Jonathan Abbot writes in comments on 2013/07/23 at 12:59 pm
My 10 year old daughter just read an article in National Geographic Kids about global warming. ‘The world is getting warmer, daddy! See?’ She wouldn’t believe me when I said it wasn’t.
I told her that data is more important than written words, and showed her this page as an explanation.
We discussed how temperatures had increased but were now flat, and so when the article made the usual claims about the hottest temperatures being all in the last 10 years, we agreed it could be true but it still didn’t mean the world was still getting warmer.
She had no idea she could go online to see the actual numbers for herself, they don’t mention that sort of thing at school.
I don’t know if you ever find time to read these comments Anthony, but thank you and all at WUWT for being there and doing the work you do. It changes people.
Thanks Jonathan, that made my day, as well as lifting the spirits of those who have contributed to the many reference pages that WUWT offers.
Anthony, I appreciate you and the others who put this site together. The resources of explanation and reference that you have made available have redirected and clarified my understanding. I have in turn used these resources to help other people do the same. The criticism that you take for your effort is personal, but the positive change that you effect doesn’t always get back to you. Thanks to you!
AndyG55 says:
July 23, 2013 at 5:21 pm
Unfortunately, no alternative surface data sets purporting to show average global temperature exist to compete with these repeatedly stepped-upon, adulterated, corrupted series.
Satellite & balloon data are available from the atmosphere (showing implied T), but they have their own problems & in any case only go back to 1979.
So we’re stuck with the Crew spew. All science can do is point out the problems & go with them. In a way they’re useful, since you can say that even accepting obviously cooked books, there still has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 (or whenever, depending upon set), & cooling since 2005, or whenever.
invisibleserfscollar.com
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Why are your skools indoctrinating your kids?
May I suggest home schooling, if you have the ability and time?
Robert of Ottawa says:
May I suggest home schooling, if you have the ability and time?
Ability is irrelevant, as there are plenty of resources available to anyone who wants to homeschool that require nothing more than the ability to follow instructions. As for time? Well, do you have the time to care for your kids properly?
I was about to apologize for offending anyone but I realized, I’m not sorry. Do you really care about your kids? Then teach them right – don’t rely on the state to do so. So what if it’s a sacrifice? What’s more important?
If anyone wants help on it, I’m happy to offer. Perhaps the mods would be kind enough to forward contact info on request?
milodonharlani ,
The charts that show successive changes to the temperature “record” is very useful, as the changes are all in the same direction, reducing earlier temperatures.
Rejoice! A Prince Is Born! (Sorry, couldn’t resist 🙂
I had the conversation many years ago with my daughters about what they will hear at school and need to repeat to get good grades. That in science class and history class, what they hear may not be true or factual but answer as the teacher presented the information. The green agenda and the political correct agenda has taken over the schools. The green agenda is pushed in science, social studies and even subjects such as reading and vocabulary. As was stated above discuss with your kids what they are learning in school and skim their text books so you can point out the lies. Now my kids now 13 and 11 come home and tell me the bs that the teachers are saying.
Jai Mitchell,
Male or female? Not that it matters, but I would prefer to be able to address you with the proper pronoun:—
“information present here”
Information present here. That is a strong strong endorsement of this website. Maybe you meant, “Information presented here?” This suggests that you are a non-native English speaker, and maybe some more kindness on my part about grammar.
That being said:
The word “Information,” not so scientific, Information usually is not questionable. “Data,” a much more scientific word, is ALWAYS questionable, taken properly, recorded properly, analyzed properly, reported properly?
This is what happens when a mind with no rigorous training, a big mind admittedly but with no urge to be able to back up one’s comments with what we so lightly call, in the serious scientific/engineering world, “PROOF,” enters this fray.
If you do not know the definition of PROOF then you will not recognize the event know as “Licked.” You have been licked here, many times, but apparently cannot recognize this.
If you have an employer, never let on that you post here, disastrous professionally,,,,,,
Great post by a thoughtful and caring father.
As for contemporary teachers, I had lunch yesterday with an old friend who has done a lot of work in urban planning. We were both bemoaning the universal mantra of getting rid of cars, which has turned many vibrant areas into windswept, boarded-up muggers’ paradises.
He commented that young to mid 40s urban planners all went through the same education system, which has at its core assumptions like public transport = good, private transport = bad; public space = good, private space = bad; and so on. We sat there wondering how this essentially Marxist view of the world had so permeated something like urban planning, chock full of unsubstantiated and unquestioned assumptions.
Teaching is much the same in most (perhaps all) Western countries.
Janice: I and my beloved Libby and my pet spider have created a monster. I said something to the effect you ought to write a play, and obviously you are practicing here at WUWT to my personal and, I suspect, to the great delight of the general commenting population.
Recommend reviewing the great humanist scholar Jacques Barzun, 1907 – 2012, especially his magisterial work of Western intellectual history “From Dawn to to Decadence, AD 1500 – 2000”. We live in Alexandrine times.
Got some fresh raspberries from our garden today, tasted the same as the ones we froze a year ago and ate last night 🙂
Jonathan,
in case you’d taken this graph instaed the “until May”, you’d had a harder time discussing the issue with your daughter.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_2013_v5.6.png
Stan: Janice, you should write a play.
J: Thanks, Stan, I’d love to!
WUWT Regulars: Nooooooo, please, stop. We don’t say anything, but YOUR LITTLE PLAYS REALLY ANNOY US.
J: LOL, Stan, you are SO COOL — your warm and friendly greeting to me awhile back will stay in my memory forever. Heh, heh, I can’t resist doing a little scriptwriting now and then. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your kind encouragement. Say, I’ve missed you (and several others — I’ll let them know when I see them appear). Hope you’ve been okay.
S: When one has a lovely girlfriend like Libby, WUWT isn’t exactly one’s FIRST priority.
J: [chuckle] Glad to hear you two have been enjoying each other’s company. Please tell Libby “Hello.” Bye for now.
[Well, Mr. Stendera, ARE you doing okay? Hope so.]
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@Anon and Kevin M. — glad you and your kids enjoyed the videos. It brought back happy memories of Saturday morning cartoons and bowls of Lucky Charms.
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Andy G — (he always ignores me, now, but I’ll try again) At about 11:15AM your time (7/24), I prayed that you would have a pleasant lunch break. Did you?
When I first became acquainted with libertarians , I thought their plank of Separation of School and State was too radical .
Now with the Web , Government School seems downright anachronistic .
Without the homeschool resources of WUWT, millions of children might forget the billions Big Caloric spent to discredit phlogiston and shut down Tesla research with telluric current damping chemtrails from HARP.
Wow. I had no idea that my comment would even get read, let alone splashed up front and centre like this. You made my day, too. I’m sorry I didn’t take a bit more time to polish the prose a bit more.
Thanks for all the positive comments from everyone else. A few points I’d like to make:
1. Jai Mitchell and the like: I have no idea what conversation you think I had with my daughter in your head, but the real conversation was brief, and touched mainly on the uncertainty of our knowledge about the climate, past present and future. We didn’t even mention CO2. The point I made was about the importance of checking data and thinking for yourself. The data I showed her was the UAH Lower Atmosphere Temperature Anomalies, which when it was still rising every CAGW alarmist on the planet was shaking under our noses. Now suddenly it’s the wrong data to look at. You’re more sad than funny.
2. I would never, ever attempt to indoctrinate my child or anyone else’s. My children know the positions I hold on all sorts of scientific, political and philosophical issues but all I will say is ‘Here’s what I think, and here’s why. No go and think it out for yourself.’ The best possible way to turn any child away from a particular stance is to try to ram it down their throat.
3. I wouldn’t say that my children are ‘indoctrinated’ at school, it’s just that CAGW is still taken as the scientific mainstream position at the moment. What else are the teachers to say? It’s up to the scientific community to clean their own mess up first. I have yet to see either of my children bring home any assignments that suggest that CAGW is anything more than a very minor part of their science lessons. I am actually quite impressed with the science they do, and it is a very good (state funded) school in many other ways.
4. I was taught that a new ice age was impending when I was at school, but I got over it.
Commenters here and in other climate discussions are wasting their efforts because they miss the point. Criticising teachers for what they are doing in the climate area is wrong. The teachers, correctly, are following advice from peak scientific authorities such as the APS, Royal Society and CSIRO,,,in their various nations. I certainly would be upset if my children were being taught on the basis of thoughts from some bloggers on the internet rather than serious, considered, positions of bodies like the APS. If the commenters dont like what the teachers are teaching they should try and influence the APS and its peers, not some sincere teacher at the local grade school. Fix the peak bodies and the teachers will follow. Many of the commenters are members of such organisations or similar. Or, they would have contacts with members. Do they know what the peak body of their profession is saying on their behalf? If they dont like it, instead of wasting time rattling on on theis blog, act at the point where effort would pay off.
Dihydrogen Monoxide
Dihydrogen monoxide comprises 95% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
I’ve said it before, the only thing that the AGW crowd (or Homocentric Global Warming as I satirically call it.) are good at is their parody of activism – educating the kids or in reality, darkening their futures, putting fear into innocence in a horrid mockery of concern and teaching them to despise human advancement and enlightenment.
Child abusers.
I believe it is all our duty to educate the younger generation about the facts on global warming/climate change/whatever, as well as where they can find this information.
There is really nothing more to be said, other than we should all be aware that teachers in the public sector tend to have a strong left wing bias, which seems to be one of the pre-conditions for a blind belief in the pseudo-science of CAGW theory.
” I do wonder what I’m going to do when my toddler reaches school age and teachers start serving him left wing, government sponsored, alarmist rubbish.”
Negotiate (and if that fails demand) that you be permitted to give a talk to the school – inc its teachers in all relevant disciplines – on the alternative view. If you are refused, then hire the ‘village hall’ or your local eqivalent to give such a talk. Start preparing it now, with slides, so you can refine as the data is updated.
Meanwhile, as soon as yuour child starts school proper, become active in the school’s Parent/ Teacher Association, so that you develop links with other parents, and have some relationship with the teachers there. This will give you some platform from which you might be given a public voice; and at the very least will help you to know what is going on at the school. And it will enable you to marshall an audience if you give a talk inside or outside the school.
Above all, get yourself onto the Board of Governers, if in the UK. I’m not sure how this works elsewhere, but in our country only the Governers can call the Head Teacher to account, and their voice does carry clout. If you can carry the other Governers with you, it should be impossible for the Head to refuse your offer of a talk to present the alternaive pov.
It still doesn’t fail to sadden me how must leftists have corrupted once great, non political institutions. My NG subscription came to a hard stop in December 2007, and even that was probably a couple of years past the sell by date. I do still miss what it once was.
I was told by a professor in law school, the one teaching the environmental law classes, that she had neither the ability nor the training to look at and evaluate the data herself, so she chose to believe the news reports and the climate scientists. Now that’s depressing.
What will kids think of their teachers IF global mean temperatures start heading south? What will they think of climate scientists when they leave school in a cooling world? The good news is that they will become ultra sceptics. 🙂 Just like me when I remember the 1970s global cooling scare.