of government sponsored global waarming research to produce a usable product and the failure of the government to tell the truth about this failure.)
As written, the National Climate Assessment goes part of the way toward achievement of the objectives that I recommended. In particular, it distinguishes between “prediction” and “projection” and admits that its climate models do not make predictions. However, it fails to disambiguate the term “science” or to admit the absence of a scientific basis for regulation by the government of CO2 emissions. The lack of completeness of the disambiguation of the terms in which the National Climate Assessment is written allows the government to employ the equivocation fallacy in expressing nonsensical confidence in conclusions drawn from a study whose sample size is ZERO when, with a sample size of ZERO, one can have no confidence at all in the conclusions of this study unless the meaning of “confidence” differs from its usual meaning in the scientific literature. The accuracy of the testimony provided to the citizens of the U.S. by the National Climate Assessment is similar to that of Bill Clinton in addressing issue of whether he had had or had not had sex with Monica Lewinski. The sample size of ZERO is Obama’s Lewinski scandal.
Samual, do you not read? In what ways are Jim right and where is your evidence? Or is your comment a “Cooked” up with a dash of “Lew” comment?
“Samuel” Sorry for the keystroke. Fingers fly faster than my brain.
Pamela, whether or not Jim G is correct about the AGW content of Common Core, do you not have concern about the “common” element of it? Your cited fruit salad of boards, bureaus and committees hardly seems like a good source of NATIONAL standards for every single US student to be taught to. When NATIONAL control of a generation is up for grabs, guess who will show up to grab it. Government is merely an amplifier; the big question is who gets to supply the signal. If the signal source is screwed up, we must either change the signal source or, better yet, reduce the power of the amplifier.
Politicians are now and have ever been completely reliable.
If what they do violates somebody’s expectations, it’s the expectations that are in need of adjustment for they are prima facie delusory.
You can trust them to lie and steal. You had better count on it. It’s their identity. Get that part right and your expectations will be aligned with reality.
Meanwhile, disinterested, objective scientists have stood by silently while the very idea of science has been trashed. When I read ‘scientists say’, my initial reaction is no longer the reverent ‘oh, this will be interesting’. Now it is ‘oh, more bullshit, eh?’
It was not ‘a few bad apples’ that brought about this reversal of perception. It was the silence of the cowards who demonstrate acquiescence. As they get loaded on the cattle cars – i’ll wave goodbye and good riddance.
This scam has not quite gone on long enough. The culling of the sheep is far from over.
I’ve come to regard this as a natural process of evolution: rejection of the unfit = the voters, the tax payers, the submissive chattel who crave to be led anywhere rather than take any personal responsibility for anything. Cowards die many times. It’s to be expected. That’s life. The garbage is being taken out by the garbage pros. What’s the reward for those who finance and support this scythe of death that is harvesting them? Somebody to blame for their own evils!
Whine on. Take no effective action. You have rulers for that. Spit in massa’s drink, secretly, but bend over when he snaps his finger and you’ll be able to continue doing more of the same.
Until there are no more left, this won’t end.
Robert A Dorrough says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:32 am
___________________
That’s quite a diatribe against the WUWT readership, but do you actually have anything to contribute? Anything at all? Have you read the entire 841 pages?
As for me, I have read parts of the report and there is no way I’m wading through the whole thing. I must say, I’m a gardener and I know a manure pile when I see one. I don’t have to wallow in it.
A little OT, but I look forward to seeing you at Mandalay Bay for the Heartland Conference this July, Anthony. It should be enlightening.
@Mike Roddy after all the insulting things you’ve said to me on a personal level, I have nothing to say to you.
There is no right or left agenda in Washington. It’s all about who is the most ruthless regarding promoting their agenda and profits.
Here we go again with projection versus predication. A most hair-splitting, lack of COMMON sense and vocabulary issue I have yet to come across with regard to climate change.
In plain English: models are of two kinds, or stages if you will. One, or the first stage, tries to mechanistically mimic current observations and should be tinkered with when there is a divergence because one or the other parameter is not set correctly, while the other, or second stage, attempts to see into the future in the hopes that the model accurately captures the mechanisms going forward and will be in concert with future observations without the need for tinkering. Therefore it is a prediction of what the current mechanisms, as currently modeled, will do in terms of temperature effects in the future.
Common sense vocabulary is what works best because of its solid nature and its ability to withstand all manner of debate, classic and otherwise. Contrived vocabulary will collapse due to it often being pretentiously hollow and unable to withstand debate. Those who use contrived vocabulary will often become labeled as being foolish and ill-advised in the end.
Pamela Gray:
“Common sense vocabulary” works for the purpose of logically drawing conclusions from arguments if and only if the terms in it are monosemic. If they are polysemic, one cannot logically draw a conclusion from the associated argument. In the language of climatology, “predict” is polysemic. In making arguments, climatologists use this and other polysemic terms in drawing logically illicit conclusions from arguments. You don’t want conclusions to be drawn illogically from global warming arguments, do you?
Terry Oldberg says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:19 am
____________________
Terry, I just want to say that while your given link doesn’t work, your website is a treasure trove. http://www.knowledgetothemax.com
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:29 am
“Jim G has not read the Common Core State Standards yet he thinks himself capable of commenting on them. If he had read the entire document he would have to admit that there is no mention of climate change, anthropogenic or otherwise in the entire document. So he is either a very bad sub teacher with regard to the standards, or is lying.”
————————
Pamela Gray may not have read these two links, to wit:
http://hdgc.epp.cmu.edu/teachersguide/teachersguide.htm
http://newamericamedia.org/2013/03/climate-change-science-poised-to-enter-nations-classrooms.php
And it appears she has not read, to wit:
Next Generation Science Standards
http://standards.nsta.org/DisplayStandard.aspx?view=topic&id=37
Which specifically states, to wit:
“ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
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). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities.(MS-ESS3-5)”
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:23 am
http://completecolorado.com/pagetwo/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013_12_04-Global-Warming-Assign-4pg-WM-1-785×1024.png
Well, by the early 21st century, people knew that the massive use of fossil fuel was heating up the planet. But people didn’t stop their destructive lifestyles. They just kept using up Earth’s resources. The ice sheets melted, and Earth’s crust shifted. Volcanic pressure burst through in places that never had volcanoes.” Gif continued, “In 2130, the oceans began to rise over farmland and cities. In 300 years, most of the eastern United States was covered with water. All that remains are the Smokey Islands – formerly the Smokey Mountains.”
http://completecolorado.com/pagetwo/2013/12/16/homework-assignment-goes-all-in-for-anthropogenic-global-warming-slams-all-fossil-fuels/
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130304/next-generation-science-standards-man-made-climate-change-consensus-global-warming-skeptics-heartland-institute
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.
The latest draft recommends 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.
**********************
and there are many more examples
Don, we are returning to the kinds of standards public schools once had, especially in the Western United States before public school was mandated for all beyond 6th grade. Fewer students whet on to public “high school” (IE 7th and 8th) after grade school because the content was considered to be too challenging. You can clearly see this in grade school versus high school pictures in 1900. But once mandated school reached into the teen years, those rigorous standards were left behind.
Make no mistake about it. Back in 1900 this exam was a national standard exam (which then of course drove national content and textbooks) with some flexibility regarding the state the exam was used in. And you could not get into “college” without passing it.
my quotes got messed up somehow in my last post, sorry
Samuel, again you are wrong. The Common Core State Standards do not have any such language in them. You are quoting standards not part of the CCSS. If you have a beef with them, take it up with them. I have all kinds of issues with these other standards. But pointing a finger at CCSS in the context of climate change is a scare tactic not based in fact and mimics the very thing we point out in extreme AGW articles that use such tactics.
Complain all you want about these other standards. There will be more none-CCSS sets to come I am sure. But the CCSS is a separate issue that returns rigor to public school instruction long missing in action and is not a part of these various other sets of content area standards.
Pamela I think the issue is a bit more complicated than it appears, the support of catastrophic climate change does not appear directly in “the standards” but is deeply imbedded in the teaching materials, class room activites and resources provided to support the common core curriculum.
If you go to the department of education web page:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/green-strides/resources.html
Then click “teaching resources”, you can drill down to a list of 43 resources which are climate change related. Under “science — earth sciences”. The same applies to new text books that are aligned with the common core standards and will be used as primary teaching materials. They are deeply imbedded with references of climate change as an established fact and no counter argument about any legitimate doubt. The Common Core is much more than the outline of the basic standards, it is the summation of all the supporting materials and activities that will be taught to students many of which implicitly teach catastrophic climate change as a fact.
The companion Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and related materials are supposed to be even more heavily imbedded with climate change materials.
See the climate change activity mentioned in the green strides news letter (Feb 28 2014) from the Department of Education under “contests and awards”
(all archived bulletins)
http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/bulletins/a7ffe4
Or the 11/22/2013 edition of green strides news letter which features:
One Year Later — Superstorm Sandy: Climate Chaos, Kids, and Schools by Claire Barnett
http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/bulletins/9640b0
Or the NASA presentation on Climate: What We Know and How We Know it (NASA) and the Programs for Climate Change Education (USFS), from the Dec 23 2013 edition
http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/bulletins/9ace1c
Or the “climate change live” program from the forest service mentioned in the June 26 edition:
http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/bulletins/80d754
Or the October 25 edition:
http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/bulletins/90dcf6
The climate change agenda is deeply imbedded in the teaching materials and resources for Common Core aligned materials.
Robert A. Dorrough,
If the report is not understandable by the general public, then the government wasted a lot of money creating a website for it and making it available. If you need a PHD to understand climate change than perhaps there is a reason why no one cares….. Or maybe the report is just poorly written and full of alarmism crap.
Lets start with the caption under the first all red picture of the US:
“The colors on the map show temperature changes over the past 22 years (1991-2012) compared to the 1901-1960 average for the contiguous U.S., and to the 1951-1980 average for Alaska and Hawaii.”
So the implication of the picture is that the US has warmed 1-1.5 degree F over the past 22 years. Which anyone who has paid any attention to the debate at all knows this is not true. So it starts with a absolute falsehood. Why would anyone feel compelled to read anything else? But anyway lets step down to the next puddle of bs, in the description of climate change impacts it states the following:
“Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.”
Supposedly the information in this paragraph is from peer reviewed research of the highest caliber if you would believe the report. I find this kind of dishonestly extremely distasteful. Anyhow we just had one of the coldest winters in a long time that was followed by an extreme period of drought. So its not surprise that anyone who start reading this garbage will never get the science bits. So Robert go jump in a lake, cool off and rethink your trollish post!
v/r,
David Riser
Again, I see others using the same misinformation about science standards. They are not a part of CCSS. Oregon has their own set of science standards, as do other states. About half of the states are looking at a variety of science standards. Whether or not they exchange their own for one single set is up to each state.
What do I think of the one referred to in above comments? Not much. But again, not related to CCSS. So stop it with the misdirection already. It just makes you look stupid.
Had to download the free FT app to read it. Nice big photo of a flooded neighbourhood followed by a story of how Americans, and particularly Republicans, are ignorant of science but getting wiser to climate change with each passing year. Patronising and ignorant rubbish. App deleted.
Mike Roddy,
How can you say this is over the top? read the report anyone with sense will never make it past the first 10 pages let alone 841. Why would anyone believe something like this if they didn’t already. I personally believe that with the exception of a very small group of people, anyone who actually bothered to look at the evidence for climate change would become a skeptic fairly quickly. Its one reason WUWT is “The Blog” and continues to grow. Where anyone of the many CAGW type blogs owe most of their readership to fallout from WUWT when skeptics go there to check the bs level.
v/r,
David Riser
The latest draft recommends 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.
**********************
and there are many more examples
Not in my house and for my kids!
@Pamela Gray: I don’t think it’s “standards” that cause the issue. Who’s not in favor of the schools finally gearing up and teaching some good old 3R’s like they did for the generation that got us to the moon? It’s the next couple of levels down in how these standards are going to be executed and what’s being emphasized that has people upset. You have to back up a few years to see who and where the standards and subsequent concepts come from and be looking beyond the official text to get a glimpse of where they’re going.
This is a good blog that covers a lot of the harder to find information about sources and directions for common core.
The Obama administration will go down in the history books as being one of the most corrupt, dishonest, scandal-ridden, anti-constitutional, personal-freedom/privacy infringing, Legislative-branch circumventing, national-debt exploding, devise and secretive in US history.
The politicization and derisive manner in which the Obama administration has handled the CAGW debate is simply a manifestation of this reality. Calling skeptics “flat-earthers” and asserting that CAGW is “settled science”, despite 18 years with no global warming trend and NONE of the dire CAGW predictions coming even close to reflecting reality, is truly a disgrace to the office of POTUS.
Obama isn’t even going through the pretense of trying to be honest, he’s just telling blatant lies, allowing an adoring MSM to run cover for him, running out the clock and when the lies are finally exposed, his minions say, “Dude, that was two years ago….”, or, “What difference does it make.”…
It’s pathetic.
sorry. forgot the link: http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/
Alan Robertson:
The link to my article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 works on my computer. If it continues not to work on your computer, please send your email address to me at terry@knowledgetothemax.com so I can respond with a copy of the text of the article.
By the way, I’m gratified to hear you find the material at http://www.knowledgetothemax.com useful.
tom s: The latest draft of what? The CCSS do not have any such section in them. So you must be referring to a non-CCSS issue. My beef is with a falsehood about CCSS and climate change. There is no connection whatsoever. None. Nada. Zilch. Not even. Nope.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:23 am
“Samual, do you not read? In what ways are Jim right and where is your evidence? Or is your comment a “Cooked” up with a dash of “Lew” comment?”
———————–
Pamela, I am vaguely known to read a wee bit ….. now and then, ….. but more importantly, …. I am quite well known …… far and wide ……. for being capable of thinking for myself.
I am an “original thinker” with a learned passion for actual, factual science in both the Physical and Biological.
And smart arsed comments such as the likes of ….“Cooked” up with a dash of “Lew” ….. only serve to irritate the hell out me ….. because I’m good at what I do ….. and even better at “replying inkind” to such piffle n’ tripe.
Pamela, the past 3 or 4 generations (30+- years) of public school students and their Teachers did NOT learn their beliefs in/of CAGW via watching the Saturday morning cartoons on TV.
Cheers
after listening to George Carlin on the subject of man made global warming. i quote, ” The planet is fine, the people are f*%$ed”.
Terry Oldberg says:
May 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
____________
T.O.- I meant the link to your site.
In case any other readers would try the link attached to your name, just remove the “.” (period) at end of link.
Mike, curriculum choice is at the teacher and/or district and/or state adoption level. Have the debate with them. It is against federal law for the federal government to mandate curriculum textbooks or content in those textbooks. And CCSS is not a federal standard nor is it a “national” standard. States choose a set from among many standards. It seems pretty obvious that states both red and blue, like the CCSS set.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:29 am
Irish bitchyness
Damm Don’t hold back Pam ;>)
Ed Mertin says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:18 am
Ed,
Thanks for the laugh! You really should follow that link “This is a good read….” with a /sarc tag, though. You just never know… there may be a few Weekly Reader fans that would consider it to be intelligent analysis instead of silly political parody!
It fits in the same laughably silly category as another ‘good read’ in The Guardian:
UK Guardian: ‘Climate Change’ to Blame for Boko Haram and Nigerian Girls’ Kidnapping
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/11/UK-Guardian-climate-change-to-blame-for-Nigerian-girls-kidnapping
Have a neo-com Rainbow Day, Ed!
Have a neo-com Rainbow Day, Ed!
Mtk nice !!!
“He’s flogging disaster scenarios to promote his political agenda.” Duh!
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. ” – Stephen Schneider, environmental activist, in _Discover_, Oct. ’89
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato
Okay Samuel, put up some actual facts then. My sense is that your statement regarding how children are learning about climate change is not a fact. It is an opinion. Fine. Nothing wrong with opinions. But back it up. Where is your evidence? Have you facts on the number of times climate change has been taught and in what grades? Can you point to a school that has adopted and mandated such instruction? And what is the content of the curriculum? How many schools in each district? How many districts in your state? Other states?
So far all we have here are statements Cook and Lew style based on bias. Not acceptable. At least not by me. Show me the data.
California mandates integration
Of Common Core with Next Generation
These Science Standards I know well
For I was hired to tell
The story in some school applications:
I wrote apps for Distinguished Schools
An award that is guided by rules
And the schools were quite proud
CC/NGSS here is loud!
Climate change teaching uses these tools
Integration of NGSS
With the Common Core, I will confess
Is now quite far along
(Even though mostly wrong)
Perhaps this site will show you the best:
http://www.nextgenscience.org/toward-integration-ngss-and-common-core-classroom
One school’s program ranked highly in list:
It was called “Every Child a Scientist!”
It quite nicely done —
But I did not have fun
Writing “proof Climate Change does exist”
They teach climate junk here with great vigor
Integrated with Core, so it’s bigger
What they’ll send to the world:
Kids with banners unfurled:
“Climate Change!”
But it’s done with due rigor.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
‘No one trusts Washington on climate change’
Friends, if anyone of you trusts Washington on anything then you are seriously deluded. Politics is about aggression and propaganda, not about truth. See H.L. Mencken for more on that subject.
Pam,
I have seen some of those old exams and I agree with you that most of us would not do very well if we had to take them. I am also completely sympathetic with those who decry the current low standards. I don’t think establishment of a national curriculum will be much help, even though very serious scholars disagree. (E.D. Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them being a good example.)
The argument that the federal government is not directly imposing standards on states and local educational agencies, merely tying them to certain types of federal assistance is a bit silly. This toe dancing came up explicitly in the first televised Nixon/Kennedy debate over half a century ago. I have commented on that before so I will not again post the text, only observe that both candidates accepted the possibility that federal aid to education could eventually lead to federal control over what is to be taught and that that would be undesirable. Nixon used that as an argument against direct funding; Kennedy felt protections could be devised against loss of local control.
Local control is only one issue. One of my concerns is the relation between innovation and replication. Innovation is great, especially for those of us who love to experiment. But innovation is not of much use unless there is replication. It’s a nice thought that some government agency can systematically find best practices and then require their use. Problem with that is it kills further innovation. And if the ‘best practices’ turn out to be defective (California’s recent experience with Whole Language comes to mind) then correction can not be done at the local level.
Of course in one sense we already have a de facto national curriculum, in the form of standardized testing. If it gets tested, it gets taught. Unfortunately one result has been that for many years we have experienced a reductionist curriculum, as federal funds were directed and testing was mandated primarily for Reading, Language and Math. So if it doesn’t get tested, it doesn’t get emphasized, and sometimes it simply gets lost. Examples are not hard to find.
The most effective reform might well be to dust off some of those old tests and announce that these are the subjects that will be covered…
: > )
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:24 am “Samuel” Sorry for the keystroke. Fingers fly faster than my brain.
Are you saying you have slow fingers? – just adding some levity here 🙂
SAMURAI says:
May 11, 2014 at 11:12 am – The Obama administration will go down in the history books as being one of the most corrupt, dishonest, scandal-ridden, anti-constitutional, personal-freedom/privacy infringing, Legislative-branch circumventing, national-debt exploding, devise and secretive in US history.
Yep…right after we rewrite his history book with history. 🙂
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion other than AGW, CAGW or any climate based religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof through executive order; or abridging the freedom of speech from the White House, or its press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble in designated free speech areas, and to petition the government under the threat of federal offense for a redress of grievances .
Socialists over the years have pushed for a change in the Federal Communications Commission’s “fairness doctrine” to quiet conservative voices. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has delighted other socialists recently with a proposed Constitutional amendment that could force the media to stop endorsing candidates or promoting issues contrary to established socialist agendas.
…or so I have heard on a bus ride somewhere…can’t recall when or where that was. 🙂
Why should a political paper written by the White house be confused with a scientific summary?
@ Robert A Dorrough says: More argument from authority bs. If you had read it you could enlighten with some quotes showing how this political bit of hackery is any different form the rest of the alarmist deception you climate kooks have been peddling for the last ~20 years.
My bet is somewhere close to you a rock is missing the slime that was under it before you decided to troll by.
highflight56433 says:
May 11, 2014 at 12:08 pm
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:24 am “Samuel” Sorry for the keystroke. Fingers fly faster than my brain.
Are you saying you have slow fingers? – just adding some levity here 🙂
________________________
You guys are askin’ for it. She’s redheaded, I tell ya.
Like the gun control movement, ‘climate disruption’ is only about control and taxation.
We have neither the technology or the wisdom to globally manage the weather/climate.
The problem with a national educational standard such as Common Core is that it inevitably will be distorted by lefty educators to propagandize. Much better for states to pick and choose what they want from Common Core. The Next Generation Science Standard certainly emphasizes CAGW and it will be surprising if NGSS is not eventually put under the Common Core incentive umbrella. In politics, lefties play chess and non lefties play checkers.
Robert A Dorrough says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:32 am – I would wager none of of commenters thus far have read the 841 page NCA and are much less capable of understanding it. Therefore I submit all heretofore do not speak from knowledge.
Suggestion: Read, understand, speak, in that order.
The wise speak because they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something. para.–Plato–
Which would you rather be?
…excepting you…of course. Odd you see yourself as not be condescending, finger pointing, elitist, and arrogant.
Suggestion: Bees are attracted to honey.
Great. Let’s all kvetch. Meanwhile, common core or not, the educational establishment, informed by ignorance, controlled by some level of government, encouraged by the MSM, continues to lie to and terrorize the young people they have mastery over.
Let us continue to bicker amongst ourselves…
It is difficult to trust lying, thieving, hypocritical nincompoops.
I see Pamela Gray has hijacked this thread to spread misinformation regarding the Common Core. Beyond my blog that has more than 2 years of extensive documentation on the Common Core and what the actual required implementation is, I have a book out Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon available on Amazon that uses the actual mandated curriculum created pursuant to the CCSS. It points out that CCSSO is requiring climate change be taught pursuant to its definition of what the required Global Competency is. It cites what is required on Climate Change under so-called 21st century learning.
It also explains the admitted social, political, and economic transformation plans that the Common Core is a part of globally via the ATC21S initiative it is a part of. It also quotes the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurria, that everything being pushed in education globally is to promote what the OECD in 2011 called Green Growth and now calls the Great Transition.
Honestly Pamela I know the Common Core like Anthony knows the arguments surrounding AGW. Less blog traffic, but at least as much if not more documentation.
I’m born in the the US in the ’60s. I consider myself libertarian and live by this tenet:
Never trust “The Man” period.
This entire CAGW “threat” is a pure government construct.
CAGW is a lie.
Agents of the US government will lie directly to their supposed constituents.
Their agenda is contrary to the benefit of The People.
From whom their power is given.
RobRoy:
For greater accuracy, I recommend that you change “CAGW is a lie” to “CAGW is an equivocation.”
Pamela is flat wrong about NGSS not being under the CCSSO umbrella in terms of how it operates. Not only do we have the common Gates funding, but the ELA concept of literacy is designed to be taught in the context of Social Studies, Science, and History classes. So the nonfiction offering is likely to be from areas that emphasize Climate Change or Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory that is specifically cited by the C3 Social Studies Framework that CCSSO sponsored all through its creation and quietly released Thanksgiving week 2012.
Because Common Core requires students to “cite evidence from the offered text” and does not allow explanations not in the materials students will have to ape whatever is provided even if it is propaganda. Thus CAGW and racism or maybe Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed will be used as reading materials as well as the arguments that must be parroted back. The very phrases then get reenforced in the students’ mind whatever the actual facts.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:58 am
“Samuel, again you are wrong. The Common Core State Standards do not have any such language in them. ”
—————
Pamela, in your response to my 1st post you jumped my arse about my reading comprehension even though I made no mention whatsoever about Common Core State Standards or any standards for that matter …… but was merrily stating a “fact of reality” about the liberal political agenda that now dictates the contents/context of the curriculum subject matter. Thus, me thinks you need “reading comprehension” training
===============
“Complain all you want about these other standards. There will be more none-CCSS sets to come I am sure. But the CCSS is a separate issue that returns rigor to public school instruction long missing in action and is not a part of these various other sets of content area standards.”
—————
Really now, …. returns the rigor to public school instruction? Says you, huh?
Who cares about “rigor”? The teachers will just demand more pay if they are mandated to be more rigorous. I want actual, factual science returned to public school instruction and all the politically correct “junk science” that is based solely in/on “consensus of opinions” and “flim-flam scams” eliminated.
But anyway, best you inform the NSTS about those “rigor” thingys because they haven’t got the “message” as of yet, to wit:
Pamela, the quoted text I posted concerning:
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
Was copied directly from this web site, to wit:
National Science Teachers Association
1840 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington VA 22201
(T) 703.243.7100 (F 703.243.7177)
Copyright © 2014 NSTA
http://standards.nsta.org/DisplayStandard.aspx?view=topic&id=37
——————-
I imagine that your touted “Common Core State Standards” will surely prove to be about as effective at changing the “nature of education” in the US as “Head Start” and “No Child Left Behind” was.
What makes you think you can “snap your finger” and change the way science is taught in the public schools …… when you should know damn well that the majority of the current crop of Science Teachers are incapable of teaching it? Are you gonna give them all a 15 minute “crash course” via the Internet to explain what’s “fact” and what’s ”fiction?”
They are mostly adamant liberal believers in/of CAGW and you are not easily going to re-educate them.
Nuff said on this, Cheers
Pamela also forgot to disclose that CCSSO has created subsidiaries to impose without likely detection the aspects of the Common Core implementation that are likely to be controversial. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/mystical-marxism-shapers-of-our-current-world-system-or-building-new-mental-software/ explains just that.
Mtk, thanks for the laugh, both parties are drinking Gatorade from the same trough you are!
A parody? Lol, Mac, I have little doubt Romney would have us into a super costly WWII by now and do you not see the decline of the nation and the waste of its resources in futile wars and occupations? From since Reagan’s Star Wars 2.1 trillion money drain to the last two wars, 4-6 trillion money pit.
(“Russia is our biggest geopolitical foe”) Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team included Robert Kagan, a neocon who pushed for the Iraq war. His wife, Victoria Nunan, now Spokesperson for the United States Department of State was principal deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Oops, WWIII instead of two… :-/
Robin, you are correct that CCSS will use nonfiction articles that promote AGW. My 7th grader just had to read an article for English class about AGW and answer the questions. And we are dumbing down our children. They also had to watch The Lorax and answer questions about that movie as if it was a documentary.
Terry Oldberg:
I would call “Climate Change” an equivocation but Anthropogenic CO2 induced global warming is a pure fabrication. It only exists in government sponsored computer models.
The “theory” is not “true” yet the government, in spite of empirical observation, insists it’s truth and it’s happening now.
I look at the RSS satellite record and I see that it is NOT happening.
to me, that’s a falsehood, that’s propaganda,
that’s a lie.
RobRoy:
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify. In an IPCC-style “evaluation,” model “projections” to past or future global temperatures are compared to a selected global temperature time series. As the numerical value of a temperature is a real number and as a real number has decimal places that are of infinite number, the probability of a match between the projected and the observed temperatures is nil. The IPCC does not interpret this lack of a match as falsification of the claims of the model or models, however. It interprets each projection as an equivocation which states that the temperature is “about” the stated value where “about” is a polysemic word meaning all of the possible values. As it is not falsifiable, CAGW does not match the description of a “lie” but it does match the description of an “equivocation.”
I have been commenting at the Guardian, it is surprising what is getting through there now.
A long way to go but you can smell the doubts creeping in.
Terry Oldberg says:
May 11, 2014 at 1:49 pm
RobRoy:
For greater accuracy, I recommend that you change “CAGW is a lie” to “CAGW is an equivocation.”
If all you have is a hammer…
Further to that:
Global Warming from CO2 is a theory, an hypothesis. (In my view It’s been falsified.)
“Climate Change” on the other hand has no hypothesis, therefore it can’t be falsified.
It’s known to cause unprecedented, extreme “warmcold droughtflood”.
A perfect tautology that’s always true.
Bruce Cobb says:
May 11, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Terry Oldberg says:
May 11, 2014 at 1:49 pm
RobRoy:
If all you have is a hammer…
Such a burden it must be.
That omniscience of yours.
Such a burden.
The whole report is nebulous threats and hollow scare mongering.
A still ambitious but hamstrung Obama and his merry Dems, societal engineers have hit the buffers and he’s going nowhere because all wheels have fallen away from his carriage.
It, Obama’s green charabanc, first failed with Waxman-Markey bill and consequent closure of the stillborn CCX*[1]. Obama, then went into full totalitarian mode and ordained that the EPA declare CO2 to be a poison and then went to war on the coal industry etc.
How deeply ironic is it, that in killing off the coal industry, that the shale gas/oil economic miracle not only bailed him out of the profligate insanity of zero rates and QE, it jolted the economy out of its torpor while having the unintended consequence – at the same time as decreasing carbon emissions.
This report is the last fling of the dice, Paris in 2015 is his goal and where Obama, the corporate world and EU hope to cobble some sort of world climate deal – events going downhill in the Ukraine may play some part though………………..
But without the Russian President Mr. Vladimir Putin, China, Japan, Canada, Australia, Brazil maybe – and the rest don’t count – it could be just the last few idiots, Obama and the EU signing up to industrial suicide via carbon emissions limitation.
Don’t panic, fortunately for those of you living in the States – unless America votes for another Clinton – it is unlikely that America will ever honour Obama’s [prospective] commitment to CO2 limitations.
*[1] Chicago Carbon Exchange.
@Pamela Gray says:
Actually I was quoting what my senior students have told me regarding the situation. Since most are from ranching/mining/conservative families and not at all stupid, they can tell when they are being fed a line of bull and being pressured to answer test questions in ways with which they do not agree. The local regular teachers, not substitutes, here have counselled them as to how to answer the test questions so as to not lose credit on the question regarding the cause for the warming of the planet. The test question is a result of the common core version being used here and ‘agriculture’ is one of the acceptable answers as to how man is warming the planet.
By the way, these kids were also smart enough to know that the “Supersize Me” hit piece on McDonalds which was shown in biology class was non-science and nonsense and could even tell me why and discuss it in terms of violations of scientific principles of sample size, control groups, etc. This, by the way was before the very recent study debunking the theory that eggs, butter, animal fat et al cause heart attacks.
Before you start name calling you should know more about the situation, red hair or not. There is much liberal pablum in the curriculum fed to our students and/or the test questions which result from common core, whether an issue is specifically stated as such in the common core items. The very existence of common core testing gives the authority to punish different opinions on global warming and other issues where the science is theoretical and not factual. There are right and wrong answers to most math, chemistry, physics, English and Spanish questions (at least at the high school level), but not so much for global warming, evolution or even history and other highly politicised types of issues. What is remarkable is how much of this is understood by many of our local high school seniors! You might take a lesson from them.
Robin – Pamela says AGW is not in CCSS. You say she is wrong, it is in CCSSO. Are CCSSO and CCSS the same thing? or is CCSSO a part of CCSS?
Shorter: “No-one Trusts Washington”
Corollary: “Anyone who trusts Washington is a[sic] ijit[sic], period[sic].”
Terry Oldberg.
Thanks.
Granted, projections can’t be “lies”.
So, as you say, I’m mistaken to characterize CAGW theory as a lie.
However; political declarations based on this theory are fraught with dire messages that have no basis in reality. Those are the lies.
richard says:
May 11, 2014 at 2:09 pm
I have been commenting at the Guardian, it is surprising what is getting through there now.
A long way to go but you can smell the doubts creeping in.
______________________
What, did “the Nucc” get canned?
841 pages? The modern day bureaucrats know how to baffle with BS. Via the UN and the EU Commission the bureaucrats know that writing a very large paper on something will more than likely get it passed because anyone who cares will be bored shitless by page 50 and give up.
It’s the unending lies that bother me. Nothing to do with science. Social “change”.
They have the mainstream press, schools, the power to grow congress…
While there are moments of hope, I’m then reminded of what we’re up against and the will begins to fade. *sigh*
Dorrough-
I would make an even bigger wager that you are very new to this issue or you are easily led around by the nose. I have followed this blog long enough to know many commenters have extensive knowledge about the science and equally important, they are conversant about the hundreds if not thousands of peer reviewed scientific papers on climate science.
If no one here is in need of smelling salts with the release of this report, it is because they have seen it all before. Are you actually going
to tell us there is something new in the document? Sorry, but the room is full people with lots of experience and expertise. Probably much more than yours.
The GST replaced the hidden Manufacturers tax that was placed on all Canadian produced products. In the new world of open trade with other countries, this old tax would have harmed Canadian producers.
I voted against the political parties that wanted to axe the tax, but they won any way but did what I wanted them to do any way, which was to keep the GST. Bye the way, Stephen Harper reduced the GST a couple of times, the only government in history to actually reduce a VAT like tax.
The prompt counter responses via Blogsville have quickly neutralized the science-less NCA report. The lame stream media has done no investigative CAGW reporting AGAIN. In our critical economic recovery, the usual pigs are continuing to feed at the public funding trough. This frenzied feeding creates no wealth and buries our country further into debt. The red-inside, green-outside “environmentalists,” have no concept of the dangerous neighborhood in which we live (Planet Earth). We, The U.S. of A, must be morally strong, fiscally responsible, and economically viable in order to remain the Last Beacon of Hope for the freedom loving peoples of the world.
By succumbing to the vitriol of the president and his fossil fuel hating lemmings, we are destined to become a second-rate economic failing nation. We must have quality, affordable, and available on demand electrical power to compete in a 21st Century world economy. China and India have placed their economic development at a higher priority than recycling the phoney “CO2 is our planet’s thermostat” hoax. The EU is having serious discussions about Renewable subsidies, while Germany is now building 24 coal-fired power plants. Looking closer to home, Obama and his EPA are engaged in shutting down over 1100 power plants.
His plan will drive our economy into another recession and move China into the world’s predominate economic leader. What happens if the U.S. dollar is not the international reserve currency?
May 11, 2014 at 10:35 am | Mike Roddy says
——
That’s a very poor attempt at intimidation, a/h.
We’re talking about this dipsh8t … http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/22/my-thanks-to-mike-roddy-for-helping-with-best-replication/
Bill Vancouver – except for (retired?) Reuters hack, Scott Sutherland, now a “digital meteorologist”, whatever that is, pumping the alarm sirens… That houseboat has left the harbor, Scotty.
This is like a parlor trick that has been shown way too many times. An 841 page yada yada does nothing for me at this stage. Here is my problem. On one hand you have the Republicans, who, generally speaking, haven’t been able to think their way out of a paper bag if you tore the bottom out. Who, by dumb luck ended up correct on the issue of CAGW, but not because of any intricate and correct mentation. And then you have the Democrats who think they can manipulate the whole world with their wit and brilliant progressive ideas delivered by comedians and night time talk shows and an 841 page opus magnum that won’t be read by more that a hundred people, maybe. If you are like me, who wants to maintain some scrap of freedom and prosperity for now and into my children’s future, and who wants money spent wisely and legally, what are you going to do? The climate change lie is just one issue that has shown me that science can be corrupted to the very core and people who should have know better and acted, didn’t. That pisses me off. Nobody can be trusted. Right now I want the Democrat party taken to the wood shed and flogged within and inch of their political lives. But to do that we have to elect Republicans. Somehow, some way, I hope that the political system I am in will get the simple message that I want common sense for the common good. I don’t want agendas, and I am really tired of a government that thinks it knows what is best for me. If it can be shown that certain people pressed on with CAGW when they knew the facts did not support their statements, I want payback. No more government grants, jobs, pensions, whatever. A lie should not be rewarded. Keep up the good work, WUWT.
Several here are referring to the Council of Chief State School Officials (CCSSO). It is one of several organizations that came together to develop a set of standards in reading, writing, and math that would be uniform across states and that would attack the problem the US has with regard to academic ability when compared to most other developed nations. Another way of putting it is that “we kinda dumb” compared to other students in other equally developed countries. Education Chiefs from VERY red and VERY blue states all agreed that “we kinda dumb” and decided to do something about it. So did Chamber of Commerce organizations. Otherwise we will continue to be outperformed by every other country in Math and English Language Arts unless something is done.
The Common Core State Standards expecations by grade level are considerably more rigorous than many individual state standards. However, each state can decide, if they have adopted the more rigorous standards, to adjust their own state criterion referenced tests to reflect this new set of standards or use a criterion referenced test such as the Smarter Balanced Assessment which will be normed on a much larger student sample. And each state can set their own passing level. In summary, the assessment systems that have been developed for multi-state use are more rigorous, and include essay responses. The state tests were comprised of nearly all multiple choice offerings and clearly were not able to demonstrate college and career readiness in students going onto college or starting a trade.
So I ask again, what CCSS boogy man do you see? I proctor Oregon tests (a blue state) and have used their practice tests, which was recommended, to help students prepare for this end of the year exam. Not one question was ever remotely connected to climate change, nor was it possible to “teach to the test”. I could only use the practice tests to help students become good test takers. I have also been actively reading and trying out the practice tests now available for the multi-state assessments. Again not one question can even be remotely connected to climate change.
I have also spent the last 6 years serving on district committees and attending seminars on the CCSS, and have read the entire document several times over. No where is there a remote link to climate change in all of its pages. And make no mistake, I have read every single word of it several times over. My continued impression is that the Common Core standards (which is NOT a curriculum or text book) and multi-state assessments look a LOT like the 1912 Common Exam. If my impression is correct, we all have our work cut out for us to prepare our children and our students to pass an exam that looks as difficult as, and longer than the 1912 Common Exam used in public schools at the turn of the century.
But hey, if some folks want to continue with the “dumb as burnt toast” Math and English Language Arts status quo in the backwaters and byways found in each set of separate individual by state standards, along with their easy peezy multiple choice state test and passing low bar, be my guest.
I happen to think we should be graduating students who CAN compete on the world stage. Right now, they can’t. Sorry, but they can’t. Why? Dumb as burnt toast. And I lay that square on the shoulders of public education in each state and each state’s dumbing down of educational standards over the past 100 years.
Look, if you still see boogy men, download the common core standards and do a word search. You just will not find climate change there.
If you want to discuss the many different science standards out there, that is a different issue. My beef has been clearly centered on the misdirection being used by several commentors here, and the slight of hand slide to science standard as if they were connected, regarding the CCSS. I will continue to respond consistently when that misdirection and misinformation shows up.
And my fingers are just fine ;>)
Jim, please tell me you do not find anecdotal student information a valid form of direct observational data.
Pamela successfully introduced CCSS into this discussion. She is right, it does not mention AGW – so what? The US Constitution does not mention it either. There is a real thicket of Common Cores.
dear pamela:
so rigor is the new ‘robust’, is it?
in my kindergarten, every 4 year old could read, write, add, subtract and we were up to our 12s table in mulitplication and starting cursive.
the ‘educational institution’ you represent is churning out little idiots.
you are a collaborator and apologist.
to judge by the results of your tribe of troughers, lady- you are part of what made the kids sick in the first place- so you prescribe more rigor?
when do we get to rigor mortis, will you still claim the best intentions?
Rubio Has Blunt Words on Climate Change, Hillary Clinton: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/05/11/rubio-has-blunt-words-on-climate-change-hillary-clinton/
Humans not responsible for climate change.
Finally a Presidential Candidate with some common sense.
gnomish, what country are you from? In the US kindergarten starts at age 5. And would you care to back up your statements with some facts? I’ll start with an easy one. What’s the name of the school or district you refer to?
That said, we do agree on one thing. The English system of writing symbols is rare in that it has two forms of lettering, block style (with at least two variants) and cursive. In most other written languages, there is only one form of lettering and students start learning just that one early on. I wish we used cursive only or block only. The different forms are confusing to many kids.
As for me being part of the problem I have some facts for you and an opinion. First the opinion. I have never settled for anything but best effort towards grade level performance. Ever. Now for the facts. In 2012-13, my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students, many with special education learning needs specifically in math and reading, outperformed in terms of growth the regular white non-disabled kids in reading (a growth score of 56 versus 53), and math (a growth score of 69 versus 58). In fact these kids of mine were instrumental in earning our grade school a higher than average performance when compared to other Oregon schools. We were solidly in the top third of schools in Oregon. And we got there on the shoulders of kids who historically struggle to attain grade level performance.
See, the difference between you and me gnomish, is that I demand to see the data before I form an opinion. That includes the raw data. Do you settle for biased opinion, your memory, or hearsay?
Keith, I am sorry to say that California is nuts about climate change. Hell, they wet their pants everytime Obama speaks. If California ever wanted to become a country all to itself, I would gladly vote to remove its star from the flag.
By the way, regarding the California connection issue mentioned by Keith. The “integration” of the ill-defined NGSS sections starting at grade 3 regarding climate change. with CCSS has to do with the CCSS requirement to learn how to read informational text thoroughly as well as critically, and demonstrate proper use of math when answering science questions. It is not connected in any way in the sense that one agrees with the other in terms of the science claim of climate change.
If anything, CCSS in reading requires students to more closely examine informational text with a more critical eye than previous individual state standards required.
Pamela says: “The English system of writing symbols is rare in that it has two forms of lettering, block style (with at least two variants) and cursive.”. Cursive is also known as handwriting. What the hell is the English system? Is it different from Italian? Greek? Russian?
English was good enough for Jesus Christ, English is good enough for me.
Curious George, that is the funniest thing I have read all day! Bravo!!!! I wonder who will actually fall into that delicious trap.
Has America still got a real actual live, human flesh President ?
Unlike all past American Presidents I can recall during my 76 years Obama has about completely dropped out of any mention in the Australian MSM.
Almost as though it is embarrassing to mention him.
Past American Presidents and past American affairs, your politics and your impact on the world constituted the basis for a steady diet and flow of fact and opinion on America in our Australian MSM as seen from the Australian perspective.
Now we see much more of Chinese and even Indian affairs being reported along with American orientated news items.
From here Obama seems to be a non person of doubtful background and an increasing impression that he is very narrow in outlook and somewhat incompetent and does not seem to understand at all that he is supposed to be President for ALL Americans.
And consequently the impression is one where America is seen and assumed to be sinking fast as it seems America under Obama’s presidency is becoming just another also ran nation in the international scene.
Given the sordid and corrupt history of the democrats in Chicago, I asked at the time of your presidential elections why the hell anybody let alone one of the worlds most advanced and important nations would be “naive” [ I didn’t say stupid ! ] enough to elect a Chicago Democrat as President of anything let alone as the President of America.
But you did and now you and we and the world are paying the price.
Mind you, here in Australia we were nearly as stupid 7 years ago when we elected the Labor Party to power which chose to elect as it’s party leaders and therefore the Prime Ministers of Australia what was to become two of the most incompetent Prime Ministers [ and perhaps somewhat more than incompetent in one case,],Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, that we have experienced in the last 40 years
And George, you do know that block letter penmanship is different than connected cursive penmanship and that the former is taught before the latter is introduced in US schools. Most non-English speaking countries do not have two different forms. Children learn the adult standard form right from the getgo.
Re the CCSS – it seems a gap may exist between the design and perhaps some of the implementation. That would be nothing new where competing bureaucracies exist.
Or at least in Australia. 🙂
Piers Corbyn says we are headed for a mini ice age lasting about 25 years. I think teaching CAGW in schools is an EXCELLENT idea.
BTW Piers is a magnetic field guy when it comes to climate. He says CO2 has NOTHING to do with it.
Maybe according to some technical definition, but for me the Alarmist mythos is nothing more than a speculation, which has been perversely elevated to the status of dogma. The problem is that disputing a dogma held by people in positions of power quickly becomes heresy.
And that leads me to the parallel discussion in this thread about Common Core and the education establishment’s subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways of indoctrinating students in the prevailing dogmas. While Pamela Gray may be technically correct that the official Common Core performance standards do not explicitly endorse any ideological position, others have I think made the case that the CAGW dogma, along with many other favorites of the Left in this country, has been insinuated into curricula in a variety of ways. It is inevitable that the the toilers in the classrooms, for the most part, will shy away from any hint of heresy, especially when the official dogma has been enshrined in the materials that the teachers are required to use. Indeed, most will not even realize there are contrary views.
What the argument over Common Core ignores is that there is no authority in the Constitution of the United States for the Federal Government to play any role in education whatsoever. Indeed, it is effectively forbidden by the Tenth Amendment:
/Mr Lynn
L.E. Joiner:
An “equivocation” is a kind of argument. A “speculation” is kind of conclusion from an argument. The two words reference ideas that differ in this respect.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:29 am
So Jim, pass the 8th grade 1912 public school exam and issue a correction to your CCSS statement WRT climate change.
===========================================================================
To use one of your words in this thread: STUPID!!! Sit that 1912 8th grader in front of a laptop a third grader of today routinely uses, and that 8th grader craps himself and runs out of the room screaming about witchcraft. Point being: It is what they were taught at that time. If we still had the need, we would be teaching kids how to use a framing square to lay out a stair riser, and how to calculate the lumber needs for a 1200sq.ft. home.
I have no dog in the CC fight, but I seem to recall that Gates and Buffet are big funders. That tells me a lot.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 6:38 pm
.
While I don’t disagree with much of what Ms. Gray has written in this thread, that observation threw me.
The Japanese must learn 3 distinct forms of writing: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Of course, many Japanese also learn English.
I think young Japanese students begin learning Kanji in the 2nd grade. Kanji, which are borrowed Chinese ideograms, have two readings: One retaining something close to the original Chinese meaning & pronunciation, and another reflecting native Japanese.
To further complicate matters, kanji have at least three forms, roughly from block to cursive. Cursive kanji is very nearly impenetrable to all but native speakers of Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
Cyrillic also has cursive and block forms, and again, many Russians also learn English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script
As far as I know, all books are printed in block letters, but most people write in a form of cursive, whatever the language.
~
I think good education comes down to good teachers, and a strong support system at home. One parent is needed at home to “be there” for the kids. I know it’s not a popular thing to say, but division of labor was developed over the many millennia since we came down from the trees, if that’s what really happened
Furthermore, In my opinion, the credentialing process is a big part of the education problem; no matter how skilled you are in your particular field, you are not qualified to teach in California until you’ve passed the CBEST, and wallowed through the required educationalist teaching curriculum.
CBEST is also required for teachers in Oregon, ne c’est pas?
~
By and large, American kids are not making a good showing against their foreign peers. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: our educational system needs a major overhaul.
Pamela Gray also says:
May 11, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Some of the best students in the USA can and do compete with the best foreign students, I attribute that success to bright kids with good teachers, but I am in general agreement with what you’ve written here.
Unfortunately, it’s not just our educational system that’s been “dumbed down”; that fate has befallen the entire country. For proof, just flip on your TV to GMA, the USA’s top-rated morning “news” program.
Pamela Gray says:
Don’t know where you are from, but please tell me that you don’t think our kids here are lying. I have found ranch and rural kids to be very credible and much more capable of acting ‘adult’ than much of what I see of adults in politics and the ‘news media’ and even some folks on school boards. Plus I happen to know that upon which they are tested. Also, you obviously did not read, or possibly not understand, all of what I wrote.
Hangul, the written form of the Korean language, has both block and cursive forms.
The Common Core is not a federal program. Never was. It started at the state level and was an issue in need of solving. Look people, many, if not most students heading to college take an SAT or ACT test without running into the night screaming it is some kind of federal mandate. It is simply the vehicle colleges use to measure incoming freshman and assign them to proper entry level classes, or worst case, decide not to let them in. Nor does anyone cry foul over the freshman and sophomore classes everyone is required to take in college. That these classes often, if not always, transfer from state to state means that the standards are pretty well universal. There is no knicker bunching or twisting over freshman Speech 101, English Lit, or College Algebra, or any of the other common class offerings that sound the same, look the same, and smell the same from one college campus to another.
Common Core is no different. It is a set of expectations in reading, writing, and math that says to colleges and hiring companies, we are doing our part in the public school elementary and secondary system to give you students and employees with college and career ready skills. Skills that these very same entities said were needed because they were tired of having to offer remedial coursework and settle for poorly performing entry level employees.
If individual states want to mandate human caused climate change as part of their adopted curriculum, that is indeed a state’s right to do so. It is against the law for the federal government to do so.
What the federal government has done is put a carrot out there for states to grab. And grab they have. Follow the federal rules for instructing students with disabilities. Follow the federal rules for nondiscriminatory practices. Follow the federal rules for this and that. And if you do, the federal government will give you money that you then do not have to squeeze out of your citizens. And states jumped on that. Pour states especially.
Bottom line, you got an issue with Common Core or Science standards? Take it to your state. That’s where it lives. The federal government doesn’t give a rat’s ass which standards you use and is barred from mandating specific standards and curriculum anyway.
I don’t trust Washington on climate change. Or pretty much anything else, including the Common Core standards.
I will accept Pamela’s reassurance that Common Core currently takes no position on global warming, climate disruption, or whatever. However, I have a great deal of confidence that Washington will in the future co-opt Common Core when it is deemed necessary to promote and promulgate various political/social agendas. That what Washington does. Always!
Good grief, one only has to glance at EPA’s politicized agenda to see how this operates.
Interesting conversation about penmanship by country. I spoke with an educator in Italy. Children learn cursive Italian from the beginning, not a block letter style first as they do here. You are right about the Japanese. They learn English lettering as well as their own multiple forms of lettering and from a very young age. We have a convergance here in terms of the underlying issue.
We are far behind the rest of the world in terms of laboring long into the intermediate grades with English block lettering, not even bothering to systematically teach other lettering systems from other countries, let alone our very own connected cursive.
“It is a set of expectations in reading, writing, and math that says to colleges and hiring companies, we are doing our part in the public school elementary and secondary system to give you students and employees with college and career ready skills.”
And what do the kids get out of it?
Some of us think ‘education’ should be something more than turning kids into brainwashed corporate drones. Particularly in a world where the whole concept of a ‘job’ is disappearing, and future generations are going to have to get used to working for themselves as most of our ancestors did.
No one trusts Washington on climate change?
Maybe elsewhere among the barbarians but in the People’s Republic of Boulder the climate faith is vibrant and its Exalted High Priest is revered by the enlightened. The CO2-centric animism displaced Buddhism and New Ageism as the most popular religion. Lately it also absorbed a belief in the Devil Incarnate, in the Unholy Duality of the Koch brothers.
SAMURAI says:
May 11, 2014 at 11:12 am
The Obama administration will go down in the history books as being one of the most corrupt, dishonest, scandal-ridden, anti-constitutional, personal-freedom/privacy infringing, …
——————————–
Not as long as they write the history books.
cn
So Mark, are you saying you don’t want a student to be able to critically read an informational text? To be able to tell the difference between fact and opinion, and the difference between supported fact and unsupported “fact”? These are all found in the CCSS. Shall we just continue to read Hatchet, Where The Red Fern Grows, and when still allowed, Old Yeller and Tom Sawyer, and talk about plots, themes, and characters?
Are you saying we should continue to teach persuasive writing (an emotional style of writing), while ignoring argumentative writing (a well reasoned and cited discussion of the strengths and weaknesses on both sides of an issue)? The more rigorous form of argumentative writing is the goal in the CCSS.
Or maybe you want students to continue to solve math problems that take just a few minutes up to an hour to complete start to finish involving two trains, or one that is from real life and takes days to examine, explore, develop, and solve? Being able to work through longer real life math problems are in the CCSS.
What’s in it for the kids? I thought our job was to produce employable or self-employable productive contributing citizens of the United States. I suppose we could have just a baby sitting service with classroom parties.
Okey dokey!
Jim, did I say anything at all about kids lying? What has that got to do with anything in what I asked? You know the difference between survey and raw data. Come on.
Robin says:
May 11, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Robin,
Thanks for the link!
I’ll ‘drink more deeply from your fount’ as I have time.
Mac
Ed Mertin says:
May 11, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
What are you mixing with that neo-com kool aid?!
Or was it just a recurrent ’60s ‘blotter’ flashback?
Your comments provide mirth for many…please, please continue to tell us about WWII (Oops, WWIII instead of two… :-/) that ‘Romney caused’! Enlighten us with your alternate reality……
And Have A neo-com ‘Back To The Future’ Day!
Mac
the devastating attraction of authority is the illusion that one may evade personal responsibility for anything and receive absolution.
and so the excuse ‘i was just doing my job’ springs forth.
and after much rehearsal at evading personal responsibility by obedience to some authority, the coward accepts his state as unremarkable, normal – everybody does it.
and so the excuse ‘if i didn’t do it, somebody else would have’
and when a cruel and merciless world doesn’t exonerate evil by evasion or evil by deed, the final weak plea is always ‘i thought i could save a few’.
and so it goes.
yes, i trust my memory. my experience, my mind.
Even if Pamela Gray was wrong I would still line up behind her in any battle. Its the irish thing 🙂
The report makes it clear that the public is aware of the climate debate, and weary of the constant supply of climate hysterics’ doom-laden assertions.
****
No one trusts Washington on climate change
By Christopher Caldwell (The Weekly Standard )
In the age of the Iraq war and Obamacare, the government is hardly a trustworthy body
The 841-page National Climate Assessment released by the US government this week has been described as “sobering”, but Americans do not appear sobered. The report goes into astonishing detail about what severe climate change would mean – and what it means already to specific villages, mountains and beaches. . . .
[snip . . that is a very interesting article but our policy is that we prefer you to post a link rather than the entire article as we may encounter copyright and other legal issues. Thanks . . mod]
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:02 pm
It is not the program. It looks fine on paper. It is the hijacking which is already in the works.
My attitude? The kids that want to get educated will. There is no point in forcing the rest.
Just because the criminals in Washington have legalized their crimes doesn’t mean they are not still criminals. The criminals controlling the government are in love with government power. They have structured the entire economy to enhance government power. The climate change issue is just an excuse for the government to have more power over the economy. There’s no chance anything Obama has proposed will change the climate. They want everybody to be working at slave level wages so people will have to bow down to government power to obtain medical services or even food. Actually the government doesn’t even need more power, but that doesn’t stop the criminals from wanting more power. The criminals don’t know what else to do with their power except try to get more.
Pamela Gray says:
This is not a research project. What is important is the feedback from the kids and their perceptions of the AGW concept and the pressure put upon them to answer ‘correctly’. Allowing the federal government any involvement in these matters is a big mistake. Even when it is claimed the feds do not dictate only coordinate the input. As a small population rural community the input of the large population metro areas, which mirror Washington DC, had too much effect upon the results. Our well meaning state and local officials, believing, as we here all do, that some standards are needed, but not delving into the detail and worried about the politics of the issue, approved programs that are diametrically opposed to that in which we believe. I am old enough to know that I do not have all of the answers but as someone frequently in the classroom with the kids I do know that the present product is not good. It goes back to the main problem with government, they have the Midas touch in reverse. When they touch something it turns to shit. I am sure that the majority of the metro area folks feel fine with the program. Just look at the data as to how they vote.
Well, that was interesting. Someone, and Pamela may be the right person, needs to write up an article on exactly what common core is, and how the core is separate from the materials.
I am old enough to have gone through school and university at a time before they were dumbed down and populated by political/social activists. What I see now in the US and UK (where I am originally from) honestly worries me.
Apparently, it worries others too. Otherwise, why are the captains of industry pushing the GOP to give in on immigration in return for more H1B visas? They should be more interested in producing more producing skilled workers domestically than importing them, but apparently have given up on the idea.
Common Core, in its definition is fine. A lot of the support material is not. There is a difference between the two. Be careful to understand the distinction, and don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Btw, I think that there are three forms of “writing” in the western world: block, cursive and printed.
Pamela, I have no data or surveys, but are you telling me that there is not a strong Liberal bias in schools. Have the young adults who would appear from polls to support the CAGW meme arrived at their convictions because of careful weighing of the scientific data? Wouldn’t you say that all but 100% acceptance of the meme by all university departments – science, humanities, etc, all scientific societies, most media … is not a product of their education. If they have been sold a bill of goods after their education, that still is a product of their education. I think your rose colored glasses have enriched the redness of your hair (actually I’ve had several red-haired girl friends in my life so this is no slight).
All print is done in block letters, which stand alone, in contrast to cursive, where the letterforms are connected, so that entire words can be written without lifting the writing instrument from the writing surface.
The advantage of cursive is speed; the occasional disadvantage is illegibility, where the writer does not have good penmanship.
Block letters form the basis for moveable type, an innovation credited to J. Gutenberg, the advantages being legibility, and economy.
I learned to read about age 3-4, but didn’t learn cursive until the 2nd grade, which I began at age 6.
Some forms request that you print your name, in addition to writing it – otherwise known as your signature.
No one trusts Washington on anything!
It is against federal law for the federal government to mandate curriculum textbooks or content in those textbooks.
Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. The fed coerces things at the state level in myriad ways.
Some of us think ‘education’ should be something more than turning kids into brainwashed corporate drones.
Except that’s about what the public school system was intended to do. To keep us in our place so we would be of better service to the ruling elites. No, I no longer have that reference but I assure you it is legit (Dewey, as I recall), and any objective viewing of our long failing school system should make it clear that it is succeeding. Others (Gatto is a good start) have made the arguments better than I, so I will leave it to them – assuming you want to.
Personally, I have opted to ensure my child can read, think, and reason independently, thus, he no longer attends public school.
Philip says:
May 12, 2014 at 7:48 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/11/ft-no-one-trusts-washington-on-climate-change/#comment-1634225
“[cutting to the chase…]
Btw, I think that there are three forms of “writing” in the western world: block, cursive and printed.”
==================================
No, the three forms of writing are fiction, nonfiction, and climate science ;o)
Here’s an amusing poster of an eagle with his head cocked skeptically sideways, over the caption, “Really?–you STILL trust the government?”
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/RogerKni/Politics%20%20Finance/skepticaleagle_zps9d625f0b.jpeg
But apparently this document’s early draft was leaked and discussed here a year ago, according to a commenter. I have a vague recollection of that.
May 13, 2014: 47 degrees this morning. Make me want to slap Al Gore. He must be near because it snows everyplace he goes.
Pamela,
If you are any sort of example of a modern public educator then please stop. Your nasty, brutish attacks are quite unconvincing …. Face it you are defending the indefensible and getting quite angry in the process and convincing nobody that Common Core has any merit. In fact most of what you cite as supposed strengths make it obvious that its just another attempt by over educated elites to “prove” how smart they are and create yet another layer of bureaucracy in the local school systems.
Yes, I know its “for the children” … stop trying to help, its your type of help that brought us to this.
BTW, have you renounced your Teachers Union membership yet ? .didn’t think so …
You are not as smart as you think you are and frankly appear to be quite a nasty piece of work.