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.
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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.