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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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.
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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.
@ur momisugly 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
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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?