This request came in from WUWT reader Michael, who’s concerned that “My daughter’s fifth grade class is currently being indoctrinated regarding “human caused” climate change.” and he wants to know what film might be a good response.
My daughter’s fifth grade class is currently being indoctrinated regarding “human caused” climate change. Her teacher sent home a note informing parents that she will be screening CNN’s Planet in Peril, which she described as “fairly objective”.
Is there a good film I could recommend the teacher to show to provide balance to my daughter’s class. Any other assistance with a response to her teacher would be most appreciated. Below is the email from my daughter’s teacher.
Thanks,
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~
Hello Parents,
I want to make you aware of a documentary we are watching in 5th grade. It is produced by CNN and is called “Planet in Peril.” This video is meant to introduce students to the idea that the earth is warming and that all effects of this warming has a ripple effect. In my view, it is fairly objective, and attempts to examine whether this problem is man-made or not.
My intent is to make students aware of the scientific research that is out there, and encourage them to do their own research on an aspect of this science that interests them.
Please communicate any concerns you have about this as soon as possible. I am happy to make any adaptations for your child tailored to your concerns.
Thank you,
Mrs. A
5th Grade General Studies
=================================================================
My first thought would be this video from Dr. David Evans,
Another would be the 50 to 1 video:
I’m sure readers can suggest other videos.
This one would have to be watched in 2 parts. Yes, it is aimed at adults, but, even if those 10 and 11-year-olds only comprehend and or remember half of what they see and hear, it is a big step in the right direction.
“The Global Warming Swindle” — aired on BBC 2007
Dr. Evans’ video is horribly dull; it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to sit through it.
you can’t go far wrong recommending the great global warming swindle by martin durkin
For 5th grade, I would recommend the 10/10 video.
/sarc
When my grand daughter brought home her Weekly Reader with the infamous photo of the two polar bears on the ice flow, I showed her the rest of the photo and told her the besrs would be fine and much of the story in her Weekly Reader was wrong. I began to give her postings from WUWT to counter her teachers. When a teacher would make a statement, ‘Pook’ would raise her hand and correct the teacher. Often the teachers would not call on her and she became more insistent. I taught her the “stump the teacher” game and to question authority. She is a top honors student.
Not Evil Just Wrong
This is the most insidious aspect of the entire CAGW ‘damn the truth’ propaganda campaign..
Having had to face the overwhelming tide of utter nonsense prefaced with “my teacher says” in the ’80’s with an impressionable teenager – I can feel your angst and my gore is rising even now.
Accountability is ignored when it comes to the curriculum inspired by the manic green/left AKA ‘everything mankind does is bad’ congregation..Teachers and their irresponsible political curriculum are a suitable case for treatment.
To insinuate young minds with lies IS EVIL!
See if you can show them the video of the BOY WHO CRIED WOLF!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
http://youtu.be/pB2ugPM0cRM
The ending is actually accurate. The bogus alarmists/ consensus talking over the skeptics.
It really doesnt matter what video is suggested, anyone who thinks “planet in peril” was objective will never have them watching an actual objective opinion on the topic because of her intense bias and lack of knowledge on the topic.
Bob Carter, 38 minutes. Above 5th grade, but accessible to most everyone. Good for high school science students.
It’s best to start with the basics, and works of fiction offer the optimum means of catching the student’s attention (for later reinforcement by way of supported argument).
Therefore, begin the kids’ lesson on the great Global Warming Fraud with any good film version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Unfortunately it’s necessary to provide actual data to explain the complexities of climate. This is boring, especially to elementary school kids. The AGW faction merely has to appeal to authority and basically scare the hell out of the audience with outlandish claims. Then call the debate over and declare victory.
Maybe the Koch Bros. can underwrite a multimillion feature film.
I wonder whether the school teacher thought Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was objective? Was the judge being objective? Is the 5th Grade General Studies teacher objective? Dear Mrs. A, things just aren’t as simple as you would like to believe. Sorry, but that is why the debate that was over is STILL RAGING! WHY?????
{interrupting my watching of the video I posted above}
Well, yes (ahem), as I said, “The Global Warming Swindle” is good, however… around minute 28:00, it presents Piers Corbyn’s solar theories — not great science there, but, oh, well. Overall, it is a worthwhile documentary.
10:10?
NASA to the rescue.
http://youtu.be/eYKggC5VOzA
This video is meant to introduce students to the idea that the earth is warming and that all effects of this warming has a ripple effect.
I suggest a remedial English class for the teacher.
The problem is in letting children form opinions about something that most adult are unable to grasp. In my view the first of these two videos was the best, but then I have a higher degree in applied science. I would need to be a shrink as well to get the message across to children.
Co2 fertilization is real. It is not a toxin in its present proportions or at 600ppm let alone over 1,000ppm. Co2 is environmentally friendly.
http://youtu.be/P2qVNK6zFgE
You can’t fix “STUPID”.
Schindler’s List.
This mad liars cult has total power lust. Use History.
TeeWee says:
May 12, 2014 at 4:01 pm
###
Good thing you have a granddaughter and not a grandson. A boy would be sent to a “behavioral specialist” and give drugs to cure him.
Lost cause. Anyone who could write “In my view, it is fairly objective, and attempts to examine whether this problem is man-made or not.” in regard to “Planet in Peril” is clearly incapable of making rational judgments (on any subject!).
Give her some credit for the ‘red flag’ note, which gave the parents time to step in, and here’s hoping they did. Political indoctrination of any sort aimed at children in their own ‘safe’ classrooms must be fought. She gave the parents of her students (students of WHAT? History? Geography? Science?) an opportunity to do so. At minimum, this note self-acknowledges the inappropriateness of the showing, and that is telling.
milodonharlani says:
May 12, 2014 at 3:56 pm
“Hide the Decline”, I love it!! “Draggin the Line” is one of the oldies I do with the band I play with. Bunch of us old geasers play old time rock and roll and lots of folks are still around that like to dance to it. Will now try these new lyrics.
Thanks,
Jim G
Maybe “Unstoppable Solar Cycles”, izzit.org
These nutters should be held accountable for the lies told to these innocents as fact. Disgusting.
I’m not sure you have to show an entire movie. Just some one off links. One of the things I do with the uninitiated is to take them to the WUWT sea ice page and show them a couple of the arctic ice graphs. They inevitably go “so it true….” at which point I say, sure….but let’s scroll down to the antarctic. They inevitably look at those graphs and then have a WTF moment.
I usually follow that with a Wood For Trees intro and graph CO2 versus temps over the last 20 years. That usually results in another WTF moment. Basically ten minutes, 3 graphics, and serious doubt it raised.
“Steve Oregon”
That video is a prime example of pseudo-intellectual snark on American TV. But it is quite smartly devised by Bill Nye’s support team. Since he loses every debate, imagine a debate he can win!
Another example of the bogus “97%” meme.
From personal and first hand experience: one of the biggest challenges in teaching is boredom. Teachers frequently risk entering controversial areas in an attempt to raise student interest. In this case parents have been given advance notice, with what appears to be a sincere invitation to put forward alternative points of view. I would take that at face value.
Not sure I would be looking for a ‘film,’ though. Since she has explicitly stated the goal of students looking for themselves at research, it might be most effective to get something straight ‘from the horse’s mouth.’ Say, video of formal testimony by the likes of Drs. Linzen, Chisty, or Spencer.
I wold give the teacher the benefit of the doubt. The power of the media being what it is, the chances are fairly good she has never seriously considered skeptical viewpoints. If she is really fair minded, she will commend a student who understands due diligence. Review Dale Carnegie before contacting her….
: > )
When I was a kid in the 1960s there was an animated cartoon that occasionally appeared early Saturday morning on local WCBS in NYC when they would show really old cartoons. Black & white (i.e. grayscale), music, no voices. Animal characters. Some of the animals build a big Halloween pumpkin face and set it up in front of the Moon, scaring the rest of the animals. After a while the rest of the animals discover the fraud, and chase the fraudsters. I’ve looked very hard for this cartoon online, and have explored Wikipedia articles on animated cartoon companies and lists of their cartoons from the early 20th Century. No luck so far. Anybody remember it?
There is a pretty good selection of videos here:
http://www.co2science.org/video/dvdarchive.php
And, their publications are worthwhile as well.
10:10. no Pressure.
http://youtu.be/PDXQsnkuBCM
This is a few years old now, but it may yet be helpful: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/wiping-floor-with-albert-gore-sensible.html
Puzzling about moderation?
Seems to me that we need a tailor made counter measure. Topher’s 50:1 is excellent but maybe a little too detailed for the younger audience. My suggestion as an interim step would be for parents to get hold of Ian Plimer’s book “How to get expelled from School”. While not a movie, it does provide responses to inaccurate statements on the climate being delivered by teachers.
I was once invited to a meeting to help review a new school science curriculum. Most attending the meeting were teachers or educationalists. I was one of the only scientists there. At the outset of the meeting the education professor conducting it stood up and said something like “As we are short of time, I propose we skip over the routine material at the start and go straight to discussion of the important topics in the last section.” The “routine material” she proposed to skip described all of the science. The last section consisted of political drivel that I had completely ignored when reviewing the document.
You could demand Mrs A stop scaring your 5th grade daughter. Its a problem I’m going to face in the next year or two, I’m certainly going to be pushy about not having her watch horror films until she is old enough to deal with them, and to see them in context as fiction.
I would guess that Penn and Teller’s BS Global Warming and George Carlin’s bit(“The planet is fine, the PEOPLE are ) would get a fifth grade teacher fired.
Tiny Tim, The Ice Caps Are Melting.
The kids might enjoy it, or go Eech, but its short and the follow up discussion could consider the possibility that forcing children just like them to watch such dreck 50 years ago may be the cause of the current fearful few who compromise the Cult of Calamitous Climate.
Achtung!
I find that the chart of “no global warming for 17 years – 9 months” is very effective.
I had the 17 years – 8 months version sitting on my table at Starbucks recently when a stranger walked by and said “I’ve seen that”. I was so stunned and amazed that all I could do was smile and mumble uh huh. I have posted a copy a few times at that Starbucks and at one other.
I also showed the chart to my niece and her father at a recent Easter family get together, and had to explain it. My sister has arguments with her husband over global warming, she’s on my side. Funnily, while explaining the chart, I got a headache and I rarely get headaches, could have been because of the alcohol as I rarely drink.
Here is a version with better slides & brightness of the Bob Carter video:
downloadable here:
DVD image here (NTSC for USA, Japan): http://www.climatedvd.com/Video/BobCarter-13-6w3.zip
DVD image here(PAL for most of rest of world)):http://www.climatedvd.com/Video/BobCarter-13-6w3PAL.zip
– – – – – – – – – – –
Mrs. A,
I would recommend this 10 minute clip of physicist Richard Feynman. It will make most 5th graders into scientific skeptics.
John
Great suggestions all!
HAVE HER WATCH Inconvenient truth. And then show her the inconsistencies point by point. That, in fact, was the movie that opened my eyes. Show, here, Mike Moore says this, “Polar bears…” and here you can check what’s really happening. Chart of CO2 and Temperature shows this… and then show the mistakes in the chart, and leaving out facts (Medieval WP) and then show the lead and lag and order in which things occurred. CO2 follows, not leads. There is so much eye opening that can be learned by bringing her to the center of the lies. Teach her how to seek”Truth”
Recommend: Global Warming Primer 2nd Edition from National Center for Policy Analysis
Recommend providing each student with a copy of:
The Skeptics Handbook
and
35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie
A ten-minute film that would attempt, not refutation, but doubt-raising (an easier sell, and more acceptable to teachers), would not cost more than $10,000, if done by an underpaid volunteer, of whom there’d be many. It need only provide counterpoints to, or tonings-down of, the claims in the CNN movie. The fact that this hasn’t been done is just one of many reasons why there is no well-organized, well-funded contrarians’ coven. For more on the things such a coven would have done if one existed, see my guest thread, Notes from Skull Island, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
I second “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and also “Not Evil Just Wrong”, which I think deserves much wider exposure.
I recommend “CBC – Global Warming Doomsday Called Off”. It is 45 min. long and so might be suitable in a classroom setting. It is not better than “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, but it does cover the same material in much the same way, with many of the same people. It’s shorter format may make it a better choice.
Sometimes a little mocking and some music will go a long way with kids:
http://youtu.be/Vx-t9k7epIk
I think that the Doomsday Preppers guys surely know best about it. They might have a lot of video or references documentary on this…
The Great Global Warming Swindle on the BBC? You must be joking. It was Channel 4. The BBCs response was Earth: the Climate Wars – an awful propaganda three parter.
Janice Moore says:
May 12, 2014 at 3:47 pm
“The Global Warming Swindle” — aired on BBC 2007
——————————————————
It was actually on Channel Four, not the BBC, although I wouldn’t give them too much credit as I don’t think that a sceptical idea has been aired since and Channel Four News is, if anything. more hysterically alarmist than the BBC News.
I would have a number of concerns as a parent ( well, if I was this parent my child would not be allowed to be indoctrinated with this stuff. Ever )
Some concerns are about the content of the film. I have not seen this but from what I can read ( transcripts are available at CNN, I expect the video is also ). This film is apparently less about climate conditions and trends but more about ecosystems and the ability of flora and fauna to deal with it. I understand the intent is to highlight animals and plants under stress or threat of extinction then tie these events to global changes in climate which are then claimed to be human in cause. Myself i don’t see how this material is germane to the teacher’s goal:
“….to introduce students to the idea that the earth is warming and that all effects of this warming has a ripple effect.”.
The next concern I would raise is that in the very same week of broadcast, CNN also broadcast a programme so as to present a balanced view on the subject. This program was called:
“Keeping them honest: The truth about global warming.”
Which I understand was a regular feature by host Cooper with changing areas of interest each week. I would make a strong case to the school that if CNN felt obliged to show these two films together in the same week and the latter as balance for the former, then the school has an obligation to do the same.
My final concern is that this was aired in October 2007. Filming obviously took place in the year preceding. That’s nearly 7 years ago. Much of what the film contains scientifically will be out of date and not relevant. The science has moved on. Unless the teacher is willing to present current data for any assertions about populations of species etc. then it’s not doing the students any good. If you want to encourage students to go out and research the issues for themselves then give them the tools to do so and help them in their search. Don’t start by feeding them outdated propaganda.
Any film you show them will have the effect of pushing the combined agendas of the people who produced it ( I mean that in the broad sense of all involved ) and also likely the agenda of the person choosing the film. That’s how religion works. Just give them facts and tell them to go and find the truth for themselves.
“I taught her the ‘stump the teacher’ game and to question authority. She is a top honors student.”
You may have done her a disservice. As she grows older, pressure on her grades in any area where her instructors have subjective discretion will increase.
I instruct all younger family members in the now necessary arts of apparently absorbing instruction and obediently regurgitating it on cue.
As I put it to them, “These ‘educators’ are not in the least bit intent on genuinely educating you, which is to say, to think critically for yourself. What they are instead intent upon is _indoctrinating_ you to think precisely as they do. A quite different matter. And they will not treat you well if they believe for one second that you are resisting or questioning that process of indoctrination. They have substantial control over the trajectory of the rest of your life. You are perforce going to have to either become a passive parrot, or able to pantomime being a parrot. The latter option is what you should choose.”
The Dr Evans Video claims that there is 1.1 C of warming for each doubling of CO2 but nothing could be further from the truth because the heating effect is logarithmic and doubling over and over has LESS and less effect not more.
Now at 400ppm CO2 has very little more to add to the heat blanket no matter how many times it doubles from here.
One wonders if the primary aim of the video is to push that falsehood by misdirecting to feedbacks.
Two recommendations: Lord Monckton’s “Apocalypse? No!”, and Pete Garcia’s / Jesse Jones’ / Deyvis Martinez’s / Will Rich’s “The Boy Who Cried Warming”
The “The Global Warming Swindle” is an interesting documentary and fueled my original skepticism. Not because I believed it at the time, but because I was shocked by how weak the rebuttals were from the establishment. But it’s greatest and most serious failing is that it purports to provide an alternate explanation for the warming (solar activity).
davidmhoffer says:
May 12, 2014 at 4:27 pm
That is why they are watching movies, instead of reading. Perhaps standard English is not included among “5th Grade General Studies.”
Mrs A. wrote:
Beyond the bad English noted by Mr. Hoffer, I call your attention to the warming = problem assumption slipped in there by Mrs. A.
As well, her view seems to be that a documentary titled “Planet in Peril: is “fairly objective.”
In my view, a good assignment for the students would be to investigate their teacher’s assumption that warming is necessarily a problem. What would be an ideal temperature? Would the students want the world to get colder, or warmer? Would longer growing seasons and enlarged agricultural zones be a problem, or a benefit? What percentage of atmospheric CO2 is produced by natural sources? Was CNN’s attempt to examine this issue successful, or not? Finally, did the students find the documentary to be objective, or biased?
But back to the bad English grammar (and muddled thinking): If I were Michael, I’d be thinking about getting my child out of that school.
She’s in her 5th year of a 12 year sentence.
It is abusive to make children feel responsible for the state of the world.
It is abusive to subject children to anxiety-provoking disaster material when the ONLY intended outcome is to push children to push their parents on behavior.
It is unethical for schools to wedge themselves between parent and child.
Any decent school could ignore the global warming issue and instead simply teach children more valuable education: science, measurement, causality, rhetoric, and logic. And the observe of these.
Then, send these educated people off to college and the real world to figure out what problems and concerns are out there.
A properly, classically educated high school grad ought to be able to see a scam-artist approaching from 50 paces.
We are not teaching our children HOW to think, but WHAT to think. We are sure to be incorrect some portion of the time.
So, let’s just go for HOW to think.
There is nothing to be done to save the kids directly. For that result the video needs to convince the teacher. The teacher can then calm the kids with reality. If you can’t reach the teacher… the kids are going to drown in a sea of alarmism. GK
Don’t have a video to recommend, but I would generate a two or three page handing listing of all the failed climate predictions given by the Climate Scientists over the years. I would also add a list of 10 or so of the Top Scientists that disagree with CAGW. Would also write a very short and to the point rebuttal of the “97%of climate scientsts agree….”. Have to destroy the fallacy there is a consensus and as well that scientists are never wrong in the young mind.
My first thought is identical to John Whitman’s suggestion for Feynman’s lectures.
My second and tertiary thoughts are that Feynman’s lectures should have frequent commercials consisting of outtakes from Turney’s ship of fools and tools.
I like this one. 7 minutes and easy to understand.
A few of the famous predictions to refute… Hansen and East Manhatten being under sea water by now (picture of then vs now). Hansen predicting 0.2C temperature rise per decade from 2000 to 2200 in a cute picture graph (his prediction vs actual). A graph showing Global sea ice but you only ever hear about Arctic sea ice. A bar graph of frequency of catastrophic weather events over the past century showing there is NO increase. Put in enough stuff like this to fill up a couple of pages, with some nice pictures and a few easy to read graphs.
Hmm.. after watching Crosspatch video, I would show this 7 minute video and then give the handout.
Chris Thorne says:
May 12, 2014 at 6:42 pm
“I taught her the ‘stump the teacher’ game and to question authority. She is a top honors student.”
You may have done her a disservice. As she grows older, pressure on her grades in any area where her instructors have subjective discretion will increase.
I instruct all younger family members in the now necessary arts of apparently absorbing instruction and obediently regurgitating it on cue.
—
This makes me sad. Firstly, I don’t believe that all teachers have the attitude that you ascribe to them. Secondly, even if most teachers had this attitude, I think it is wrong to actively discourage your children from speaking their mind. If my parents had given me such advice, I would have felt betrayed.
Forget the science, I’d teach them the history of propaganda. This one, if they can handle it….
There are two questions to be asked:
One was posed by Steve McIntyre. He asked for an engineering quality calculation of the warming caused by greenhouse gases. None has been done. We only have computer simulations and the students should be told that is all it is – modelling.
Second: Ask anyone to produce a study which has MEASURED the temperature increase caused by CO2. None exists. A graph is used to compare temperature increases with CO2 increases. The same can be done with a chart showing the increase in the number of lawyers or cell phones.
Not to burst your bubble or anything, but logarithmic does indeed precisely mean a constant increase per doubling.
I watched the Dr. Evans video. It was very good, but I cringed every time he said “dampens” – sort of like fingernails on the chalkboard. It’s “damp”, “damps”, and “damped”, Dr. Evans.
“This makes me sad. Firstly, I don’t believe that all teachers have the attitude that you ascribe to them.”
Of course not. Merely the vast majority of teachers.
“Secondly, even if most teachers had this attitude, I think it is wrong to actively discourage your children from speaking their mind.”
What is wrong is to have allowed teachers to have become propagandists under color of authority. And make no mistake about it: the majority of teachers have such authority. Substantial authority. Not subject to review.
Point out lacunae in their logic or fallacies in their facts, and you will not be rewarded and praised for having exercised individual intellectual initiative. You will be rebuked and punished and marked down relative to your peer group for failing to conform to the expected “standard” of recitation of the revealed truth.
There have been many epochs in human history in which discreet dissembling upon command was a necessary cultural survival skill. This is, regrettably, another such epoch. Would that it were otherwise.
Gerald Machnee says:
May 12, 2014 at 7:37 pm
+1
“Dear (teacher),
“Thank you for your note. My child will not view the age-inappropriate religious film.
“Cc: (school district attorney), (personal attorney)”
Michael Palmer says:
May 12, 2014 at 7:33 pm
Note that Chris Thorne never said that you couldn’t speak your mind, just that you should not do so in class. I also would that it were otherwise.
University’s claim to be bastions of free and open thinking.
An “objective” film called Planet in Peril.
Teacher needs a dictionary.
“There have been many epochs in human history in which discreet dissembling upon command was a necessary cultural survival skill. This is, regrettably, another such epoch. Would that it were otherwise.”
—
I do see your point, but you are exaggerating.
An uncle of mine and his family used to live in East Germany. He was a protestant minister and also an outspoken individual, refusing to take part in the sham elections etc. His two sons, also of a somewhat outspoken nature, finished 10th grade at the top of their classes, but were then expelled and prevented from finishing high school and attending university. One became a carpenter, the other a construction worker. This is still not the heaviest punishment imaginable, but it sure is more serious than what your children could possibly face in North America.
Freedom must be defended through its constant exercise. That will occasionally exact a price. This price must be paid – it is one of the many taxes required to offset the many forms of damage done by inescapable human stupidity.
“The Cloud Mystery”
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ
Chris Thorne
Yes, there are times when it is seriously necessary to avoid kicking a sleeping dog. A lifetime of working with public school educators leads me to the conclusion that this is relatively rare. But even in this case, I want my kids to recognize an opportunity to learn.
Apologies if I have referred to this incident in some old thread, but it is relevant here in any case. Quite a few years ago, Dr. Cyrus Gordon, a semiticist at Brandeis gave a series of lectures in Pasadena expounding his somewhat unorthodox views of Old Testament document history. At the last session, which I unfortunately missed, he was asked what he told his kids about how to behave when they went to Sabbath School and were presented with the widespread Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis. His response, as reported to me was something like this: I tell them to pay close attention and make sure they understand what is being taught, because it is important to know what is current, as well as what is true.
The Evans presentation is pretty good, although he errs in one respect- radiosonde-carrying balloon ascents date back to well before the 1960s, although perhaps he means a proper network wasn’t established until that time. The Wikipedia entry for “radiosonde” has a few errors, I note. Can’t be bothered fixing them though.
I can’t add to the video suggestions but perhaps if the city Michael lives in were known someone familiar with the propo video she wants to show and has credentials the teacher would respect would be willing to come and speak in the classroom after the video is shown? Or better yet, pause the video and then comment as it is shown.
It’s two two-hour segments. It will bore most of them to tears. The law of unintended side effects will have the fifth graders dying for lunch or recess, associating GW with crazy old lady teachers, and can be negated with a careful, ‘don’t worry dear.’ Now if it was a flashy, propaganda piece of 5-6 minutes I would be worried.
Also, a lot of district require a ‘shelving of the curriculum’ that may not list broad areas such as this and you can refer the principle to the curriculum on file and strongly point out that such a film and its time spent is not allowed. A tough stance but can be effect, teachers are not usually free to modified approved curriculum.
=======================================================================
They might not understand computer modeling. Compare the CAGW models to a computer game.
Nobody really gets hurt by the pretend dangers.
“His two sons, also of a somewhat outspoken nature, finished 10th grade at the top of their classes, but were then expelled and prevented from finishing high school and attending university. One became a carpenter, the other a construction worker. This is still not the heaviest punishment imaginable, but it sure is more serious than what your children could possibly face in North America.”
Let it be noted that similar official pressure to diminish or destroy individuals’ long-term career prospects absolutely does exist in North America at this time. It is not yet completely possible for those thus inclined to do entirely as they will, but they can certainly place a heavy thumb upon the scales with regard to academic admissions and professional advancement.
Let it also be noted that there are those who believe such personal pressure is wholly insufficient. They wish to go far beyond that.
The warmista cult have produced easily available “public service announcements” indicating openly, unapologetically violent and eliminationist sentiments towards those who merely question their dogma.
Without exaggeration, the productions to which I refer graphically depict innocent people, including school-aged childen, being blown apart in bloody fragments with the push of a button. For having said the wrong thing or having asked an inconvenient question.
Of course, it’s not as though the institutional left ever actually _would_ kill anyone simply for disagreeing with them. Other than the hundred-million-odd people who were thus killed by the left in the previous century for having done exactly that.
My teacher friends are using these dozen questions to encourage students to question the settled science of climate change. See link
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-questions-for-teens-and-20s.html
“The Global Warming Swindle” would be my choice as well. I’m a teacher in British Columbia and in my high school Social Studies classes I’ve shown Al Gore’s timeless classic followed by this film. I never say anything one way or the other and let the students draw their own conclusions.
That video is excellent! Thanks for posting it. Not sure if a 10-year-old can appreciate it, although I know I would have; more so because no one was talking down to me.
Roger Sowell says:
May 12, 2014 at 9:16 pm
Excellent! That’s more like it; I don’t favor the dueling videos approach, at all.
It’s relatively easy to find and quote relevant passages from a document, even a long one, but not so easy to extract the same kind of information from a video or film, especially a lengthy one, and particularly when there may be several related points under discussion.
We have this powerful tool called language, Learning to use it well should be a major focus of our educational system.
~
One tiny quibble: “..Recently discovered ancient hunter..” was found in 1991; the NYT article you linked is from 2/22/1992.
One video recommended from a political site I frequently monitor was recommended thusly:
You may buy Blue Beats Green at:
Another reader corrected the title:
Try this link, from JoNova, it was prepared by year 9 students when their teacher demanded to know why they were “deniers”:-
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/two-high-school-students-take-on-teacher-over-climate-and-win-standing-ovation/
Southpark 2 days before the day after tommorow
You cant beat sarcasm
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e08-two-days-before-the-day-after-tomorrow
Like I’ve said repeatedly – sweep the left out of government, academia and the media and CAGW will die instantly. That’s all CAGW ever was and is – their device for manipulating uninformed people into going along with their totalitarian, misanthropic agendas.
It’s not a ‘movie’, but a seven minute youtube clip of Dr. Sally Baliunas talking about “weather-cooking” and witchcraft in 16th century Europe.
My god, how can so many people be so totally inept at propaganda? There is just one correct answer: Svensmark: The Cloud Mystery.
You don’t make a frontal attack on the reigning dogma. You give the kids something that’s fascinating, inspiring, unforgettable, and poignant, something that grows in the mind like the proverbial grain of mustard seed, something that doesn’t get into a frenzy attacking the dogma and thereby reinforcing it, something that is positive, innocent, and affirmative, something that has a well-written script and a beautiful musical score, something that calls out to the sense of wonder and exploration.
Now do you get it?
Some German satire (with subtitles)
and some Austrian rap.
ahhh, crosspatch has already recommended it, but Baliunas is worth watching twice
there isn’t one. however the power of nightmares by adam curtis shows how the power of nightmares is used to extract money and keep power. Climate terrorism is the new ‘nightmare’ [or religion in an age of religious skepticism] so we just need a new version of that focusing on climate nightmares as a device for extracting wealth and keeping power climate as the new religion.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLPFayD8FA
Secrets of the Tribe… http://www.veoh.com/watch/v20723644bYDp46sP?h1=Secrets+of+the+Tribe
It’s a story of Anthropologists (Scientists) behaving badly. The story centers around the anthropologists who work with the Yanomami tribe. I do suggest you watch it first to make sure you are comfortable with it. It includes data manipulation/fabrication, anthropologists interacting unethically with tribal members (including sex allegations and pedophilia), and the intentional introduction of disease within some of the tribes (Genocide). If science can be perverted in one field, it can be in another.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1567736/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
“The field of anthropology goes under the magnifying glass in this fiery investigation of the seminal research on Yanomami Indians. In the 1960s and ’70s, a steady stream of anthropologists filed into the Amazon Basin to observe this “virgin” society untouched by modern life. Thirty years later, the events surrounding this infiltration have become a scandalous tale of academic ethics and infighting.”
– Written by Sundance Film Festival
contd…in modern politics “those with the darkest nightmares become the most powerful’ which today is climate nightmares.
Let me tack on to my comment of Secrets of the Tribe as I’m watching it now. There are parts of the movie that will not be appropriate for a 5th grader. I believe there are valuable excerpts in it but they would be too young for some of the things discussed for it to be shown in it’s entirety.
Michael
Just tell your daughter despite all the AGW hype, earth is still in an ice age. This is why the Arctic and Southern Oceans are still frozen, and 43% of the world’s land is still covered with snow and ice on winter. Warm climate is good for agriculture and biodiversity. The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today. The Vikings were farming in Greenland during the MWP. When the Little Ice Age came, they starved to death. The greatest biodiversity is found in tropical rain forests, which have warm climate. The predicted catastrophes of AGW have no basis in history and science.
Parents are the best teacher to their kids. Good luck.
Just be a parent your child can trust and prepare them before they are in 5th grade. Children are not stupid. In my opinion it is not a school (teacher) problem but a homeschool (parents) problem.
Classroom for kids in danish, about CO2 circuit…
http://youtu.be/KPgDjoUeiK4
“We live in the coldest period of the last 10.000 years” , says
glasiologist, Jørgen Peder Steffensen, who take us back in time, to the Grenland icecores and reveals the secrets from the past….
This might be worth showing …. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU
Unstoppable Solar Cycles…
CO2 is Not a Pollutant…
Global warming activists portray CO2 as a dangerous pollutant that needs to be regulated and reduced. Nothing could be further from the truth. This video pokes fun at claims that CO2 is harmful and shows its many beneficial uses.
The Carbon Cycle,Carbon Dioxide -Cycle (CO2)…
Lord Monckton – adresses a Greenpeace-campaigner on global warming…
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/co2+youtube/12cc85392ebea140?projector=1
CO2 Contributed by Human Activity: 12 to 15 ppmv…
Carbon Dioxide: The Breath of Life…
http://youtu.be/LPNiBVU2QIA
Actually I think the 5th grade teacher should be commended for emailing parents about the film. It was the correct thing to do.
I have never received such an email from teachers. And my 7th grader was recently shown ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ again for the umpteenth time.
I have compiled 26 videos here:
Global Warming Videos
@SØREN BUNDGAARD
Some nice, short videos there.
Brief and to the point.
We had this issue with our children’s school 6 or 7 years ago. They were making all the students watch “An Inconvenient Truth” . Thankfully, the science teacher took my son’s advice and also made them watch “The Great Global Warming Swindle” as well.
ups!
Lord Monckton – adresses a Greenpeace-campaigner on global warming…
http://youtu.be/wuj_tlRRQdQ
I tend to be more succesful teaching my family members how to spot propaganda. After that, they bring the bullshit to me as trophies rather than me having to point it out to them.
Sorry, wrong link. Here’s the correct one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c4XPVPJwBY&list=UUTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ
Great interactive globe – if only I had it as a kid 😉
http://earth.nullschool.net/
Here’s a thought. Gather all the problems with the “planet in peril” film and create your own video of your daughter articulating those problems. Creating a short video in this day and age is easy. Create a few charts with the problems and have your daughter explain them. It would be a great learning experience for her as well.
There was a video of a young boy explaining the problems with weather stations provided here a few years ago. If you can find that video it might be a good template.
If the classroom is in Canada ask the teacher to put the kids in groups of 3, have each group go to http://www.yourenvironment.ca, pick a major city and write a report on how temperatures have or haven’t changed in the past hundred years, and also how air pollution has or hasn’t changed. Then have every group present their report to the class. I think the contrast between the CNN horror show and the actual numbers will be as much a lesson for the teacher as for the students.
Just came across this video, by Stefan Molyneux, which addresses most of the talking points:
Jim G says:
May 12, 2014 at 4:53 pm
Pretty clever, huh? There’s a follow up to it, too.
Your band could have a lot of fun with costumes & props to go with the new lyrics.
I would recommend ‘The Cloud Mystery’:
Cool It! by Bjorn Lomborg. http://www.lomborg.com/cool_it_film
The professors at Caltech used to regularly dine at the residence halls – where most of the Caltech students live. Once, when Dr. Feynman was dining at one particular hall, he was asked to adjudicate an argument between 2 students who were both swimmers. One believed that shaving all the hair of the body would yield a faster time; the other said it was irrelevant.
Dr. Feynman’s response? Shave the hair off half the body. If the friction induced by the hair really was a significant factor, then the swimmer would end up going in circles.
This is the granddaddy of them all, made by Channel 4 in 1990. It aired in the US only once on the Discovery Channel before it was yanked. I happened to catch it and have been a denialist ever since.
Probably not the biggest budget, but possibly the funniest, the denier land video at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/06/denier-land-how-deniers-view-global-warming/
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uif1NwcUgMU&w=640&h=390%5D
========================================================================
They could also use TheWayBackMachine (http://archive.org/web/web.php) to see how the numbers representing those temperatures have been changed.
There’s a reason The Weather Channel in the US seems to have stopped (or should I say “paused”?) reporting the record highs and lows on their “Weather on the 8’s”.
Tough to sell “Climate Change” when most of the records were set decades ago.
Tony Lear (@Grimbeaconfire) says:
May 12, 2014 at 6:43 pm
The Dr Evans Video claims that there is 1.1 C of warming for each doubling of CO2 but nothing could be further from the truth because the heating effect is logarithmic and doubling over and over has LESS and less effect not more.
Now at 400ppm CO2 has very little more to add to the heat blanket no matter how many times it doubles from here.
One wonders if the primary aim of the video is to push that falsehood by misdirecting to feedbacks.
Sorry, you misunderstand. The doubling factor IS the logarithmic effect. The effect of each degree declines as you get higher. Your last 2 sentences are correct. The first two are confused.
Tab Numlock says:
May 13, 2014 at 1:36 pm
Wow. I had never seen that. Pretty prescient, despite showing the Arctic while talking about the Antarctic. We lose more real scientists who fought for science & against CACA every year, while the corrupted youth continue to spread their malevolent influence.
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2003/newell
5th graders should not be in the mix on climate.
They should just be happy to be in the 5th grade. The rest is really not important at that point.
They are kids!
Michael
After watching the CNN film, ask your daughter to write down her questions (and her classmates). Post them here. We will try to answer them. That’s a good way to learn.