The 841-page National Climate Assessment released by the US government last week has been described as “sobering”, but Americans do not appear sobered.
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
The Financial Times, a major international business newspaper, the main competitor to the Wall Street Journal, has just published an article, highlighting the insignificance of the impact Obama’s National Climate Assessment has had, on American public opinion.
According to the FT,
“Americans have been receiving such warnings for a decade. None has managed to rouse the country from its seeming indifference.”
“… the authors seem to have forgotten that weather is not the same thing as the climate.”.
“Former US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman wrote recently of having watched a debate at which “all the Republican candidates chuckled at a question on climate change – as if they had been asked about their belief in the Tooth Fairy””
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31320b68-d6ae-11e3-b251-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz31OwBG0TQ
(Note – you only get one viewing of this link, due to FT content policy. If you try to click this link a second time, the site will likely demand you buy a subscription)
The Wall street Journal summed it up this way:
Obama’s Climate Bomb
He’s flogging disaster scenarios to promote his political agenda.
Supervising the Earth’s climate—or at least believing humanity can achieve such miracles—may be the only political project grandiose enough for President Obama. So it shouldn’t surprise that after reforming health care and raising taxes, the White House is now getting the global-warming band back together, though it is still merely playing the old classics of unscientific panic.
On Wednesday the White House released the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, an 829-page report.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304885404579548453104239932
The latest draft recommends that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that “human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming),” the standards say.
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and there are many more examples
Not in my house and for my kids!
@Pamela Gray: I don’t think it’s “standards” that cause the issue. Who’s not in favor of the schools finally gearing up and teaching some good old 3R’s like they did for the generation that got us to the moon? It’s the next couple of levels down in how these standards are going to be executed and what’s being emphasized that has people upset. You have to back up a few years to see who and where the standards and subsequent concepts come from and be looking beyond the official text to get a glimpse of where they’re going.
This is a good blog that covers a lot of the harder to find information about sources and directions for common core.
The Obama administration will go down in the history books as being one of the most corrupt, dishonest, scandal-ridden, anti-constitutional, personal-freedom/privacy infringing, Legislative-branch circumventing, national-debt exploding, devise and secretive in US history.
The politicization and derisive manner in which the Obama administration has handled the CAGW debate is simply a manifestation of this reality. Calling skeptics “flat-earthers” and asserting that CAGW is “settled science”, despite 18 years with no global warming trend and NONE of the dire CAGW predictions coming even close to reflecting reality, is truly a disgrace to the office of POTUS.
Obama isn’t even going through the pretense of trying to be honest, he’s just telling blatant lies, allowing an adoring MSM to run cover for him, running out the clock and when the lies are finally exposed, his minions say, “Dude, that was two years ago….”, or, “What difference does it make.”…
It’s pathetic.
sorry. forgot the link: http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/
Alan Robertson:
The link to my article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 works on my computer. If it continues not to work on your computer, please send your email address to me at terry@knowledgetothemax.com so I can respond with a copy of the text of the article.
By the way, I’m gratified to hear you find the material at http://www.knowledgetothemax.com useful.
tom s: The latest draft of what? The CCSS do not have any such section in them. So you must be referring to a non-CCSS issue. My beef is with a falsehood about CCSS and climate change. There is no connection whatsoever. None. Nada. Zilch. Not even. Nope.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:23 am
“Samual, do you not read? In what ways are Jim right and where is your evidence? Or is your comment a “Cooked” up with a dash of “Lew” comment?”
———————–
Pamela, I am vaguely known to read a wee bit ….. now and then, ….. but more importantly, …. I am quite well known …… far and wide ……. for being capable of thinking for myself.
I am an “original thinker” with a learned passion for actual, factual science in both the Physical and Biological.
And smart arsed comments such as the likes of ….“Cooked” up with a dash of “Lew” ….. only serve to irritate the hell out me ….. because I’m good at what I do ….. and even better at “replying inkind” to such piffle n’ tripe.
Pamela, the past 3 or 4 generations (30+- years) of public school students and their Teachers did NOT learn their beliefs in/of CAGW via watching the Saturday morning cartoons on TV.
Cheers
after listening to George Carlin on the subject of man made global warming. i quote, ” The planet is fine, the people are f*%$ed”.
Terry Oldberg says:
May 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
____________
T.O.- I meant the link to your site.
In case any other readers would try the link attached to your name, just remove the “.” (period) at end of link.
Mike, curriculum choice is at the teacher and/or district and/or state adoption level. Have the debate with them. It is against federal law for the federal government to mandate curriculum textbooks or content in those textbooks. And CCSS is not a federal standard nor is it a “national” standard. States choose a set from among many standards. It seems pretty obvious that states both red and blue, like the CCSS set.
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:29 am
Irish bitchyness
Damm Don’t hold back Pam ;>)
Ed Mertin says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:18 am
Ed,
Thanks for the laugh! You really should follow that link “This is a good read….” with a /sarc tag, though. You just never know… there may be a few Weekly Reader fans that would consider it to be intelligent analysis instead of silly political parody!
It fits in the same laughably silly category as another ‘good read’ in The Guardian:
UK Guardian: ‘Climate Change’ to Blame for Boko Haram and Nigerian Girls’ Kidnapping
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/11/UK-Guardian-climate-change-to-blame-for-Nigerian-girls-kidnapping
Have a neo-com Rainbow Day, Ed!
Have a neo-com Rainbow Day, Ed!
Mtk nice !!!
“He’s flogging disaster scenarios to promote his political agenda.” Duh!
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. ” – Stephen Schneider, environmental activist, in _Discover_, Oct. ’89
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato
Okay Samuel, put up some actual facts then. My sense is that your statement regarding how children are learning about climate change is not a fact. It is an opinion. Fine. Nothing wrong with opinions. But back it up. Where is your evidence? Have you facts on the number of times climate change has been taught and in what grades? Can you point to a school that has adopted and mandated such instruction? And what is the content of the curriculum? How many schools in each district? How many districts in your state? Other states?
So far all we have here are statements Cook and Lew style based on bias. Not acceptable. At least not by me. Show me the data.
California mandates integration
Of Common Core with Next Generation
These Science Standards I know well
For I was hired to tell
The story in some school applications:
I wrote apps for Distinguished Schools
An award that is guided by rules
And the schools were quite proud
CC/NGSS here is loud!
Climate change teaching uses these tools
Integration of NGSS
With the Common Core, I will confess
Is now quite far along
(Even though mostly wrong)
Perhaps this site will show you the best:
http://www.nextgenscience.org/toward-integration-ngss-and-common-core-classroom
One school’s program ranked highly in list:
It was called “Every Child a Scientist!”
It quite nicely done —
But I did not have fun
Writing “proof Climate Change does exist”
They teach climate junk here with great vigor
Integrated with Core, so it’s bigger
What they’ll send to the world:
Kids with banners unfurled:
“Climate Change!”
But it’s done with due rigor.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
‘No one trusts Washington on climate change’
Friends, if anyone of you trusts Washington on anything then you are seriously deluded. Politics is about aggression and propaganda, not about truth. See H.L. Mencken for more on that subject.
Pam,
I have seen some of those old exams and I agree with you that most of us would not do very well if we had to take them. I am also completely sympathetic with those who decry the current low standards. I don’t think establishment of a national curriculum will be much help, even though very serious scholars disagree. (E.D. Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them being a good example.)
The argument that the federal government is not directly imposing standards on states and local educational agencies, merely tying them to certain types of federal assistance is a bit silly. This toe dancing came up explicitly in the first televised Nixon/Kennedy debate over half a century ago. I have commented on that before so I will not again post the text, only observe that both candidates accepted the possibility that federal aid to education could eventually lead to federal control over what is to be taught and that that would be undesirable. Nixon used that as an argument against direct funding; Kennedy felt protections could be devised against loss of local control.
Local control is only one issue. One of my concerns is the relation between innovation and replication. Innovation is great, especially for those of us who love to experiment. But innovation is not of much use unless there is replication. It’s a nice thought that some government agency can systematically find best practices and then require their use. Problem with that is it kills further innovation. And if the ‘best practices’ turn out to be defective (California’s recent experience with Whole Language comes to mind) then correction can not be done at the local level.
Of course in one sense we already have a de facto national curriculum, in the form of standardized testing. If it gets tested, it gets taught. Unfortunately one result has been that for many years we have experienced a reductionist curriculum, as federal funds were directed and testing was mandated primarily for Reading, Language and Math. So if it doesn’t get tested, it doesn’t get emphasized, and sometimes it simply gets lost. Examples are not hard to find.
The most effective reform might well be to dust off some of those old tests and announce that these are the subjects that will be covered…
: > )
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:24 am “Samuel” Sorry for the keystroke. Fingers fly faster than my brain.
Are you saying you have slow fingers? – just adding some levity here 🙂
SAMURAI says:
May 11, 2014 at 11:12 am – The Obama administration will go down in the history books as being one of the most corrupt, dishonest, scandal-ridden, anti-constitutional, personal-freedom/privacy infringing, Legislative-branch circumventing, national-debt exploding, devise and secretive in US history.
Yep…right after we rewrite his history book with history. 🙂
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion other than AGW, CAGW or any climate based religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof through executive order; or abridging the freedom of speech from the White House, or its press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble in designated free speech areas, and to petition the government under the threat of federal offense for a redress of grievances .
Socialists over the years have pushed for a change in the Federal Communications Commission’s “fairness doctrine” to quiet conservative voices. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has delighted other socialists recently with a proposed Constitutional amendment that could force the media to stop endorsing candidates or promoting issues contrary to established socialist agendas.
…or so I have heard on a bus ride somewhere…can’t recall when or where that was. 🙂
Why should a political paper written by the White house be confused with a scientific summary?
@ur momisugly Robert A Dorrough says: More argument from authority bs. If you had read it you could enlighten with some quotes showing how this political bit of hackery is any different form the rest of the alarmist deception you climate kooks have been peddling for the last ~20 years.
My bet is somewhere close to you a rock is missing the slime that was under it before you decided to troll by.
highflight56433 says:
May 11, 2014 at 12:08 pm
Pamela Gray says:
May 11, 2014 at 10:24 am “Samuel” Sorry for the keystroke. Fingers fly faster than my brain.
Are you saying you have slow fingers? – just adding some levity here 🙂
________________________
You guys are askin’ for it. She’s redheaded, I tell ya.
Like the gun control movement, ‘climate disruption’ is only about control and taxation.
We have neither the technology or the wisdom to globally manage the weather/climate.
The problem with a national educational standard such as Common Core is that it inevitably will be distorted by lefty educators to propagandize. Much better for states to pick and choose what they want from Common Core. The Next Generation Science Standard certainly emphasizes CAGW and it will be surprising if NGSS is not eventually put under the Common Core incentive umbrella. In politics, lefties play chess and non lefties play checkers.
Robert A Dorrough says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:32 am – I would wager none of of commenters thus far have read the 841 page NCA and are much less capable of understanding it. Therefore I submit all heretofore do not speak from knowledge.
Suggestion: Read, understand, speak, in that order.
The wise speak because they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something. para.–Plato–
Which would you rather be?
…excepting you…of course. Odd you see yourself as not be condescending, finger pointing, elitist, and arrogant.
Suggestion: Bees are attracted to honey.