This guy (Headmaster Rob Benzie) has become Scrooge in England, except he doesn’t provide even one lump of coal, because, well that would mess up his “carbon footprint”. This is just too bizarre not to pass on, thanks to The Daily Bayonet who writes:
A headmaster at a British school decided a great lesson in sustainability would be to turn off the heat for a day. In December:
Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C. The school’s headmaster, Rob Benzie, shut down the radiators as an experiment to show students how the school could cut its carbon footprint.
The headmaster is unapologetic and wants to do it again:
…headteacher Mr Benzie, 52, defended the day, saying it was ‘a success.’ ‘We turned off the heating as an experiment to see if we can lower our carbon footprint,’ he said. ‘We allowed pupils to wear as many jumpers as they liked and everyone seemed to be happy enough although it did get pretty chilly. ‘We gave letters to pupils to take home to their parents informing them about the eco day. ‘We only had one complaint and that came from a member of staff but they just got on with it in the end.’
Mr Benzie said he hoped to repeat the eco day again next term.
The local school authority and parents should probably teach Mr. Benzie the lesson that freezing children to push a radical green agenda makes his job unsustainable, before he does something really stupid.
Funny thing, his experiment likely backfired.
The kids will remember this and vow never to be cold again !
If a headmaster pulled a similar stunt in the name of any OTHER wacked-out apocalyptic cult, he’d be in jail for multiple counts of assault.
However, there may be a good side. The kids who had to suffer a day without heat will now look forward with pleasant anticipation to the “future nightmarish world when everything is 90000000000000000000000000 degrees warmer.” This will sound good by comparison.
Sounds like to me he taught the childern a lesson on what it would be like without a source of heat. I hope they learned.
“We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey teacher leave them kids alone”
What an unreconstructed pillock.
Let the wrath of his fellow travellers, the ‘Health & Safety mob’ descend upon the man.
Bah! Humbug!
Duncan, Tiverton, Devon, UK
(just down the road from the above cited idiot – and damned cold it is too)
my wild guess is that he’ll help to create some skeptical young thinkers who begin to look critically at CAGW extremism….
Hopefully the lesson that the children learned was that of the importance of cheap energy and how it makes life so much better.
Mr. Benzie did, of course, walk to work that day? To have a completely honest footprint, naturally.
What would really round out his demonstration is when he gets an infection, the antibiotics he needs aren’t available….the pharmaceutical stopped production to lower their carbon footprint too.
The irony though, freezing the kids to teach them about warming. The lesson’s lost on me. ‘Bout as effective as teaching kids about the evils of chocolate by starving them.
[snip – over the top – Anthony]
I think he taught the children a very valuable lesson, just how STUPID environmental extremists can be!!! ;-))
Let’s get this straight, this moronic [snip] deliberately allowed the working temperature in his establishment to fall below the minimum legal standards required by the Workplace(health, safety and welfare) regulations 1992 and the Education(School Premises) Regulations 1999 . And he is planning to deliberately do it again. A word with the board of governers about not having a moronic [snip] as a headteacher and with the HSE about prosecution should be the logical next step. A criminal offense has been committed here.
While his pupils can have little recourse under UK law his staff can walk off the job if the temperature in their work place is under 60F one hour after their official time to start work. This man is deliberately breaching UK Health & Safety laws and as such is risking prosecution, fines and even imprisonment.
Skiphil has it right. This shows that lowering “Carbon Footprint” is neither free nor easy, and that far from “death trains” coal trains have carried life, warmth, heat, and plenty.
One can only hope there are three spare ghosts to visit Master Benzie this Christmas.
Gee, I see this from an entirely different point of view.
His action makes the great point that we need, very much need, our energy sources. He makes it quite obvious that life without something as simple as central heating would be very difficult and unpleasant. As a result, it makes sense that we would want to have cheap energy as home heating is something we have to have a lot, depending on the season and location.
As I see it, he is arguing for using energy, defeating how own cause.
Benzie is the headmaster, yes? The school office building is usually separate from children’s classrooms with regard to heating and AC.
Which brings up the question, did the school office have it’s heat turned off, or did Benzie take advantage of it’s remote climate control system to leave his office nice and toasty?
actually we must thank him….i’m betting he forestalled
.000000000000000000000000000001C of warming…(might be out a couple of zeros)
Why is that we allow nut-cases like this to inflict potential harm on innocent people in order to make some stupid point? This principal ought to be locked up before he decides to expand his experiment to the greater population by blowing up a power plant. We already know he’s capable of crap like this. The difference is only one of degree.
Inhofe to UN Climate Conference in Durban: Kyoto Process is Dead
I’m appalled at a U.K. public that allows its children to be physically abused in this manner.
This teacher should be prosecuted and thrown in jail.
The lesson he taught is that so-called “green” initiatives only cause pain and misery.
Next time he pulls this crap, the parents should teach him a lesson in sustainable practices by keeping their kids home (and off fossil fuel powered transportation).
Whoops, meant to post a link to the last 4 seconds of that video….
Wondering…
One, if he heats his own house.
Two, how he got to be ‘head’ of a school, with a head on his shoulders like that.
Three, how the school board is enjoying being a laughing-stock.
Four, how long he’ll keep his job.
“Don’t demonize energy. Without it life will be short and brutal.” John Christy.
I think this piece proves it very convincingly.
Nothing a good old fashion ass kicking wouldn’t solve.
I think this is a positive experiment! Coupling it to the evil “CARBON” is nonsense of course.
How often do I catch the kids walking around in the house in mid-winter – barefoot in a T-shirt and shorts – with the heating running full blast?
Who pays the electricity bill – not the kids obviously?
This experiment is a lesson in common sense – it has nothing to do with CARBON.
Put a jacket on before you turn up the heating.
Did he also turn off the lights and make the kids walk to school? Pushing so many SUVs around to drop the kids off probably uses nearly as much energy as heating the school.
It would’ve been funny if his stunt had caused the school’s pipes to freeze and burst. Maybe we’ll get better luck next time.
disgraceful. the guy needs to be sacked. Often, schools have to close for some days of the year when the heating has failed – as it is illegal to work in such conditions under UK law (Factories Offices and Schools act, I think?). If my kids were at the school, there would be serious complaints to the Local Education Authority………….
I am thinking of the thousands of Welsh miners who risked life and limb going into the coal mines to power the industrial revolution in Britain and heat their world. They would beat that man to a pulp in a heart beat.
What is wrong with these people? They are such troglodytes.
I hope they bring him rotten apples for Christmas.
TheGoodLocust says:
December 7, 2011 at 11:41 am
“Whoops, meant to post a link to the last 4 seconds of that video….”
It was much better this way! 🙂
Too bad it didn’t get cold enough for pipes to burst. I agree with Bob Diaz – great way to teach kids to beware of the danger of zealotry overriding reason.
Maybe they should be teaching this as a geography lesson at the school. The lesson is if you want to go without heat, energy, and a carbon footprint then move closer to the tropics. The Greens should be advocating forced relocation and see how that goes over, Otherwise don’t complain that in the northern or southern lattitudes mankind will burn wood, coal and other fossil fuels to overcome the environment and climate.
Too bad it only got to 1°C, if it had got to -5°C or so they could have billed him for the burst pipes. Hopefully next time it will be colder and the students can stay home for the week the fix all the busted pipes.
IMHO, given my experience with raising boys who seem to prefer walking home from school in sub-zero (Celsius) weather in T-shirts — rather than being put to the bother of putting on their sweatshirts and jackets — the younger children probably barely even noticed. The teachers, on the other hand….
he’s got form….
from this report in April 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-13011578
“The head teacher at Ansford School, Rob Benzie, said there had been a big shift in attitudes in schools, away from harsh, traditional discipline. (read classic left leaning school policies moving away from traditional policies that worked)
He said exclusions did not work as they alienated people from society.
“It doesn’t help schools, individuals or society in general. We need to build relationships which are mutual and respectful,” he said.”
However, an unnamed teacher from the same County was quoted as saying..”staff were under pressure to keep exclusion figures low.”
Maybe he wants to freeze them into submission
If the kids all freeze to death, then they have really cut their future carbon footprints. We need that sort of self-sacrifice if we are to save humanity.
~More Soylent Green!
This just shows how poor the school was insulated, a school full of children should have kept warmer, and the fact it went down to 1 degree overnight is just unbelievable!
As always we must first review the usual checklist before verifying the (in)sanity of this green death cult member …
[A] Is this an Onion story?
[B] Is it April Fools Day?
[C] Is he a deep cover skeptic using PsyOps?
Well option [C] is certainly a possibility (illustrating green absurdity by being absurd). I suspect our English friends will be able to determine this by looking into his career record and he will be found out to be a bonafide green eco-kook.
Most troubling to me is this …
Not a single parent seems to have cared a wit about their kids spending a day “in class as temperatures dropped to 1C.” This is unbelievable. These are kids, they are not wise to regulating body temp to avoid illness. I can see them getting hot in their hats and coats and then taking them off to cool off and the idiotic faculty not noticing. Then comes the flu or pneumonia. I guess it will require at least one dead child to penetrate the dense skulls of the eco-zealots.
Still, the parents worry me a lot more than this warped greenie. They are acting like beaten down wards of the nanny state, bending over and taking everything offered up by the progressive establishment. Is there any hope over there? I cannot believe that this would ever occur here (except perhaps in liberal infested SF or NYC or Chicago, etc). In most districts here in the states I would bet that the teacher/principal would require security to walk to his car at the end of the day after pulling this stunt.
We’ve had this for a couple of years here in Belgium, they call it “Dikke-truiendag” (“Sweater Day”). Most schools just turn the heat a few degrees down, but some principals go as far as to turn it off completely.
And the evening news invariably tells us it was “good fun”.
I found this quote from the head master familiar and funny.
“The idea was actually thought up by a small group of pupils from our student eco-group”
It’s Ironic that there are hundreds of thousands of children who live in fuel poverty in the UK and who wake up to a cold home in the mornings all through winter, maybe they should ask those kids what it’s like having a low carbon foot print.
As I posted over there:
The local school authority and parents should take the headmaster to court for breaking the law:
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 stipulate that during working hours, temperatures in workplaces (including maintained and independent schools, and FE colleges) should be reasonable. The employer must provide a suitable number of thermometers to enable the temperature to be checked throughout the workplace.
As far as maintained schools in England and Wales are concerned, the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999 prescribe minimum standards for temperatures (which should be measured at 0.5 metres above floor level) as follows:
Use of area Minimum temperature
Lower than normal level of physical activity, eg sick rooms 21°C
Normal level of physical activity, eg classrooms and libraries 18°C
Higher than normal levels of physical activity, eg gyms and drama workshops 15°C
Stupid green Prat.
Please clip the previous comment – wrong link.
The IPCC AR5 ZOD paleo chapter has been leaked.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IJ40UFBT
Why try explaining the unexplainable. Five words (I didn’t make them up, but if the shoe fits) – Liberalism is a mental disorder.
The criticisms here show a blinkered side of the skeptics who blog here. At least some have seen the good side of this article. The “carbon footprint” is the objectionable part, not the practical experience of life without electricity. This is a good experience for the children and it helps to stimulate the thinking about energy and how to survive in unusual circumstances. In the 70’s in England we had the 3 day week. In the 80’s we had the coal strike. It is not so bad sitting in a cold house with candle light when you know that the power will be on again in a few hours. It may not always be so, particularly not in the next few years.
I think the big lesson in this issue is for skeptics to avoid slipping into a mindset where everything that is used to promote the AWG agenda is bad. Don’t allow this closed mind attitude to stunt the skeptic cause.
I was just wondering IF this eco day might have more to do with the headmaster trying to save money than the planet…Maybe this way,the headmaster doesn’t have to admit that he’s made a complete arse of the schools budget instead..
We need to look a bit closer at this story. The basic fact of turning the heating off seems correct. It all seems pointless as the lesson that was imparted seems entirely counter productive to the intention, as the kids will want energy and to keep warm.
However, this is the South West of England, not far from where I live. The temperature might have touched 1C outside over night, but it was more like 10C during the day. With a bit of sunshine the temperature inside the school might have been a little chilly but certainly not ‘1Degree’
Undoubtedly it was a stupid eco experiment, against the Health and Safety act whereby a minmum temperature must be provided in the work place, but the basic facts seem to have become a little embroidered.
tonyb
jfisk:
The totality of your post at December 7, 2011 at 12:15 pm says;
“This just shows how poor the school was insulated, a school full of childrenvab le” should have kept warmer, and the fact it went down to 1 degree overnight is just unbelievable!”
Perhaps, but it is certain that it is “just unbelievable” anybody other than an idiot would have provided your post.
Richard
Jeff Id
I don’t know what you thought you were linking to,but it certainly was nothing to do with the
IPCC 🙂
tonyb
Do our schools still send high school kids out on assignments to sleep outside on the streets to see what being homeless is like? How is this any different, or any less idiotic?
There are Health and Safety Laws to prevent this kind of stupidity.
When I were a lad, back in the Winter of Discontent 1978/9, we were sent home from school when the boilers ran out of oil and there were no deliveries because of the strikes. It was a jolly cold winter too.
Although there is no hard and fast rule in the H & S At Work Act 1974, the 1992 regulation states:
‘The temperature in workrooms should normally be at least 16 degrees Celsius unless much of the work involves severe physical effort in which case the temperature should be at least 13 degrees Celsius. These temperatures may not, however, ensure reasonable comfort, depending on other factors such as air movement and relative humidity.’
Strangely enough, there do not appear to be regulations about the maximum temperature, just that suitable cooling should be provided.
vigilantfish says:
December 7, 2011 at 12:05 pm
IMHO, given my experience with raising boys who seem to prefer walking home from school in sub-zero (Celsius) weather in T-shirts — rather than being put to the bother of putting on their sweatshirts and jackets — the younger children probably barely even noticed. The teachers, on the other hand….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Walking is an entirely different kettle of fish then sitting all day long. I often strip to a shirt when working out doors or X country skiing, even in minus 20 °C. However I am sitting wearing a sweat shirt in the house.
Nitpick Larry’s stoopid question of the day: What about the mold issue?
If Rob “Footprint” Benzie PERMANENTLY turned off the heat, his school would be shut down, because of toxic mold. In a cool damp climate, your buildings need some heating to prevent that from happening. Great lesson in sustainability you’ve got there, Rob. /sarc
Tony,
It is the zero order draft for AR5. The link worked fine for me.
@ Richard S Courtney says:
December 7, 2011 at 12:51 pm
jfisk:
The totality of your post at December 7, 2011 at 12:15 pm says;
“This just shows how poor the school was insulated, a school full of childrenvab le” should have kept warmer, and the fact it went down to 1 degree overnight is just unbelievable!”
Perhaps, but it is certain that it is “just unbelievable” anybody other than an idiot would have provided your post.
———-
Not sure what you see as so idiotic. If the state in the UK is enforcing green totalitarianism and penalizing people who warm their homes with higher energy costs, then the state should lead the way in responsibility by properly insulating school buildings. We turn the heat OFF in our home overnight (I live in Toronto) and it is very rare except when temperatures dip below -20 that our house reaches as low as 10 degrees by early morning.
On average and overall I’d say good on the lad and not just because my primary school consisted of: Room 1= a converted chapel and Room 2 was a large wooden shed. Room 3 was the outside toilet block. And boys had to wear shorts till age 8.
These kids are getting an education in the value of ‘energy. I’ll wager that the parents dare not pull a similar stunt at home. Another good lesson for them was that strike that their teachers went on last week, They’ll have learn’t a lot about hypocrisy and the ‘me me me society’ from that little (ongoing) saga.
Also, we’ll remember reading about the various wind turbine experiments being conducted in school playgrounds, a proven fail Invaluable.
UK education gets interesting/real after years of just memorising stuff for the purpose of passing exams.
Don’t take just my word for it neither..Google’s boss says
Umm, the links didn’t show up too well 🙁
proven fail= http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/06/wind-turbine-fail-school-left-holding-the-bag-for-53000/
and
Google boss= http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2011/08/26/google-boss-attacks-uk-education-115875-23374777/
i find it vastly interesting and entertaining that the passages that managed to dodge the skips in these comments are four letter and four syllable items that would make a marine just out of boot camp blush.
this fellow has managed to irritate most of the group and my best advice on his future is that if you scout around you probably can find 10foot bullwhips for about $12 each in bundles of a dozen.
:-)))
C
I think he’s setting appropriate expectations for the children. Zero carbon footprint = zero heat. Now the little kiddies have that expectation well planted in their minds and will be more accepting of zero heat as a good thing when it happens. Now, when the blackouts hit at home, they can eagerly reassure their overly fossil fuel dependent parents that it is not to be seen as an inconvenience or loss of living comfort but rather a glorious opportunity to join in the huddled shivering masses sacrificing and doing their part to save the planet. /sarc
We used to play piano in gloves in the music college in Siberia, it was so cold inside.
Only we did it because there were finger-wide cracks in walls, not because there were cracks in our director’s skull… Oh, wait a minute… Maybe it wasn’t that different, after all.
Myron’s quote from Pink Floyd’ “The Wall” is certainly appropriate with regards to this particular school and teacher. But hopefully, as mentioned by several above, the school kids came away from this idiot’s experiment with an idea that hey, maybe carbon ain’t too bad.
pk says:
December 7, 2011 at 1:28 pm
i find it vastly interesting and entertaining that the passages that managed to dodge the skips in these comments are four letter and four syllable items that would make a marine just out of boot camp blush.
=================================================================
Trust me, it takes an awful lot to make a Marine blush. Even one just out of boot. I was a US active duty combat Marine from ’63 to ’84, and I don’t recall ever blushing. 🙂 Not even in boot camp.
If this experiment had been framed differently, I think many here would approve. E.g., suppose a skeptical teacher had turned down the thermostat in an ecology class he was teaching, or a lecture he was giving, to a bunch of mostly greenie zealots, to “give them a taste of their own medicine.” I’m sure we wouldn’t be outraged!
Another way a skeptic could have framed the experiment would have been as a way of showing what people had to put up with in the past, before central heating–and the blessings of our energy-rich society.
Luxury!
When I were a lad,in my early days at high school,my home had no central heating.
I still remember one cold winter night,doing homework in my room, seeing my own breath and getting so chilled I had to go stand on top of the living-room fire to stop shivering (burning good old British coal).
What do you want from the Brits? Common sense? They give African immigrants million dollar council homes. The EU rips them off for billion and the Brits talk themselves silly. 1/3 of that nation is on welfare. Of course that’s HOME to the East Anglia AGW hysteria. They whine about the BBC but proudly pay their BBC license fees with no one challenging the system over there.
Compared to the above this head master is entirely reasonable.
CuriousGeorge,
I’ve wondered what the odds are of finding someone over at RealClimate who is prior service. Not very high, I’m betting. But then what does this dumb ass former sub torpedoman know? And dumbness must run in the family as I have a son who picked the Corps while in college, graduating from San Diego in 08 and then commissioned in 2010.
If the heating failed in near freezing winter conditions, a responsible headmaster would cancel school for the rest of the day and send the kids home.
This guy should be fired.
Roger, I think understand your spirit and intention, but I think you may be missing the seriousness of this event. Quote ‘If this experiment had been framed differently, I think many here would approve. E.g., suppose a skeptical teacher had turned down the thermostat in an ecology class he was teaching, or a lecture he was giving, to a bunch of mostly greenie zealots, to “give them a taste of their own medicine.” I’m sure we wouldn’t be outraged!’
Perhaps not. But perhaps ‘skeptics’ in general have a higher moral standard and are not willing to subject children to discomfort in order to engage them in politics. Perhaps ‘skeptics’ in general would rather the children were left undisturbed by such fooling-around in order to pursue their studies and enjoy themselves. Perhaps ‘skeptics’ in general respect the basic adult responsibility of shielding the young from speculative fears and destructive mindsets? Perhaps they also feel that those same adults should be sorting this out amongst themselves, and not go sneaking around proper debate in order to indoctrinate the young. Fortunately in this case, the sneaking, the authoritarian ‘we know what’s right for you’, the parroting of fantastical views about ‘carbon footprints’, does seem to have backfired in a big way.
I think the head teacher’s idea was excellent and should be extended. How about turning the heating off in the Houses of Parliament, but for more than just one day. That would show our MPs and Lords what things will be like when we are largely reliant on renewable energy resources such as the wind!
NO,NO,NO !!!!!!
While I’m really sad that the child had to suffer through this stupidity, it is one of the most valuable lessons that can be taught !!!
That is, if you continue to believe that reducing your “carbon footprint” actually means something and all of the Green/Eco wack ideas get implemented, sitting around in the cold will be our future because all of the eco nonsense will have been done and we will have voluntarily stepped back to living in the 19th century!!!
Let us hope that Mr Benzie has not had the class reading Oliver Twist.
It will up the chimney to clear all that nasty soot and bricking them up so that they can never ever be used again:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/25/article-1369746-0B531D7D00000578-921_306x423.jpg
I’m not sure the criticisms are entirely fair – or even true.
The local rag’s article on this is here: http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Somerset-head-teacher-defends-eco-drive-turn/story-14069180-detail/story.html
The Daily Mail story (which as far as I can tell is where the story began) has a number of comments from students saying that the description of conditions in the school were exaggerated: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070496/Staff-parents-fury-head-turns-schools-heating-save-planet.html
IF the temperatures did drop below legal levels then there really is something to complain about, but otherwise it just makes those of us in the skeptical camp look stupid by association with those who believe everything printed in the Daily Mail.
tim56,
Thank you and your son. You too CuriousGeorge.
Presumably this is just a joke report – a sort-of gentler version of the 10:10 idea!?
Derek Sorensen says:
December 7, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“I’m not sure the criticisms are entirely fair – or even true.
The local rag’s article on this is here: http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Somerset-head-teacher-defends-eco-drive-turn/story-14069180-detail/story.html
”
Thanks for posting that. They say it was the students Eco group who suggested one heating free day per week in Winter; so what we have here is the usual bunch of totalitarian do-gooders who try to get away with suppressing the interest of the majority.
So it was not only the headmaster who was a total Richard Cranium but they have strong ecofascistic tendencies amongst the students as well. I’d try to get my kid outta there.
Ok. this demonstration took place on a very cold day. What is CO2 supposed to do the atmosphere?
Thanks Jeff Id. “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute”. Another miracle has happened. Not all of the UN foot soldiers are drinking the koolaid methinks.
The teacher’s actions? Assault, possibly abuse. Both offences at this time in this jurisdiction.
DirkH says:
December 7, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Thanks for posting that. They say it was the students Eco group who suggested one heating free day per week in Winter; so what we have here is the usual bunch of totalitarian do-gooders who try to get away with suppressing the interest of the majority.
Maybe. There again, I’ve not had the headting on more than a couple of hours on a couple of evenings so far this winter, despite it being pretty cold, and I live in the North of England, in a house built in about 1900. This school is presumably more modern and so holds heat better, Somerset is in the south so ought to be quite a bit warmer, and they had the heating on in the morning.
My guess is it’s just Daily Mail sensationalism. Let’s not be distracted from the real issues by our understandable desire to point and laugh at the stupidity of greenies; on this occasion it seems to me the guy might have had a point.
I should send this bozo a copy of an old bumper sticker we displayed on our brief cases in our Mining Engineering Dept at the U of U at a time when the environmentalists were getting really worked up over coal mining:
He can peel off the tape and stick it to his forehead. Or better yet, across his mouth so nobody can hear the garbage coming out.
Reminds me of my childhood, no central heating, bedrooms barely above freezing, frosted windows etc etc, My old Dad said that central heating was the downfall of the British Empire and had bred a nation of softies, perhaps the Head is of that ilk. I await the commments ‘ you were lucky, we had to bathe outside in icy water’ etc
Neither for nor against the Heads madness, enjoy central heating myself, but as previous writers stated am sick of my teenagers lolling about in T shirts with heating on full on so think the Head may be just teaching them about the joys of GCH and to be a bit more respectful of energy per se. (and their parents energy bills)
There is a thing called gross professional misconduct. Mr Benzie should now find out all about it.
pauline says:
December 7, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Reminds me of my childhood, no central heating, bedrooms barely above freezing, frosted windows etc etc,
Frosted on the inside? I remember that.
Kids today …
A good eco lesson indeed, why build any more of those one room “green energy” show case School Houses, when simply going without any energy works just as well?
Derek Sorensen says:
“My guess is it’s just Daily Mail sensationalism. Let’s not be distracted from the real issues by our understandable desire to point and laugh at the stupidity of greenies; on this occasion it seems to me the guy might have had a point.”
I did not read the Daily Mail article; I only read the “local rag” you linked to. They mention the “student eco group”. So stop blaming “Daily Mail sensationalism”.
Isn’t this the type of choice which needs to be made in order to cut CO2 emissions to the level the environmentalists want.
Something has to be given up – either winter heating, vehicle transport, electricity, goods, even food and/or continual power outages if we try to move to renewable power sources (which means all of the above 80% of the time).
The envrionmentalists and the pro-AGW people are trying to sell us on the idea it will be painless if we only force it on everyone.
Well, only in fairy-land is that true.
Of course it would then take – how long to re- heat the school back to normal temperature? a better solution would be to insulate the school properly so that it didn’t drop to 1 degree in a single day. How much energy is that school wasting every day, through a lack of proper sustainable practice?
Roger Knights says:
December 7, 2011 at 1:52 pm
If this experiment had been framed differently, I think many here would approve…
It’s within the context of what is usually discussed here, if it was framed differently it probably wouldn’t be discussed here, So what? It was reported that the parents were angered by the experiment and many here happen to agree with those parents.
And as it is discussed here within the context of how daft these carbon footprint enthusiasts are, here’s another illogical argument from one of these people, actually uttered from the head master Rob Benzie.
“On occasions I have had to turn it down as too much heat can make the students fall asleep”
I wonder how warmer countries keep their students awake through their lessons without the discomfort of being in a cold environment!, maybe Rob Benzie believes their carbon footprint to run air conditioning is acceptable just to keep them awake in class. A guy behaving without any logic in a position to influence young minds does tend to draw attention people.
I’ve sat in a fue classrooms at school during cold winters, it’s not a pleasant experience, luckily we would be sent home.
🙂
@ Gail Combs says:
December 7, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I stand by my claim – my youngest will still just wear a T-shirt if sitting around in a cold room or outside. He seems to by oblivious to the temperature.
I like a cold house, by the way, due to my mid-Atlantic upbringing. I am grateful for comments above which reaffirm my memories from living in Eynsham near Oxford as a 9-year old for half a year in 1970. The house my father rented had only a coal fire on the main floor and an electric fire in the bathroom and master bedroom but no heat in the room I had to share with a sibling. I have memories of waking up on school mornings with frost on my blankets, and trying to dress under the covers. My brothers and I learned to dress warmly and huddle by the fire to play.
I grew to appreciate the pleasures of cooler indoor temperatures, a preference reinforced by a later year-long stint spent in Wales, in another barely-heated old house, and now battle my husband to turn down the thermostat. One experience I did not appreciate from my earlier stay was the mandatory swimming lessons in an outdoor school swimming pool beginning in March, with a fat gym mistress who wore multiple layers of cardigans and jackets whilst she watched us turn blue. I bet Heath and Safety would never allow that nowadays. As Pauline says above, central heating has turned the Brits into softies!
* … from people.
Maybe the lesson for the kids is that they need to get away from their zealous ecofanatic brethren to enjoy freedom.
“Stupid is as stupid does”, Forrest Gump.
Yes, the kids will see stupid things done, they will know who did them.
This folly from the same crowd constantly whining
about Christians ‘imposing their religion’.
Last time the Christians got to do that was Prohibition.
timg56 says:
December 7, 2011 at 2:20 pm
CuriousGeorge,
I’ve wondered what the odds are of finding someone over at RealClimate who is prior service. Not very high, I’m betting. But then what does this dumb ass former sub torpedoman know? And dumbness must run in the family as I have a son who picked the Corps while in college, graduating from San Diego in 08 and then commissioned in 2010.
Give my regards to your son. The Corps needs good officers, now more than ever.
Semper Fi, from an old Gunny. 🙂
Makes you wish for Global Warming.
I can hear it in the school halls now.
“If Global Warming means I can feel my fingers when I write then I am all for it mate”
Ah to be young and subject to the whims of schoolmasters again.
I hope this guy does a real experiment to show the kids his green credentials. He could cut his home off from all forms of fossil fuel energies, including gas & electricity, for the rest of this winter and walk or take a bike to school.
P. Hager says:
December 7, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Thank you. Just thought I’d drop this in, even tho it has nothing to do with the topic. Many people don’t know that there is a very strong and historical bond between the Marine forces of free world countries. Especially so between the USMC and the Royal Marines of GB. I had the honor & pleasure of meeting with the then Sgt Maj of the Royal Marines once, when stationed at Quantico in the ’70’s. An extraordinary man whom I’ll never forget.
I also served for a time with the South Korean Marines during Vietnam. The mutual respect and admiration of these fighting men for each other, regardless of their country of origin, and their commitment and professionalism is beyond belief; and something that the political leaders of many countries (including the USA) would do well to learn from.
If this idiot had tried this malarkey at the school where I taught for 31 years he would have been hounded out of the staff room. Not one of my colleagues believed in global warming. The heating in the school was and still is very basic and a lot of staff wore thermals during the winter. Children congregated in the library during lunchtimes as it was the only reasonably warm place,
Possibly he’s had one too many Scrumpies at the Blue Ball Inn in Triscombe.
I am conflicted!
I don’t know whether this guy is an educator teaching the young skulls full of mush a valuable object lesson or whether he is an idiot teacher displaying his true intelligence.
There is a vast difference between educators and teachers.
So this bloke is a modern day “Green Monk”. Subjecting all who come in contact to his own belief in how “the world should be” rather than how it is.
And he’s the principle of a school?
Get your kids out! Now! Before further damage.
Boy ‘O boy.
Mind you, it does set a good example to the kids of runaway belief as opposed to fact and evidence.
It seems that the real tale may not be extreme – the school head claims the temp. was monitored and did not go below 18C (64.4F). If that’s true (more or less) than it’s merely a nudge and not such a bludgeon. I still think it’s more likely to make students think about where their heat/light/energy comes from and make a good number of them more not less critical of a lot of “green” claims.
If it’s “re-framed” as learning about why energy matters so much to all of us, and why we need rational not romantic analysis of policies etc. then this episode could have many unintended benefits twoard criticism of radical “greens” —
http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Somerset-head-teacher-defends-eco-drive-turn/story-14069180-detail/story.html
I suspect the story is overblown.
IN England schools like workplaces and so on with certain special exceptions such as frozen food warehouses, have to be heated to a minimum temperature.
If not they must close for the interim.
It is a criminal offence not to heat to the minimum temperature which from memory is about the high fifties F.
Kindest Regards
I haven’t read the comments yet but I hope the kids learn a lesson as to what to expect if the greens get their way.
Let’s do it in every school worldwide for 2 weeks in the winter and again for 2 weeks while it’s hot. Make the kids walk at least a mile to and from school. Teachers too. Let them learn what some want for their future, Tell who is behind it. This will make the teachers very happy as most probably push the green agenda. It will be fun and a teachable moment.
Then have the kids vote on the green agenda.
One day just gives them something exciting to talk about. Instead, for a month, provide them with thermal underwear, assign them homework from books – no electronics like computers or TV’s that use nasty coal-fired electric power – and make them walk to and from school [uphill both ways, like we did]. Show them how important fossil fuels are.
For a month. Then take a poll: Yes or No to fossil fuels?
Conspiracy (tin foil) hat on. If I wanted to “cull the herd” I would wind everyone up to believe the world is getting warmer, just on the eve of cooling. I would move people away from having things like really good furnaces, 4WD vehicles, living in non urban settings, etc. I would drive as many farmers out of business as possible. Etc. Sick stuff, I know. Again, this is just a tin foil hat thought experiment.
I was able to retrieve the ZOD.
I couldn’t find any mention of GCRs. Impact of the Sun appears to be described strictly in terms of orbits and TSI variation.
Some interesting things that did make it in:
5-52, lines 53-55:
5-53, lines 2-3:
5-53, lines 20-23:
Myron Mesecke says:
December 7, 2011 at 11:14 am
“We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey teacher leave them kids alone”
So that’s what Roger Waters was talking about….
I’m amazed at the smug tone Mr. [snip] [snip] displays in the process of being a [snip].
“Curiousgeorge says:
December 7, 2011 at 4:11 pm
timg56 says:
December 7, 2011 at 2:20 pm
CuriousGeorge,
I’ve wondered what the odds are of finding someone over at RealClimate who is prior service. Not very high, I’m betting. But then what does this dumb ass former sub torpedoman know? And dumbness must run in the family as I have a son who picked the Corps while in college, graduating from San Diego in 08 and then commissioned in 2010.
Give my regards to your son. The Corps needs good officers, now more than ever.
Semper Fi, from an old Gunny. :)”
Curiousgeorge, timg56 and son,
Thank You All for your service, Gentlemen! And Merry Christmas!!!
“Fidem lesu Christi!”
MtK
I think the headmaster is a skeptic. Good to show these kids why we do not want to make inexpensive fuel unaffordable. Sort of like a field trip. I’ll bet they’ve learned something.
Some great ideas lurk here.
Maybe this should be offered to our green brothers….a massive public experiment….We’ll all voluntarily do without fossil fuel for a week. The end of the week would probably also be the end of “the cause”. I expect most skeptics would survive the experiment just fine.
Did the headmaster also take a [very] cold shower that morning by personally scooping a bucket of water out of the local pond? And did he have the heat and all electricity turned off in his own flat?
SteveSadlov says:
December 7, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Tin foil? Add to your hypothesis the stuff the Obama Administration is dishing out now–you know, the “oh, you can’t do it on your own anymore” mantra and them telling us the loss of individuality and self-reliance is best for the country (and the tax collector) because (but don’t say it out loud) the elites always know best. Pass laws outlawing traditional and time-proven methods of lighting and heating our homes and our factories; force big companies into business relationships that are detrimental to the stockholder and the customer, with the taxpayer footing the bill for all losses. Toss cold water on things like nuclear power and certainly toss it on cold fusion (the quicker and harder the better)–as these would help release the masses from reliance on central energy and central planning; nudge the masses into believing their sovereign countries are old fashioned and outmoded; push them into class conflict with a high dose of envy (which almost always ends in strife), build hatred of the rich and certainly make them disgusted and embarrassed about the fruits of a capitalist economy. Make them uncertain about the future by stressing about taxes, the economy and global warming, and prevent them from open and free discussion by promulgating hate crimes, anti-religious movements, and look down your noses because of their provincial ways and lack of education and disregard for post-normal science. Occupy their places of business and meet every effort at logical and civil dialogue with violence and hatred. Do your best to destroy the traditional family through a constant barrage of Hollywood values, pornography, and drugs; and libel anything conservative at every opportunity–use every ad hominine attack imaginable.
Some people, Steve, would call this whole plan evil rather than “tin foil”. I suppose I’m one of those.
“Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C. “
Do they study Shakespeare at Ansford, I wonder?
This is great! A great advertisement for NOT going carbon zero.
Dickens would have been astounded!
In the UK, there relevant legislation and this is in section 6 of the Offices Shops & Railway Premises Act 1963.
“(2) Where a substantial proportion of the work done in a room to which the foregoing subsection applies does not involve severe physical effort, a temperature of less than 16 degrees Celsius (61F) shall not be deemed, after the first hour, to be a reasonable temperature while work is going on.
(3)…there shall be provided for persons who are employed to work in a room to which… this section would apply, conveniently accessible and effective means of enabling them to warm themselves.
(6)It shall be the duty of the employer of persons for whom means of enabling them to warm themselves are provided in pursuance of subsection (3) of this section to afford them reasonable opportunities for using those means, and if he fails so to do he shall be guilty of an offence.”
The headmaster had better make himself aware of the above because if I was one of the kids I would be consulting a lawyer right NOW!
A later one would be
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which place a legal obligation on employers to provide a “reasonable” temperature in the workplace. Still suggests a minimum temperature in workrooms of at least 16 degrees Celsius.
A lot of old folk do the same “experiment” involuntarily. Check the excess deaths stats. Damn fool.
Richard S Courtney
Perhaps, but it is certain that it is “just unbelievable” anybody other than an idiot would have provided your post.
Just what is your point? apart from extreme rudeness!
Interesting to speculate on the reactions to a teacher trying this in Scotland right now.
That teacher in Devon is government certified as qualified for his post ! ! !
I just hope the children learnt something. They are the future.
A very poor job of fact-checking on this story. WUWT? But quite a few snappy shots against enviros – a rather sad statement on the herd mentality. Where is the “skeptic” mindset that is so celebrated on this forum?
Did no one think to check the local forecast at Castle Cary before firing off vitriolic posts about the headmaster?
http://uk.weather.com/weather/monthly-Castle-Cary-UKXX1535
What about the comments made by locals on the Mail Online story?
I would say that we should do better next time but I shudder ( not because of cold ) to think that we might actually do worse.
Are people really believing that the classroom temp dropped to 1 deg C? The article is clearly very badly written, possibly intentionally, but nowhere does it say that the temp inside reached 1 deg C. This is very important!!!!! People are being outraged without understaning the facts. A day in a classroom at 14 deg C will do no harm, and I suspect that the effect of lots of kids in a room will ultimately warm things up (try being in a crowded room).
Perhaps the electricity had to be diverted to Paul Tooles house
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/somerset/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9254000/9254837.stm
“A homeowner in Wells is attracting international attention for his festive lights display.
Paul Toole – who has spent around £15,000 on approximately 40,000 lights – even decided to fly over American singer Judy Pancoast to help switch them on.
BBC Points West’s Steve Powell went to see them and get in the Christmas spirit. “
Speaking of schools. OT….
A head teacher in the US asked his class what their fathers did for a living. There was a builder , a doctor, a taxi driver etc. plus a Penn State paedophile.
So the head gets a letter to this guy and has him visit the school. ‘What on EARTH were you thinking? telling your son that you are a Penn state sex offender?’
‘Well , I am actually a Pen State climate scientist, but I was too ashamed to tell him’
joke/
Wow. That’s my old school. If it’s pretty much the same old buildings, then that would have been very cold.
We can salvage their experience as educational by indicating that it was a lot like going to school back in November 1941, in Leningrad.
This man is a fool.
@mwhite 40,000 lights? That’s it? Wot a ruddy amateur. Danny Meikle who lives in, .. wait for it … COALBURN, Lanarkshire has been running a 1.2 MILLION light display at Christmas for over a decade.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80663546@N00/2150961293/
Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C. The school’s headmaster, Rob Benzie, shut down the radiators as an experiment to show students how the school could cut its carbon footprint.
I think there is an i missing out of this paragraph!
Last year in North Texas there were electrical outages. They were caused by excessive freezing that froze water pipes at coal fired electric producers. The lesson is more brown outs when there is more irrational central planning of energy.
Man made brown outs and energy crisis is coming.
higley7 says:
December 7, 2011 at 11:28 am
Gee, I see this from an entirely different point of view.
His action makes the great point that we need, very much need, our energy sources. He makes it quite obvious that life without something as simple as central heating would be very difficult and unpleasant. As a result, it makes sense that we would want to have cheap energy as home heating is something we have to have a lot, depending on the season and location.
As I see it, he is arguing for using energy, defeating how own cause.
—-
Just another example of how when you let these climate-crazies speak & do stuff, they do crazy dumb things that backfire on their own argument. My only question is that why does someone somewhere always have to suffer when these thick people want to proclaim their stupidity? To me it suggests they are not just stupid but also selfish.
It in any case gives me an idea of comparing personality traits between those who believe and those who think the whole AGW thing is a fart in a teacup; starting with IQ!!
mwhite says:
December 8, 2011 at 2:06 am
“A homeowner in Wells is attracting international attention for his festive lights display.
Paul Toole – who has spent around £15,000 on approximately 40,000 lights ”
I hope these are curly bulbs, or we’ll miss the Kyoto target again. (And we’ll all be doomed)
I cant believe that there are so many people not only interested in this story but know nothing of the true facts or figures behind why the Principle had carried out a eco day. My kids go to this school and they noticed no change at all the vast majority understood the reasons behind the day and fully supported it. The temp didn’t drop below 17.5 c all day. Most of the info posted on these types of sites is bollocks.
This guy had an excellent idea only he quit too soon…………….
Start it on Monday morning without telling anyone and go all week without heat.
Also, no cooking in school and the lighting should remain off. No computers, no A / V equipment and most important, no school bell without electricity.
This would be more real than just one day. I imagine by Friday the classroom chairs would all be empty. I can see this being a great promotion for home schooling.
His experiment was nothing like reducing carbon footprint to 19th century. He’s a wimp.
In the words of the immortal Bugs Bunny ” What a maroon”.
Let’s ensure our kids need mental help as they grow up and wonder how much their parents must have hated them.
I still like the phrase “man made climate fear”
It would serve Headmaster Rob Benzie right if he were to be frozen out of his position and promotions. Doing so would improve the sustainability of the health and welfare of the children in his care and the financcial health of his organization.
You missed the whole point of the criticisms, evidently because you fail to understand the basic problem. It isn’t so much the temperatures we are concerned about as it is the presumptuousness of this government worker and his governmental organization arrogating the power and authority to dictate the behavior of the children entrusted to their care without regard to parental rights.
There are some of us in the United States who are descendants of French Huegenot immigrants. Our ancestors suffered at the hands of French Royalist soldiers who were quartered by the King in their homes to intimidate, abuse, and molest the family for their crime of practicing their Protestant religious faith instead of the State mandated Roman Catholic faith. Likewise for those of our ancestors who emigrated from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to escape the Roman Catholics, Church of England, and assorted other would be dictators of an individual person’s thoughts, beliefs, and conduct.
Where in today’s Europe is the Enlightenment which embraces the right of a person to exercise liberty of thought, action, and education of their own children? Are not there more than a few people left in Europe who have not yet become sheep awaiting the slaughter by their self-appointed masters, or do the most recent wars in the Balkans foreshadow the Things To Come in a Europe that failed to learn from its past mistakes attempting to exert control of the masses by the elites?
DM Marshall and James
Yes some of us did check out the temperatures and the facts. This is a bit of a storm in a tea cup. Children working a few hours in temperaturres slightly cooler than normal (not remotely near 1 degree) could be a valuable lesson. Whether it is the valuable lesson that was intended might be a different thing of course 🙂
tonyb
Come on. This was a good exercise. It taught the kids what it is like without energy. They probably learned more in one day than they learned in a month.
As has been said many times above, I’ve often thought a great thing to do was have everybody reduce their carbon footprint for a day and really understand the benefits of carbon based energy. Thought that could really trigger the end of CAGW movement. Realize it is not possible (who’s going to shut down a hospital for a day?) but this does demonstrate the idiocy of the headmaster.
I should have said, ‘If this experiment had been framed differently and applied to an older group of students (not “children,” IOW), I think many here would approve.’ But that was sort of implicit in talking about an ecology class, which is typically a college course, and greenie zealots, who are typically college-age students.
See my partial backpedal above.
wow! this takes me back to 1973 and the 3 Day Week…when we did exams by candle-light in unheated rooms….it was cold and horrible but at least we kids were writing and thinking. For the exam invigilators, it must have been almost unendurable. For a headteacher to inflict this on his staff and pupils verges on sadism – and that is surely not to be encouraged in the education system.
@ D. Patterson says:
December 8, 2011 at 8:09 am
DMarshall says:
December 8, 2011 at 12:57 am
[….] Where is the “skeptic” mindset that is so celebrated on this forum?
You missed the whole point of the criticisms, evidently because you fail to understand the basic problem. It isn’t so much the temperatures we are concerned about as it is the presumptuousness of this government worker and his governmental organization arrogating the power and authority to dictate the
=====================================================================
Good post! 🙂 I think you have summarized quite well.
There has just been a report about this on the west country news.
Turning off the heating was the pupils’ own idea – they did it on the basis that they would get the money saved from the heating bill spent on outdoor facilities – and there are few enough of those available in English schools. The classroom temperatures ‘dropped’ to 16.5C and the pupils want to do the exercise again to get more funding for their project.
The mistake that was made was to link this to ‘global warming’, whatever that is . .
Storm in a misreported teacup.
Has this clown been fired yet?
Neil Jones says:
While his pupils can have little recourse under UK law his staff can walk off the job if the temperature in their work place is under 60F one hour after their official time to start work. This man is deliberately breaching UK Health & Safety laws and as such is risking prosecution, fines and even imprisonment.
IIRC it’s 18C (64F) for a sedentary situation. Such as a classroom.
16C (61F) where people are active. So if it were to get as low as 60F even the PE teachers can go home.
There’s probably some law the pupils could use against the school for failing to provide them with education.
Roger Knights says:
December 8, 2011 at 9:22 am
“See my partial backpedal above.”
Nicely done! 😉
Consider this thought experiment. Ask yourself how many of these same students would “want to do the exercise again to get more funding from the State for their project” if the exercise entailed their personally delivering a small box wrapped in paper to the families of skeptics? Then ask yourself how many of these same students would choose to refuse their personally delivering a small box wrapped in paper to the families of skeptics in the face of the State insisting they do so? After conducting this thought experiment, does the “project” still appear to be so innocuous given the recent past history of Europe?
As a parent of a child at this school I do think I need to clarify things. The actual article is greatly distorted. Yes there was an eco day where the heating was turned off but it wasn’t as cold as being reported and the temperature was constantly checked. I think whoever went to the press has an axe to grind.
Although nobody was harmed, all the children were fine and the school received no complaints I have a big problem with the way our children are taught about CO2 and global warming. Its not just Ansford but virtually every school in the country that feels the need to show its eco credentials. The national curriculum is riddled with man is killing the planet and there is no balance but thats another story. As a parent you just have to grit your teeth and say nothing because nothing will change and you will be seen as a troublemaker and maybe things could be difficult for your child.
This story is just press alarmism, in fact Rob Benzie has put in a complaint to the press complaints commission.
From the innumerable surrenders to the less discomforting and seemingly innocent trespasses comes the habit of surrender to the most disturbing and monstrous trespasses destructive of humanity itself.
Aunty Freeze says:
December 8, 2011 at 11:57 am
“…I need to clarify things. The actual article is greatly distorted.”
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve read or watched reports of a “greatly distorted” and exaggerated media claim, in fact it’s a running issue with sceptical views of man made global warming, have a noisy around some sceptical blogs and web sites, count how many “greatly distorted” and exaggerated media claims there are on the effects of man made climate change, Rob Benzie was happy to go eco-politico with kids, and try to influence the media the way he would like, but unfortunately for him it back fired.
Most people don’t believe everything they read in the papers, do they?
Sparks says:
December 8, 2011 at 12:44 pm
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve read or watched reports of a “greatly distorted” and exaggerated media claim, in fact it’s a running issue with sceptical views of man made global warming, have a noisy around some sceptical blogs and web sites, count how many “greatly distorted” and exaggerated media claims there are on the effects of man made climate change, Rob Benzie was happy to go eco-politico with kids, and try to influence the media the way he would like, but unfortunately for him it back fired.
believe me i know only too well how much alarmism and seriously over the top stories are in the media. I have been a skeptic for a few years and have been reading Antony’s blog for 2.5 years. I just had to point out that this story was grossly exaggerated.
Misreported or not, is this really a storm in a teacup, or is it the leading edge of an oncoming human catastrophe? Ask yourself by what right/s the government claims the authority to teach your children what they should and should not think about the subject of environmentalism and behaviors toward environmentalism? At what point does the government trespass upon the rights of the parents to teach their own children about science? At what point are parents obligated to hold their government accountable for trespassing upon the parental rights and other rights of free Englishmen?
Aunty Freeze says:
December 8, 2011 at 1:47 pm
..
What was grossly exaggerated? A school head master did turn the heating off to make an eco-political point about the fictitious dangers of Co2. And he used your own kids as pawns.
What part of the article was actually exaggerated? was it someones opinion of the estimated temperature when the heating was turned off?
I understand where you’re coming from, but did we read the same article? 🙂
James says: December 8, 2011 at 7:08 am
I cant believe that there are so many people not only interested in this story but know nothing of the true facts or figures… The temp didn’t drop below 17.5 c all day. Most of the info posted on these types of sites is bollocks.
If true, this min. temperature is only a half degree below legal min. We have two skeptic posters with firsthand knowledge here, James and Auntie Freeze, who both maintain most of this post is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. But there are still possible incidental lessons, as other writers point out.
I cannot charge warmists to practice Nullius in Verba and let its absence pass on my co-skeptics’ number one science site. Can I suggest that much of the indignation is really better directed to the appallingly low standard of science now taught?
BTW there is, as some writers point out, an ancient masochistic streak in some of us Brits (well, not me!) which everyone else finds completely incomprehensible.
Don says: December 7, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Possibly he’s had one too many Scrumpies at the Blue Ball Inn in Triscombe.
Haha. Not very close to Ansford. But the Blue Balls at Lynmouth, Wellington, Braunston and Sidford are none of them very close.
However… if people here would like to meet up at one of these, I’d be game! eg email me.
It was a cool experiment. I mean it was cool, really.
@D. Patterson I commend you on a skillful spin of an essentially harmless experiment, suggested by students and approved or not objected to by the forewarned parents into a history lesson of oppression with a final flourish into expounding on gov’t interference.
And I understand it took only 7 minutes for 1st comment, but it was over 1 1/2 hours and more than 40 comments in, before the 1st reasonable comment, by BargHumer, was posted, immediately following a comment about Liberalism being a mental defect and after numerous others calling for Headmaster Benzie to be sacked and flogged.
At least jfisk demonstrated some perception although is was
climatereason who gave the 1st comment worthy of a true skeptic shortly thereafter but the thread quickly reverted to a slew of pointless and repetitive ranting.
While a few individuals did attempt to be reasonable, it was Derek Sorensen who 1st took the trouble to check the facts.
Despite his efforts, there were still an embarrasing number who kept dialing up the noise and drowning out what little signal was to be found in this comment thread.
Please try to do better in the future, folks; this was not your finest hour.
A bit late, but if you want climate craziness, this is a nice one:
Two years ago, my local municipal waste service decided to paint its garbage trucks white instead of the traditional orange, in an attempt to fight global warming by reflecting more sunlight. I kid you not.
http://www.deredactie.be/permalink/1.633917 … “The impact will be limited but every little bit helps”
Sure. Why not?
It could also be regarded as a demonstration of how the poorest people will be spending winter, mainly the elderly, as they can not afford the energy subsidies for the rich. That is the true lesson.
DMarshall says:
December 8, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Please try to do better in the future, folks; this was not your finest hour.
What, you’re not going to try to replicate in your own home Benzie’s brilliant attempt to pay a virtual visit to North Korea with his Head Start “students”? Si se pueda!…snif..
@JPeden North Korea? What’s your point?
DMarshall, once again you are completely missing the point!
Don’t you know that the precautionary principle dictates that we must move quickly to protect the children? You are sitting on your anti-science skeptical butt (cough) denying the children are at risk while we scientists are duly concerned that there is a crisis afoot and the kids are not being properly cared for, thus we are making a big fuss about this
peer reviewed paperpress release. If the school was cold enough for them to use hockey sticks, inside, would that be enough to convince you that action needs to be taken? What’s it gonna take, plots and graphs? How about we get back to you after we adjust the recorded classroom temperatures with a (cough) updated set of data and then you can decide whether you should be alarmed. We’ll send you an email.😉
All kidding aside, your strange concern for WUWT commenters who are concerned for these children is, weird. If we were talking about polar bears instead of children, perhaps the AGW warmies would be more concerned, yes? No-one is flying off the handle here DMarshall. They are re-acting to the article as it was written, and exactly as you would expect good people and parents to react when children are involved. This is human nature. The fact that the article is completely believable is what should concern you, and is 100% due to the damage done to Science and to society itself by the delusional cabal that you roll with. The green menace is capable of this and much much more. Shall we review 10:10 no pressure …
@Blade,
D.Marshall was absolutely right. If this event had been presented in some way as to demonstrate the reality of the AWG agenda then the comments would be very different. So many of the comments are typical of a nanny state mentality. Life has risks and pouring out so many laws and requirements for the working environment show a narrow mindedness that surely follows into the area of scientific understanding.
It is not the way.
All he demonstrated was how miserable it would be without reliable energy. We would have to take a leaf out of the book of energy-poverty elderly folks of UK who took to burning books for heat during the recent cold winters there (reported here in WUWT in post of about a year ago).
DMarshall was absolutely wrong. Perhaps you couldn’t disentangle who said what in all the quotes. Or perhaps the lack of a SARC tag tricked you. I suggest you re-read the whole thing.
The ‘nanny state mentality’ is a feature of the left, never from me. People in this thread worried about children is NOT nanny state mentality, it is human nature. Protecting children from the terrorists on the left is sane and logical. I certainly hope you agree.
If “sustainable” means anything sane, it means meeting your needs without depleting a limited resource.
As the UK, like most of the world, is sitting on untold humungous reserves of frac gas, which is great at heating buildings (and generating power), getting cold indoors is a demonstration of how not to meet your needs by not using a virtually unlimited resource.
Award the headmaster a dunce cap and a pair of stilts.
Secret ballots only. (Ballot boxes opened and counted in full view; the Headmaster is likely a disciple of the Stalinist method of deciding elections.)
The Consensual Clobberers would make sure that an open show of hands or voice vote would be Constructively Corrupted.
@Blade Concern for the children? Truly concerned people get involved and take action, not just leave of their senses.
Did any of you “concerned citizens” send an e-mail to the school, headmaster, dep’t of education or start a petition against abuse of students to by the Slime Green Communist forces?
Aren’t any of you embarrassed that the mudslinging against the headmaster, although understandable in the initial comments, continued LONG AFTER it was pointed out that the article was either inaccurate or flagrantly distorted?
It’s apparent that, among those who posted on this topic, there are few truly clear-thinking individuals and a whole lot who are so invested in their agenda they resemble religious cultists.
If comments were graded as well as moderated a lot of you who should know better would have earned yourself a great big FAIL.
DMarshall says:
December 9, 2011 at 8:28 am
@JPeden North Korea? What’s your point?
It’s the epitome of the Communist Utopia you “Benzie” “Progressives” want to impose on the rest of us. No, we don’t need any more of your brilliant pre-Enlightenment Post Normal
flights of fantasy“experiments”. In fact, from the quality of your “thinking”, I wouldn’t be surprised if all of your “learning” took place in a Deep Freeze, and that if you’d only stick to trying to reinvent the wheel, you’d fail.Yep, got it. You dismiss the article because some fact is allegedly wrong (perhaps you should apply this skepticism 😉 to your AGW madness, but you won’t of course). Look, what happened here is simple and undeniable. An AGW kook, this headmaster, used kids under his care as a prop to push his idiotic cause. What is an issue to you is the degree (literally) to which he exposed these children to cold. Just how low the temperature went for these children is real important to you. A little cold is just fine, right? Do you really want to go out this far on a limb for your cause? Really? I haven’t looked, but did you also rationalize 10:10 No Pressure? Is there anything these annoying green nutjobs could do that would wake you up?
‘Mudslinging’ you are concerned about? For real? This is what you get upset at? An event involving innocent children and an AGW kook, and you are concerned for the kook being criticized. You do realize you are in the comment section? That is what you find here. Reactions. And you know full well what the commenters here are reacting to – activists messing around with innocent children. And rightly so. It is completely natural and normal, and *necessary* in a population where some so-called ‘adults’ do not realize there are some things that are out of bounds. So knock off the trolling and the enabling. Either that, or just come out and say: ‘it wasn’t too cold, he didn’t really hurt the kids’. Or say that if your child was in that school this would be just peachy by you. Just understand this, it is most certainly not okay to most people, and God help us if someday it is. This AGW fanatic should be excoriated, and believe me if he was in most districts over here this putz would never do it again.
And yes, there is a religious cult at play here, thanks for pointing that out. It is the Green Church of Climatology. This priest in the Church, this headmaster, was preaching to the these captive children (which is bad enough and should not be tolerated), and took it further by demonstrating how cold it gets when the heat is off. This is an activist, a proselytizing evangelist. I can imagine your outrage if Jerry Falwell or Mother Theresa (while they were alive 😉 showed up at your kids school and just talked, let alone turned the heat off.
P.S. Thank you for the catchy phrase “Slime Green Communist forces“. It rolls of the tongue, I like it.
DMarshall says:
December 10, 2011 at 11:04 am
“Concern for the children? Truly concerned people get involved and take action, not just leave of their senses. Did any of you “concerned citizens” send an e-mail to the school, headmaster, dep’t of education or start a petition against abuse of students to by the Slime Green Communist forces?”
What kind of idiot would need to perform this “experiment” to begin with? That’s why I asked you why you didn’t repeat it in your own home. “Truly concerned people” need to call a spade a spade.
@JPeden That’s why I asked you why you didn’t repeat it in your own home.
I have years of physical labor (both indoors and out) under my belt, in a wide range of temp and humidity, and lived for 2 winters in a rundown house, a couple decades ago, where the indoor temp was typically 50F. A s a result, my tolerance, especially for cold, is much better than the average.
Is it lost on you that this experiment a) was suggested by students b) was communicated before hand to parents and c) didn’t violate the legal min. heating requirements?
And, I have been calling, as you put it, “a spade a spade” throughout this discussion – and have been putting the focus where it should be, which is not on one maligned school official but on a horde of unquestioning dittoheads who should know better.
@Blade AGW fanatic? Preaching to the captive children? Did you do the slightest bit of research beyond that sorry excuse for reporting at the Daily Mail?
Please go back and re-read ( possibly for the 1st time ) all my posts in this thread. I do not condone abuse of innocents but this is NOT what happened here. And the reactions of the Anointed Faithful of the Church of Climactic Contrarianism make it clear that “Won’t anyone think of the CHILDREN” meme is not only alive and well but still a wonderful excuse to spout off and foam at the mouth against any who are perceived to be adhering to the Goracle Agenda.
If they get cold, they can press the “no pressure” button and blow up the deniers, in reverse order of skepticism. As you can see, the carbon emissions are not in a gaseous state.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/o-m-g-video-explodes-skeptical-kids-in-bloodbath/
DMarshall says:
December 11, 2011 at 9:38 am
I have years of physical labor (both indoors and out) under my belt, in a wide range of temp and humidity, and lived for 2 winters in a rundown house, a couple decades ago, where the indoor temp was typically 50F. A s a result, my tolerance, especially for cold, is much better than the average.
Is it lost on you that this experiment a) was suggested by students b) was communicated before hand to parents and c) didn’t violate the legal min. heating requirements?
Right, your cold tolerance is much better than the average, therefore, the students should try it by attempting to replicate a “rundown house”? When you admit that it’s not going to be pleasant or conducive to learning [and prospering] which everyone with any sense already knows, including you in a rare moment! Therefore, Benzie’s infantile “experiment” was stupid, right?
But why are you so threatened by people simply noting the same thing, that your similarly illogical CO2 = CAGW ally, Benzie, enc., is stupid? Maybe because your essentially “holy” CO2 = CAGW “hypotheses” haven’t produced even one correct relevant empirical prediction yet, but you still need to believe in them? That’s stupid as well. And no amount of childish acting out and untethered post modern subjectivist gibberish can alter that fact.
Or should we all be forced to convert to North Korea’s way of life just because your Religion and its “horde of unquestioning dittoheads” says so?
Snap out of it, compadre! The alleged cure to your alleged disease is already obviously much worse than your still only alleged disease. Just ask China and India. And, of course, ask the COP17 “agreement”. “It’s dead, Jim.”
@JPeden Strawman much?
The temp at the school did come anywhere near to the temps that I’ve had to deal with.
And what is this tangent that you’ve run off on, in your fervor? Oh right, it’s Sunday.
Two simple questions:
1.) Did the Daily Mail accurately report the story?
2.) Did a significant number of WUWT posters show the reasoning that befits a TRUE skeptic?
I’m not a fan of North Korea and have no respect for their leader or his insane regime but what is it about them that so riles you? Is Kim Jong-il in cahoots with Al Gore and Michael Mann?
There’s a long tradition, in many societies including North America of going without (something), either to promote understanding for those who are not as fortunate, to learn what life was like for one’s forbears or to build stamina and character.
This can certainly be taken too far but, ONCE AGAIN, in this instance, it was NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE CASE.
It was stupid.
In conclusion, DMarshall, I’ll leave it to you, your fellow “Progressives”, and ipcc Climate Scientists to argue that the achievement of a Darwin Award should be a necessary and sufficient component of any Categorical Imperative. After all, that’s exactly what your science and logic says.
@JPeden I’m still waiting for the answer for my 2 simple questions above, which pertains directly to this article and the vast majority of the comments posted.
I’m not singling you out – I’ll accept answers from anyone.
DMarshall says:
December 11, 2011 at 10:33 pm
@JPeden I’m still waiting for the answer for my 2 simple questions above….
DMarshall, so far it’s been free, but for you to receive any more of my professional counseling services, I’ll have to have an up front deposit.
I am so glad that the troll DMarshall kept on digging his hole. He has made it crystal clear that he doesn’t give a wit about these kids. To paraphrase all his yapping: ‘oh, he didn’t really hurt these children.’ Given a choice between criticizing a green eco-putz and school full of kids he worries about the poor green eco-putz.
Yep, that along with many other examples just about sums it up. IMHO, you should never be allowed to babysit or be entrusted to watch over anyone’s kids. I feel ill now for even having read your comments.
There are few things as morally clear cut as keeping children safe. But even this timeless concept must make way for green eco-idiocracy. Fence-sitters, you are up against a cult that rivals or surpasses Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. This is a Scientific argument no longer. Protect your kids.
@Blade If anyone here is trolling, it’s you and your like-minded yes-men. I didn’t post until after I determined that the story was false and no children were harmed. Far too many of you didn’t exercise the same skeptical restraint.
I commend you on having learned your playbook well but if your need further inspiration in the exploitation of this meme, perhaps you can glean something here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
He should do it when the temperatures drop below freezing and sky overcast and wind not blowing.
The kids will be sent home, but from a dose of reality a real discussion could be had before they all disperse to tell, whinge to, their parents.