That’s a sign in one of the videos below.
This is what college churns out these days, at least in UMass Lowell, but I’ll give them points for not wasting state funding or seeking grant money. From their YouTube website:
This video was produced by students as part of the UMass Lowell course, “Climate Change: Science, Communication, and Solutions.” After spending most of the semester learning about climate change science, technological solutions, and policy, students participated in a three-day, NASA-sponsored workshop to create one-minute film shorts about climate change. They hope to bring needed attention to climate change in a creative and attention-grabbing way. Please note that students had no previous filmmaking experience, no actors, and no money to spend on this project! For more information about this project and the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative, please visit http://www.uml.edu/centers/climate-change
First the “trailer”, which is sort of a collection of scenes from all the videos:
Next up “Mystery Man” perhaps they were thinking of Gavin in the role he made famous?
And then there’s this one, the “climate change monster in the closet”. I thought that the addition of “my home melted” was a nice touch, it was very Rommian.
You can watch the whole series here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL096C9CF4439BDB50
This rubbish doesn’t surprise me when I consider this:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/18/106949/study-many-college-students-not.html
“Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn’t determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin.”
Maybe they meant it to be aimed at kindergarten level ?
Was Gore the undocumented professor for this class? Unworthy of a high school sociology class and unworthy of any kind of science class.
This may be related…
NASA Announces 2010 Global Climate Change Education Awards
WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded $7.7 million in cooperative agreements to 17 organizations across the United States to enhance learning through the use of NASA’s Earth science resources. The selected organizations include colleges and universities, nonprofit groups, and a community college.
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The 17 proposals will fund organizations in Washington, D.C., and 13 states: California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Winning proposals were selected through a merit-based, peer-reviewed competition. The performance period is up to three years and awards range in value from $300,000 to $700,000.
I think these people have been drinking to much soda pop or perhaps not drinking enough.
How much CO2 is used in making soda pop every year here in the USA? Some folks have said that they have seen figures as high as 1.5 million metric tonnes. This seems really high, but so does 148 billion 2 liter bottles of carbonated beverages per year here in the USA.
You could say that this does not add to global warming greenhouse gases, the CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere. We just need to drink more soda to clear the earth’s atmosphere of this greenhouse gas.
Now, if we could just get the beverage companies to market their products to these young fools, saying that by drinking more soda pop, you can help save the earth. My idea could be a real windfall for the beverage companies. Perhaps they would send me a free two liter bottle of me favorite soda ever month for coming up with the marketing idea.
My 12 year old granddaughter knows more about science than these people will ever learn in their life time.
I do believe that U.S. tax rates need to be raised, but after seeing this — we are not ready to raise rates yet; we must reduce / eliminate such waste and politically-motivated expenditures.
Color me surprised…
Climate Change Initiative Faculty Members
Vanessa Gray
Political Science
David Lustick
Graduate School of Education
Eric Nelson
Philosophy
Thomas Shea
Biological Sciences
Who could have thought Poli Sci types would have been responsible for “science” such as this?
This is college??
I don’t blame these students one bit, I remember what it was like in undergrad science. These students got the grades they were targeting for producing these emotion based propaganda films.
I wonder what would have happened had a student produced a skeptic climate film? An “F” that’s what would have happened.
My 20 year old son has told me for a couple of years now, his teachers are “crazy”, they “rant”, etc. His English teacher spent two semesters detailing her battle with Baldwin Construction (they were mining gravel near her home). His social studies professor put the class in groups and then sat and let them spend the entire semester on these really childish presentations, only discussing the textbook immediately before a test. My son says he’s had enough, he’s not going to enroll for the fall semester. I’ve had enough of paying for it, frankly. I went to college, I know what goes on in there. I felt like I was escaping the looney bin when I got out, I still don’t like walking on campus, gives me the heebie geebies.
Meanwhile, my 15 year old and I are homeschooling. We wanted to see the other side of the climate argument, so we checked out an online copy of the textbook used by Mark Stemen in his geography classes – it was so bad, my kid wouldn’t read it beyond the first chapter. It opens up telling the student they don’t know anything, anything they thought they knew had been placed into their heads by their parents, etc. Very demeaning – just like any mind control ritual. And, Stemen gets to pick and choose who is allowed in his class, so he doesn’t get any pokey question askers.
I’m really depressed about the state of higher education – it’s like extortion – do what we say or you won’t ever get a decent job.
I just graduated from Umass-Lowell with a degree in Atmospheric Science/Meteorology. Our department is not responsible for this junk. In fact, I was the president of our American Meteorology Society student chapter this past year and I was never approached about participating (I would have declined). I don’t want to speak for anybody but myself but the fact is the majority of us believe in climate variability. I spent most of last year trying to convince others of natural oscillations such as the PDO, AMO etc. Don’t get me wrong, I know the majority of the department are believers in AGW. However please don’t think all of the student’s there are moonbats too. I kept my mouth shut for most of my time at Lowell because it wasn’t my place to argue with the faculty while I was an undergrad. I saw these posters around campus and wished they would have an open and honest debate about it with meteorology majors but thats just not going to happen. My friends and I sat in on one of these climate change discussions and we had to leave, it was that bad.
My 2011 Atlantic hurricane season forecast is at my website if anyone is interested, I was able to present it at the student research symposium. Big concern for the North Carolina, south Florida, and Texas coastlines…we do have a damn good atmospheric science program at lowell and I’m certainly proud of my degree, but I dislike the liberal lean of the university and this is further proof of that.
REPLY: Zack, thank you for clarifying the issue about Umass, and thank you for having the courage to speak your mind. I know I speak for most everyone at WUWT in saying that we are encouraged by your views on climate variability and we wish you success in your career. – Anthony Watts
heres my webpage…
http://cmasswx.blogspot.com/
It’s fun to see that the students do not have a single thing right—all claims and worries are straight IPCC claptrap and lies. They should now demand a refund, unless these videos were for a fictional film-making course.
Of course, their knowledge agrees completely with the observation that they do not have a single piece of defensible science on which to base these claims.
By the time Gore released his science fiction thriller, global warming was already history. He missed the window of opportunity completely.
Notice in the second video, at around 0:50, the student says, “In the not too distant future, most coastal cities will be under water.” At the current rate, that should take about 10,000 years.
I assume that getting your facts correct was not a key point in making these videos.
So this is what passes for “science” at UMass?
I’m so glad I graduated from a real University.
I wonder if the monster in the closet was a reference to Gavin. I don’t think he’s a monster but the kid had a hockey stick. Will Gavin come out of the closet?
Those productions are simply so damn stupid that they are funny! My third-grade granddaughter could do much better!
Hey Don I’ll put my degree from Umass up with yours any day of the week. Don’t judge the whole university based off of these videos.
The reader who mentioned Richard Arum’s work has the best read on this. Kids (but not mine) grow up without ever being taught how to think critically. The education system just leaves this bit out. No more logic, no more debating (except as rhetoric), no problem analysis and solving. They simply don’t have the mental skills to determine the difference between opinions and facts – they end up thinking that facts are just made up depending on the bias of the source — so they chose the source they like the best. It never occurs to them to do any fact-checking. Anyone who thinks that climate science has an exclusive on absurdities being passed off as ‘science’ should do a quick review of the health and nutrition field — where looniness is apparently its own reward.
EPIC FAIL IN THE VIDEOS, ZackG congrats on your degree. I said it a few years ago here. There is no better climate scientist than a Meterologist, that is what they learn!
“Anyone who thinks that climate science has an exclusive on absurdities being passed off as ‘science’ should do a quick review of the health and nutrition field — ”
I agree with that comment. Only a few years ago it was discovered that the coveted “8 glasses of water a day” mantra was simply made-up by someone several decades ago, and over that time no one actually investigated its validity. Over 60 years no ever questioned it. Nothing could be found in the literature, ever. Whole industries have been built around the 8 glasses a day thing and health/nutritionists have been mindlessly repeating the claim all along.
What next at the University of Massachusetts? A student re-make of Der ewige Jude to gain a full understanding of (and complete buy-in with) National Socialist German Workers’ Party policies regarding “the immutable racial personality traits that…characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite“?
Hm. Are these students also getting their daily Two Minutes’ Hate?
Everybody knows, of course, that Emmanuel Goldstein is the driving force behind the “denier” movement, and the very personification of “Mr. Climate Change.”
They are pitiful propaganda attempts, using various appeals to emotion, albeit in a playful, childish way. Notice the “bloopers video”. They have a hard time keeping a straight face a lot of the time. Even they must know how bad they are.
Uhh, I don’t think these guys are science graduates, at least their understanding of chemistry is kind of limited;
At one point the guy says “how would *you* like to swim in a bath of acid”; if that is what they have been taught, it is really quite scary. It is more correct to talk about the sea becoming less ‘basic’ (less bleach like), CO2 makes it more ‘neutral’.
Have to admit though, “baths of acid” sounds better than “more neutral” – if you want to scare the crap out of your 7yr old sister – or typical US politician.
You all have your heads in the sand.
It’s not like they just spend most of a quarter learning about climate change science. These students spent most of the SEMESTER learning about climate change science.