Guest Opinion by James Sawhill –
The Next Generation Science Standards provide two new science areas that teachers are to present, students are to learn, and for which K-12 US schools will be held accountable –
Weather and Climate and Earth and Human Activity
Recently, Jim Steele posted a piece here relating to A Framework For K-12 Science Education Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas – That “Framework” language has recently morphed to this newer “Next Generation Science Standards”. To be clear, we’re addressing the same teaching and learning standards. The education industry seems to be searching for what they might better name this. Jim Steele was proposing a set of activities for science teachers and students using data and graphing for learning and recognizing that such activities are lacking in anything brought forward so far. I wish us to look at a specific target standard.
[References are cited with links provided at the end of the essay. I have provided more references than citations for any who would like to explore this complex territory.]
Background
In 2011, a consortium began to reconsider the 15 year old Common Core standards for K-12 education in the US and, for the first time, codify standards for science education. They now call these Next Generation Science Standards and they are linked to the original Common Core.
The original Common Core standards were limited to English/Language Arts and Mathematics. [1] Those standards are owned (by copyright) by the National Governor’s Association (NGA). In large part the NGA financed the efforts – albeit with federal funds and state taxes – and states were encouraged to adopt them and thereby become eligible for federal grants. I’ve included references [2], [3], and [4] at the end for any wishing to probe the density of the Common Core.
“The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by a consortium of 26 states and by the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, and Achieve, a nonprofit organization that was also involved in developing math and English standards. The final draft of the standards was released in April 2013” [5], [6]
“As of March 2014, eleven states had adopted the standards: California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, along with the District of Columbia (D.C.)”. [5]
West Virginia and New Jersey have since adopted these standards while South Carolina and Wyoming have either blocked their adoption or sent consideration back to committee. Texas has decided to craft its own standards.
While adoptions to date amount to 25% of the States, there is mounting pressure from Departments of Education to have legislatures take up approval. These standards are politically and policy charged and may attract attention in upcoming US elections, although that I am aware, both Democrats and Republicans nationally have so far avoided the combination of climate and education.
Here’s a first “Standard” –
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
Guiding Principle: Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts
- Climate information can be used to reduce vulnerabilities or enhance the resilience of communities and ecosystems affected by climate change. Continuing to improve scientific understanding of the climate system and the quality of reports to policy and decision-makers is crucial.
- The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees.
- Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations through processes that move carbon out of the atmosphere or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- A combination of strategies is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most immediate strategy is conservation of oil, gas, and coal, which we rely on as fuels for most of our transportation, heating, cooling, agriculture, and electricity. Short-term strategies involve switching from carbon-intensive to renewable energy sources, which also requires building new infrastructure for alternative energy sources. Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy.
- Humans can adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its impacts. Actions such as moving to higher ground to avoid rising sea levels, planting new crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, or using new building technologies represent adaptation strategies. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced research, technology, and infrastructure.
- Actions taken by individuals, communities, states, and countries all influence climate. Practices and policies followed in homes, schools, businesses, and governments can affect climate. Climate-related decisions made by one generation can provide opportunities as well as limit the range of possibilities open to the next generation. Steps toward reducing the impact of climate change may influence the present generation by providing other benefits such as improved public health infrastructure and sustainable built environments. [13]
There’s a lot more in other Standards, but this should be a good first bite. Plus here’s the “Climate Literacy” booklet each kid will get – I encourage you to download a copy.
www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf [10]
Implications and Reactions
An early criticism appeared in the NY Times at the time of the release of the Next Generation Science Standards:
“The focus would be helping students become more intelligent science consumers by learning how scientific work is done.” and “Leaders of the effort said that teachers may well wind up covering fewer subjects, but digging more deeply into the ones they do cover. In some cases, traditional classes like biology and chemistry may disappear entirely from high schools, replaced by courses that use a case-study method to teach science in a more holistic way”. [11], [my bold]
More concern from James Rust at masterresource.org:
“However, it is clear not only that human activities play a major role in climate change but also that impacts of climate change—for example, increased frequency of severe storms due to ocean warming—have begun to influence human activities. The prospect of future impacts of climate change due to further increases in atmospheric carbon is prompting consideration of how to avoid or restrict such increases”.
“Even greater dangers from the science portion are teaching people to accept the political use of science and not follow fundamental principles of scientific inquiry – propose a theory about the behavior of Nature and continually test that theory by experiment”. [12] [my bold]
UK Precedent against Propaganda (we’re not alone in the US)
About the time that the new US Standards were released, The Global Warming Policy Foundation issued a report, Climate Control—Brainwashing In Schools. [15]
Statements in the Report’s Executive Summary are as follows:
“We find instances of eco-activism being given a free rein within schools and at the events schools encourage their pupils to attend. In every case of concern, the slant is on scares, on raising fears, followed by the promotion of detailed guidance on how pupils should live, as well as on what they should think.
In the main body of the report is the statement, ‘The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that a focus on children is the top priority for bringing about societal change, and that by ‘sensitizing’ children to climate change, it will be possible to them to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’”. [15]
Shame on us. And, please move to higher ground.
References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative
[2] http://www.corestandards.org/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model
[4] http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/stem/030/standards.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Science_Standards
[6] http://www.achieve.org/next-generation-science-standards
[7] http://www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards
[8] http://www.nextgenscience.org/msess-wc-weather-climate
[9] http://www.nextgenscience.org/ms-ess3-5-earth-and-human-activity
[10] www.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/common_documents/climate_literacy_booklet.pdf
[12] https://www.masterresource.org/debate-issues/common-core-climate-indoctrination/
By James Rust — April 21, 2014
Dumping Biology & Chemistry science courses to be replaced by a “holistic” immersion into surviving “climate change” is lunacy! Our educators are inviting China and Russia to jump ahead of our students in physical sciences.
If you dump Chemistry there goes the ability to understand what CO2 is, how it is made, and what it can do. Then if you dump Biology there goes the understanding of its use in nature by plants to feed us. Ergo the carbon scare is fulfilled.
Hasn’t the grand strategy all along been to dumb down the science portions to where the magical greenie philosophy becomes believable. As far as? I suspect our “educators” have already accomplished the insidious goal of inviting China and Russia to leap ahead of our students in the physical sciences with their PC agenda. They are now only working on crushing any lingering initiative remaining in those few still capable of independent thought.
It goes beyond dumbing down, this story talked about the Teaching and Learning Frameworks. These require an activity and inquiry focus and the phrase ‘teaching and learning’ is the English translation of a Russian word–obuchenie. This explains why an obuchenie focus is so psychologically manipulative. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/unveiling-the-true-focus-of-the-common-core-obuchenie-within-students-to-gain-desired-future-behaviors/
Remember False beliefs are just as impactful on perception and likely behavior as true ones, especially when working with them is practiced over years until it’s a ‘habit of mind’. One’s beliefs become a habit of mind and part of a student’s worldview it is hard to change. All these reforms are based on all that research. In fact I have documents from the OECD’s CERI unit bragging about the different neural pathways a constructivist emphasis creates.
In the main body of the report is the statement, ‘The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that a focus on children is the top priority for bringing about societal change, and that by ‘sensitizing’ children to climate change, it will be possible to them to ‘shame adults into taking the right steps’”.
That explains it. Packy was “sensitizing” the gals in the office, to “shame them into taking the right steps.”
Also, Dumping Biology and Chemistry will eliminate the gateway into the Medical Profession. I guess we will require significantly fewer doctors when the population declines to 500,000,000 globally. But High School Chemistry and Biology are the First rung of the Ladder to this highly important field
Bingo!!
Maybe foreign money is being channeled to certain influential individuals in order to encourage western countries’ educational system failure/economic suicide. Nah, that could NEVER happen, government officials don’t accept bribes…
“inviting China and Russia to jump ahead of our students in physical sciences.”
Huh? I thought we ranked near dead last already. How can we get worse?
Enforce affirmative action, thats how
Actually the Gates Foundation is funding and pushing Big History as being the interdisciplinary answer to all coursework including the hard sciences. Search for David Christian.
The knowledge of all history including physical sciences, literature, and mathematics is unwieldy. We need to assist students by structure of instruction so they can manage and comprehend.
Absolutely…
We should do everything in our power to ensure that all students are educationally handicapped WRT the rest of the world. Coddle them…Wipe their noses…Do their homework for them…Because they are incapable of learning or comprehending knowledge of History, Physical Sciences, Literature and Mathematics.
I mean, Lets face it, We are doomed from the start when our fundamental education is predicated on ‘The 3 R’s”
The three Rs (as in the letter R)[1] refers to the foundations of a basic skills-oriented education program within schools: reading, writing and arithmetic.
Last I ran Spell Check Reading Riting & Rithmatic didn’t pass the muster
History is political by nature, the winners get to write a lot of the history. As Orwell said (paraphrasing) he who owns the present owns the past. The best we can do is ensure freedom of speech so we can get multiple views of history and not just the federally approved one.
Intelligent design was an interesting intersection of science, politics, and religion. In that case we were able to keep religion out of the classroom when intelligent design made their push to politicize science in order to subversively push their religious beliefs and use government resources to indoctrinate. There are still intelligent design “scientists” out there doing who knows what but at least they are not infecting our schools.
Climate Change is another attempt at politicizing science, just a lot more successful attempt than intelligent design. To be fair there is much more valid science in Climate science, but it supports climate change/global warming which is a movement using religious evangelizing techniques (ambiguous terms, ambiguous evidence, false presentations of certainty, circular reasoning, fear mongering, etc). This has made Climate science no longer an independent free thinking entity but a funded tool subservient to a political movement.
Politics and government do not give a squat about religion or science, their game is power, and Next Generation Science Standards is political indoctrination to consolidate yet more power within the federal government by indoctrinating children. Put simply, the curriculum suggests, “You need to control the climate, if you do not many horrible things will happen to you (insert photos of climate hell here). Fortunately the government is here telling you what to do.” Government creates the imaginary, horrible problem and then in its benevolence and wisdom provides the solution as well.
Anyways we were able to keep religion out of our schools using science which was an incredible victory for reason, empirical truth and science. In terms of climate change in class rooms – science is not coming to the rescue. Government has that science in their back pocket.
Maybe we need a separation of Science and State amendment.
Now that climate ‘science’ has turned into a religion, (witness the lighting of candles in Seattle on Earth Day), we certainly do need separation of science, religion, and government.
Yep. American public schools will no longer produce college science majors. Thank God for the private schools.
College SAT and ACT tests will be made to reflect the CC content. Therefore even private schools will need to teach CC to get their kids admitted.
skorrent1
April 24, 2015 at 11:27 am
SAT/ACT/etc are used for two purposes. The important and legitimate use occurs when an admissions committee comes across an application that shows brilliant performance but is from an unknown school. Then the test is consulted. If it corroborates the school record then the record is taken seriously.
The other use is for window dressing and advertising. It looks good to have a lot of National Merit Scholars and to have a high average for all students on test scores. But this is rarely a deciding factor in the admission of a particular student.
All quality private schools, not to mention home school associations, are aware of the above.
As regards our ruling class, the Milton Academy(s) will teach the challenging material and the universities will come begging to them. That is where the ruling class attends high school.
The private schools use the same teacher training colleges.
The main reason they do better is higher class students. (socioeconomic class)
But there IS a way to restore a far higher quality of education.
http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm
You begin with religious schools if you have a religion, because your schools need to be academically superior to attract students. When the movement is large enough, the public fool system will follow to get the warm bodies back for Federal subsidies.
This is not something new, untried as yet. It was resoundingly successful.
It makes far better citizens, too, worthy of their freedom. It is how you restore the Constitution as well, for that reason.
They already have
Its not only science – check out this exam exemplar from my country. Children are being groomed for a whole new society. https://thedemiseofchristchurch.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/exemplar-3-2008-exam.pdf
I found this on our governments official education site! http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/assessment/view-detailed.do?standardNumber=90812
Read more at http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Cheers
Roger
Hi Roger, but – maybe the teachers of science aren’t as capable as those we had at school. High school that is or secondary as we called it. We had Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, I was a B student in all those disciplines, but when I went into 4th Year to study for the GCE ‘O’ levels I was not permitted to sit Chemistry and Physics because of my low Math levels. Both the teachers of Chemistry and Physics said I was good but as I progressed I needed a good Math comprehension. So I went into the Arts, or 4 Literature, I got Biology.(just) The compulsory question was name a rabbit’s skeleton, we hadn’t studied that, so I named the bones I knew existed in a human skeleton. The same thing blighted me at University when I joined as a mature student. I would have liked to sit a B.Sc, but again, Chemistry was a must. So I stuck with Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology that was also a B science unit then, but now in the Science degree. In both degrees one could sit a number of B units that belonged to another facility.
How are they going to progress in Science if they don’t have a grounding in Chemistry and Physics? Maybe we should look at their Mathematics comprehension as not being so good and their teachers academic qualifications. Most of mine had MA’s and that is 60 years ago, would you believe.
All of this agenda operates in concert with the pushing of “research” into the “social sciences”.
Actually when I went to elementary school, we did regularly do “social studies” as a mandatory part of the curriculum, along with “English” which rapidly morphed into “English literature” with virtually no continuance of English Grammar.
So what did “Social Studies” consist of, for us not yet in our teens ?
Why it consisted of Geography, History, Anthropology; just what else would you expect it to be ?
Now it seems to be all about racism, and the 57 recognized genders; and of course today, there is the mandatory studies of the Koran and mohammadanism, in California grade schools, and apparently parents cannot opt out their kids from those courses.
Equality has regressed by several generations, since the coronation of the present white house royalty, and the empress is waiting in the wings ready to finish the job.
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science
Guiding Principle: Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts
============
How can policy be called science? What is being promoted as science is not science at all.
Since climate is simply the average of weather, “to reduce climate change” requires that we control the weather over a long period of time. Since we cannot predict the weather more than a few days in advance, and even then it is only a probabilistic prediction, there are enormous technical problems in trying “to reduce climate change”. The Law of Unintended Consequences looms large in the face of uncertainty.
I gave the new definition of science in today’s post having no idea this story was going to be posted. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/harnessing-the-meaning-making-capacities-of-the-human-mind-and-then-assessing-for-the-tightness-of-the-fit/
The assessments are tied to the Guiding Principles and Big Ideas like what are called Understandings of Consequences. The NSF has been funding that research by AI doctorates now involved in education pushing things like Cognitive Reorganization. I am not kidding. Look at David Perkins at Harvard for example
“here are enormous technical problems in trying “to reduce climate change””. If we are talking about catastrophic climate change due to man made CO2 emissions we may not have to do anything, since it appears that increases it man-made CO2 emissions had not resulted in an increase in the rate of increase of CO2.
Climate is the integral of the weather. An average is a made up number; defined in that branch of mathematics called statistical mathematics.
Since it is not a real number that can be observed or measured, but can only be calculated after the fact, it is self evident, that an average can have no effect on any physical system, including the climate.
Averages cannot be determined until after everything has already happened; which is too late to do anything about.
Lordy. Science used to be about using gold standard research methods that is followed by valid and reliable results that meet high standards of significance and new discovery. Now it’s about forcing those methods to FOLLOW and kowtow to a priori beliefs.
To wit: The standards use weasel words like climate change “may” be caused by human influence but then takes a step too far by promoting human climate wrangling as if it has been proven.
Idiots.
In an earlier discussion of “core” standards, I thought you were in favor of them?
Me too. As a high school substitute teacher of math and science I bashed common core on this site and received a counter from Pamela. Common core received most of its input from the more densely populated areas of the country and then rural states did not do their homework and this crap got through. A real problem since we do need standards but not the propaganda that is inerrant in what we received.
As a teacher, now mostly retired, with many years in the public school system, I took a cursory look a few years ago at common core. What I saw seemed unexceptional, and I didn’t inquire deeply. However, I am dismayed by how it is working out in California. My feeling is that common core provides a very general framework, leaving individual states to fill in the details. The effect has been to leave existing state curriculums wide open to unrestricted revision, and every group with an ideological agenda is jumping in to take advantage of the opportunity. In California, we’re suddenly back to the 60’s. It’s the new math all over again, with its elaboration of useless and sometimes opaque terminology, presentation of multiple ‘tricks’ to avoid using one’s memory, and on and on. Ultimately it will be the politicians who reign in (or fail to reign in) the ideologues. And that is truly scarey….
Also remember that the Next Generation Science Standards are incorporated into the English Language Arts Common Core Standards. Reading and Writing across the curriculum as it is hyped. Because Common Core forces students to use just the materials provided, students will be practicing their writing citing false statements. Again locking in the concepts and vocabulary to hopefully guide thought.
What materials?? The standards are not materials or curriculum that students study. There are certainly lots of materials curriculum publishers are producing. But those materials are not the “standards”. The standards stand alone, outside curriculum.
In my opinion the best way to approach meeting those standards is NOT by off-the-shelf curriculum but by well-prepared engaging teachers who are defined by well-honed fluent use of high-end pedagogy that has been shown to produce well-educated learners ready to take their place on any world stage. These newly minted US citizens should be able to take any position on most world subjects, be they pro or con, and should be able to come to the table armed with well-reasoned claims backed up with unimpeachable cited sources. This standard should hold for any subject talked about or any endeavor engaged in.
What worries me about the Science standards relates to the occasional focus on forgone conclusions in areas of research still in their frontier infancy, such as climate change, over how to research, and critique the research on these frontier topics.
A possibly relevant piece of information: over 95% of academia vote for Democrats. Pretty soon teaching will be a hereditary profession, just like in Mexico.
With error bars, you can easily get to 97%.
I actually love the ELA and Math Common Core Standards. Great tool. Much, much superior to our state standards. And no it is not curriculum nor does it have political statements or beliefs in it. It is simply well-defined standards set to allow students from US schools to being able to compete on the world stage related to critical reading, effective writing, and high level math-related jobs. My opinion still stands strong as ever. Common Core States ELA and Math standards rock!
The Science standards as now written, not so much in certain areas. When it comes to Science I am old school.
Well Pamela, when it comes to standards, I too am old school, and I believe in the three R’s: Readin, Ritin, and Rithmatic.
If you can’t do arithmetic in your head who cares if you followed the standard CC method.
There is an infallible test of whether or not you are using the correct method of solution.
You GET the correct answer EVERY time. if you don’t, then the method is clearly wrong.
And yes I’m related by marriage to a grade school teacher, so I can just reach across the table and pick up her common core paraphernalia. And that is exactly what it is; paraphernalia.
Well its like a paper (cardboard actually) form of Obama’s stereoscopic tele-prompters that give him the tennis neck syndrome.
Pamela: I’m not sure I disagree with anything you have written. My view, as expressed above, is that the standards themselves are generally unobjectionable, but that they are being used opportunistically to push special interest agendas. I may agree that the best way to approach meeting those standards is NOT by off-the-shelf curriculum , but the fact is that in CA that is exactly what we are given. So I teach from books that have “COMMON CORE” conspicuously blazoned across the front covers. But it gets worse: in another school there is no math book at all. Instruction is by way of the computer lab. That’s about as off the shelf as it gets. And everywhere Pearson publishing controls, by virtue of the new computer testing regime.. Well, one good thing from this-they’re finally getting serious about teaching keyboarding in the primary grades, rather than wasting high school time doing what could have been done years earlier.
George: You’re making me nervous here. As a one time member of The Council for Basic Education I am disappointed that the expression ‘basic education’ has become bastardized in the public mind. If you read Fadiman, he used it to refer to a broad-based education including history,. geography, civics, art, music, and more. But for my entire career the battle cry “back to basics” has encompassed nothing more than the three R’s. The result has been an ineffective reductionist curriculum, strongly reinforced by the fact that, generally, those have been the only subjects tested. To the extent that Common Core can re-inject some content into the curriculum, it may do some good. But propaganda doesn’t count.
Pamela, the devil in Federal Democrat core standards is that ultimately anything can gradually be put in there. Socialists are very patient and the oldest socialist experiment had 3-4 generations to perfect how to USE education to armor plate ideology, how to translate policy into motherhood statements, how to redefine knowledge, history, to fit the program. Eventually, you have questioning students allowed to do so but only on approved ranges of questioning and dissent.
They can use political correctness or, in a convoluted way bring it into the ‘conversation’ about dissent. I can’t remember the thread, but I made a remark that the diversity bandwagon appears to be too full to include skeptics, a well defined group making up a small minority. It’s okay to consider jailing, or hanging them if they don’t go along, I think was the subject. The well know polemic (the core standards worked well on him), Brandon Gates, seemed to see in my remarks racism or homophobia or misogyny or…. he was not clear but that seemed to be the only avenue for dealing with my criticism of the idea of outlawing climate skepticism. Be very skeptical of federal incursions into education of other state responsibilities particularly those tied to federal money if you adopt them. There are no Mr. Niceguys in this stuff.
Like.
Sorry not Facebook. But that you for stating the truth. Common Core is nothing conservatives should fear, maybe these standards for climate, but no the ones for math.
Wow! Scary stuff. Those who know what’s best for us must rise up and save us from ourselves. Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.
I’ll save myself thank you.
Most of the songs of the artists being quoted are about self reliance and persona responsibility. The name of this one is “Witch Hunt.” It’s about what happens when people stop thinking for themselves.
Like again.
So said one Neil Peart….
“The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees”
Well now, we can’t have any of that nasty competition or conflict stuff, can we? That might actually lead to *gasp* co-operation for mutual benefit! The thought! And those large groups of climate refugees, so often predicted but never seen, might actually appear (some day, perhaps 85 years from now… just you wait).
/snark
B.b.b.b.ut they’re here now, don’t you know?
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/2405629/this-is-what-climate-crisis-really-means
/sarc
Wow, Id’tau, comments on that link are a t’rip.
========
Kim,
Skimmed the first few lines and wondered how I would get my wasted time back. Then read your comment, went back and skipped to the bottom and wow, what a t’rip.
Those comments were brilliant. The author is a totally shameless twat. (he probably wrote it for the expressed purpose of getting more “hits” on his blog)
we’re doomed, doomed I tell you.
Which is why more and more parents are pulling their children out of public schools.
It won’t make a difference when these are the expected standards that will be carried on into college. Don’t believe? No diploma for you! No diploma? No job for you!
And sending them to Catholic schools where they learn how to walk on water, part oceans and fly around the moon, but not learn where babies come from.
“for example, increased frequency of severe storms due to ocean warming—have begun to influence human activities.” Soooo… what happens if this is taught and my children come to school with proof this claim is false? does the teacher continue to teach it? Fail my children for knowing the actual data? This might be an amazing propaganda tool, but it also might backfire horribly when teachers get bombarded with actual data. Some children are actually curious and can read more then just what you stick in front of them, they also talk to their peers.
I read the section on Peer Review in the booklet. Indeed that is how it is supposed to work. Reality is somewhat different.
Scary stuff indeed.
Ah, history repetes itself …
Climate Jugend …
One thing that we can learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.
Can’t be more true!
What?? Surely we do. That’s why we keep repeating it. Oh, wait…..
@ Phil R and Jim San Fran, thanks for the chuckle. If there is one thing we have learned from history I’d like to know, I might buy some stocks. Oh wait those evil oil Co’s stocks keep going up.
I’m loathe to sound off about conspiracy’s …..really!
But this smells of UN Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome from top to bottom. (just google both and you’ll see what I mean).
This is how the “left” has finally figured out how to surreptitiously take over with themselves as our “elite” in charge……
This is awful news and it must be revoked.
Scott-I trace the links to Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome and also the OECD using their own statements and reports. It is laid out in the Concluding chapter of my book Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon. I also cover constructivism generally in math and science and how it led to the math and science wars. The idea developed that the dispute was over a difference in how to teach when that is not the actual issue at all.
Robin, Thanks for that, I will certainly look at your book.
Later today, I found a book about “Technocracy” exposing the original One World Order promoted by
anti-semite Zbignew Bryzinski and the Rockerfeller Foundation.
How did Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Orwell’s “1984” slither into our culture?
I was well trained in such weaponry. But I place my blades at the service of others than those by whom I was trained. I am an apostate in their midst. But I am one of them and can never be anything else. They are formidable, yes, but they don’t live by or up to their own intellectual code, and that is a serious weakness.
Here’s my cartoon contribution to Friday Funny.
http://www.maxphoton.com/something-new-under-the-sun/
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Federal-Government-Assets-and-Student-Loans.php
Some fodder for your cannon.
The enslavement of young people using non-dischargeable student loans as manacles has got to be one of the sickest events I have ever seen unfold.
Incidentally, the Federal Reserve is insolvent. Repeat: the Federal Reserve is insolvent.
Remember when we saw the FED chairman and the Treasury Secretary solemnly explaining that they saved the world from total financial collapse by bailing out failing banks? Do you know what the point of that exercise in propaganda was? By acting live the savior, the FED gave the impression to the world that it was not bankrupt. But it is. The FED is the sump for toxic debt that will never be paid off. Selling a thimble-full of that sludge would, because of declining marginal utility, render the market value of ALL of that debt to ZERO.
The FED’s balance sheet is an optical illusion.
WP (and Max’s follow-up)
My older son is a high school senior and will be starting college in the fall. Unfortunately, we’re going to become another data point on that chart.
Dawn is a trigger warning.
============
+1
Max,
Just a quick kudos. Really enjoy your cartoons.
that climate literacy booklet states;
“b. When Earth emits the same amount of energy as
it absorbs, its energy budget is in balance, and its
average temperature remains stable.”
Wouldn’t that only be true if there was no plant life ?
Thank You (!) James Sawhill, for bringing this important topic to the attention of WUWT readers!
These policies will be implemented if the readers of this blog do not take action to stop it. It is not enough to just discuss it ‘here’. You must take action to stop this!
What can you do? Campaign for and get elected to your local school board. Actively support (time and $$$) candidates at all levels of government that oppose Common Core indoctrination. Make opposition to Common Core a ‘litmus test’ for all candidates seeking office. Inform your neighbors, educators, and legislators. Join community groups that are working to stop it. Take Action Now.
You’re welcome, Mac, although I am sure that this is not welcome news.
I agree that action is needed and that was a substantial reason that I sent this piece to Anthony for possible posting here. I know of no stronger group with wide ranging skills and willingness to speak than you here.
I expect that “climate education” questions for those seeking public office will be deflected with the usual non-responses. Saying “I’m not a scientist” by any party is not a satisfactory response to standards for education.
!!! mods – let me through moderation – I’m Jim Sawhill
Do I have to give up Bubba Cow?
[Nothing in the queue. ?? .mod]
I second the thanks for alerting on this. Was unaware. And second the call to action.
The Early Bird has found the worm, and sparks flew from its eyes.
===========
There’s a phrase that describes this type of activity …. child abuse. These people need to be punished.
Hold your hosses, son. Today we try them? Tomorrow they try us.
Don’t even go there. The politics is bad enough.
Can’t the courts be used? Is everyone helpless to stop this Lysenkoist brainwashing. Parents, unfortunately have largely been already brainwashed. I think there should be summer camps outside of school for kids to really learn the scientific method and how to question all this. I never thought this could happen in America. I knew that once you got into University you were in a lefty stamping plant but smart kids who managed to question things as they came through K-12 could survive it. I guess the universities want to fix this before these kids get to them. Parents who know and care should be taking on more responsibility in education of their children. You may have to tell them to give the teacher the “right” answer on the test though!
Weather and Climate , given the professionals working in this area have ‘standards ‘ that often range form being awful to be a joke , I am not sure you want to teach any children to live up to those.
But you can point out what an easy , fact free and scientific light areas these are to work in for those who do do ‘hard science’ it is a good , and at the moment , lucrative career . So perhaps careers advice they are talking about .
Teaching children in the future that we are going to roast to death will be a total failure in 20 years due to all the ice, snow, glaciers and other Little Ice Age stuff going on outside. Children will freeze to death going to school like in the Victorian era.
This fad for blaming CO2 for everything is going to fade fast as reality sets in as the solar cycles get less and less active.
You make the case for developing reading standards related to critical reading.
Lenin said something to the effect, ” let me educate the children for x number of years and they will be good commies for the rest of their lives”.
The Jesuit maxim “Give me a child for for his first seven years and I’ll give you the man”
Life is longer now.
Vladimir Lenin
And as a Friday night bonus:
Vladimir Lenin
I have a one word antidote to this:
Homeschooling
Hard to do that when both parents need to work.
Another? “No, the snowblower uses gas. Go shovel.”
Good thing you said Homeschooling…Liberals have developed a Penicillin resistant strain of Partisan
Homeschooled kids still have to take the SAT or ACT and they will be top heavy with this crap and Common Core. Thanks Bismarck!
If you do your job right, homeschooled kids should be able to ace any college entrance exam. Are you scared homeschooled students would not be able to examine three conflicting sources, examine the claims as to whether or not the supporting details are valid, and create a decent conclusion?
No, of course not. It is the extra effort required to separate the political from the lesson that concerns me. And ultimately it is easier to just swallow the nonsense because the right answer depends on your degree of indoctrination not your degree of reasoning.
So similar to the Hitler Youth programs. I am so appalled, I really don’t know what to say.
37 years a teacher. Watched the education system in New Zealand “progressively” dumbed down. Glad I’m out.
i posted about this propaganda course being sponsored by edX and University of Queensland
edX is sponsoring a course – Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.
University of Queensland
Starts April 28th, 2015
Enroll Now
Level: Introductory
Length: 7 weeks
Effort: 1-2 hours per week
Subject: Communication
Institution: UQx
Languages: English
Video Transcripts: English
Price: Free
The instructors make a good list of those to ignore on climate change.
John Cook
Daniel Bedford
Gavin Cawley
Kevin Cowtan
Sarah A. Green
Peter Jacobs
Scott Mandia
Dana Nuccitelli
Mark Richardson
Keah Schuenemann
Andy Skuce
Robert Way
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Queensland is where the UN’s Transdisciplinary vision was piloted as the Basic Skills Project and the Key Abilities Model. It is explained with extensive quotes here. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/opting-out-as-the-remedy-may-mean-accidentally-accelerating-nonconsensual-transformations/
There is also a global program called GELP-Global Education Leaders Programme pushing the transdisciplinary vision. In the US it is hiding in the Competency-based education push and the CCSSO’s Innovation Lab Network of about 10 states. The other 40 are right behind if only the true nature of what is still being misleadingly called standardized tests were more accurately understood.
It’s a good thing I’m ending my teaching career as of June 18, 2015. I’ll be damned if anyone will force me to teach this BS, trying to pass politically correct climate science off as rational thought.
Anytime I have been asked to teach in a way that is not solidly based in valid and reliable research, and that is not paired with a fully informed parent, I move on. I had to do that once.
Do you wonder how can they get away with this? Will they next replace the scientific method with belief?
Here is one very well researched and disturbing view by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
The PDF is free to download and enjoy. Not that I agree with everything she says but it does explain a lot and once armed with knowledge you can defend yourself and you kids better.
Knowledge is a weapon to your enemies and an ornament to your friends.
How can you recommend a site where the first linked video is a poorly made argument against fluoridation of water? There are enough kooks on the anti-CAGW side as it is. We don’t need “friends” like that muddying the discussion.
So you have debunked the scientific findings that fluorides harm the development of the nervous system in rats?
“How can you recommend a site where the first linked video is a poorly made argument against fluoridation of water?”
The fluoridation video simply makes the case that any kind of preventative or medical treatment should not be administered through the water supply. I do not mean to include making the water safe to drink. I found it reasonable.
In answer to your question, I think we all learn to have indulgence, flexibility, and charity towards others in smaller issues.
Welcome to “diversity.” Don’t expect too much of yourself at first, and good luck!
We seem to have very nervous test rats.
takingbacthegreen: Being an unwitting product of a successful lefty education (it shows in your deprecatory dismissal of CAGW sceptics without any apparent need for evidence other than that of authority’s say so), nothing will change your mind about politically sanctioned and paid for science.
I had forgotten about the fluoridation of water issue but having taken several courses in mineralogy, I was aware that two varieties of the mineral apatite (which is a phosphate essentially the same composition as teeth and bones), one with chlorine as the halide present and one with appreciable fluorine (chloro-apatite and fluoro-apatite), the latter is comparatively more brittle than the former – makes more fines when crushed and ground. No one has done any testing on bone and teeth samples to check it out, but it is bad science to put into the water supply something that may protect your teeth, but make your bones more brittle. I always wondered what the relative frequency of old folks breaking their hips and other bones with a fall compared to pre-fluoridation – there does seem to be lot of it these days. Their may be no significant difference, or if there is a higher proportion of breaks per age group there may be other reasons for this. Granted. But don’t you think it amiss that the policy folks and their dental advisers have no clue about this mining knowledge? Also, a dentist isn’t thinking about other effects. Like the situation with mainstream climate science, this is how one might define linear thinking.
Huh? Gary Pearse, are you feeling okay?
I have repeatedly and clearly stated that I believe the idea of CAGW is ludicrous.
Not interested in engaging on anti-fluoridation looniness. BUT just so you know: The hip usually breaks first, resulting in a fall. Not the other way around. And the culprit is usually genetics.
Yes this is happening in UK too. I found some old biology A level papers that I took in to my daughters school.. The teacher told me that the paper was too advanced for a modern 18 year old to attempt. That was about seven years ago and it has got worse. The problem is that the Teaching Unions call the shots and there is so much red tape that we have an educational system with third world standards. If someone has no understanding of basic science then they cannot have an argument against a theory that is fundamentally wrong. The Left Wing want mediocrity in all things but, especially in education so they can further their hidden agendas for a left wing world government and redistribution of all wealth. It is called the Mushroom Policy, kept in the dark and fed on sh@t.
A friend of mine who is studying solar science contacted a well known solar astronomer in the UK to ask her a question about the Sun’s rotation. This ‘expert’ answered her by saying ‘I don’t understand what you mean by the Sun’s rotation’. This ‘expert’ is often on TV telling us what little she knows about the Sun. Talk about mediocrity.
Holistic teaching is B.S. promulgated by lazy teachers. Kids under the age of 12-13 typically cannot learn broad principles and apply them to specific instances, they learn the other way around, they learn from the specific to the general … some kids aren’t suited to conceptual learning at all, yet they can still develop the interests in a subject matter that allows them to successfully pursue a vocation. If you push the non-conceptual learners into holistic b.s. you set them up for failure. Add on the indoctrination aspects of this mess and we’re looking at a train wreck.
But if you’re an intellectually lazy elementary school teacher the touchy-feely-holistic stuff is better suited to your lack of mental discipline.
I don’t know how it is in the midwest but in Canada the classroom teacher, the one on the front line, face to face with the students, who knows what will work and what won’t, has zero input into curriculum. It comes down from on high from essentially liberal brainwashed neo-marxist academics who have no clue what goes on in a classroom and don’t want to know. Typically championed by political opportunists in the various boards who can slap it on their resume and be long gone up the ladder before it implodes or dies off from neglect.
With many friends in both the classroom and administration – there are those who see what’s coming and are either bailing or hunkering down to keep a roof over their heads, and those who don’t see because it tastes like the cool-aid they are used to.
That pamphlet they are passing out would be worth an article all by itself judging by the untruths packed in on some of the pages.
Thanks iMac. I have been saying this for years up here in Canada. The dumbing down was not at all done by most of the teachers many of whom I spoke with expressed their frustration with the curriculum. Thank god we got out of the city and into a rural area were a lot of the teachers kind of “by-passed” the curriculum and really helped our kids especially in K-7 after that we had to help our kids a lot more at home.
Utter nonsense. Your claim is poorly stated and without valid and reliable evidence. Yet another example of why we need reading and writing standards that produce students capable of cogent thought. Try again.
Pamela, this isn’t you talking, dismissing someone like this. He must have touched a sensitive nerve, which at least means you aren’t too happy with the situation yourself. The relatively few students capable of cogent thought are not the product of public schools and the evidence is all around us in the empty sound and light show that the meaning of life is entertainment and the easy path. Those capable of cogent thought got that at home if they were lucky to have a home like that and I fear the proportion of such homes is declining. You must know that the progressive government wants all to be dependent on them and they are the ones designing all this core crap as an outline to be filled in over time with things like Agenda 21 type stuff. The only hope is to have a separate education outside the schools where eclectic thinking is encouraged and there seem to be fewer and fewer parents able and even aware enough to do this. I advised mine to go as far as they could with disagreement, but for the marks, they better give the “right” answer.
I’m sure you are one of the very dedicated ones that aims to produce such students, but you must know your distant masters who design these things don’t share the same goal. I’ve met more than a few disillusioned teachers in my life, (and indeed professors, too, in my case), and I’ve confronted a fair number when my large talented brood was going through the system. You have to be a cynic these days who knows how to hide his cogent thoughts and run the gauntlet safely out the other side. I mourn this fact.
I am sorry Pamela . He is correct. As past members of our kids PACs and sitting on boards to require funding for our schools and districts and helping in the political arena. The situation as he describes is on the mark. Some of the fights we had with the powers that wrote some of the curriculum were vicious left wing people that would not stop at anything to discredit honest people trying to help. We were there!
No need for more such “dumbing down” — our student achievement levels in science, reading and maths are already at the bottom of industrialized nations.
Are these statistics showing low achievement based upon common core standards? If so, then perhaps it is the common core standard that is lacking, and we are really the high achievers. I certainly hope my children score low on the sheeple standard and continue to be non-conformists.
If they score low on any Common Core ELA/Math based exam, your students are not non-conformists. They may need some remedial instruction however. A well-educated non-conformist should be able to ace the exams and not once have to mark an answer or write an essay conclusion they “don’t believe in”.
The scientific method has always been very difficult to understand. Throughout history, people learn ‘facts’ but not process. Learning process is an uphill battle. The #1 lesson of science is, don’t impose dogma on data. Yet it is a very human tendency to see only confirmation of bias.
Many ‘breakthrough’ moments in science is when someone forces the rest of the ‘scientists’ to see what is in front of their noses. Denial of incoming information is a very powerful force in humans. We all fall prey to this sort of thinking which is why I often say, the hardest thing a person can do is to change their minds about something they ardently believe.
Score: 9 out of 10. You should write like that more often. However, I would restate your opening statement to say that the “…scientific method has always been very difficult to follow with any kind of fidelity”.
emsn and PG,
At the risk of opening myself up to incoming (but Friday night wine helps), I would revise and combine both of your statements thusly (is that a word?): (ems) The scientific method
has always been very difficultis easy to understand“ but (PG)scientific methodhas always been very difficult to follow with any kind of fidelity”.Please go easy on me. I’m a Luddite when it comes to html and hope I got the tags (and gist of the statement) correct. 🙂
Phil, great edit.
Many ‘breakthrough’ moments in science is when someone forces the rest of the ‘scientists’ to see what is in front of their noses.
You said it.
Setting a “standard” like that breaks my heart. It’s nothing more than child abuse.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/polar-bears-going-extinct-yawn/
Pointman
Marx said to control a nation, you only need control of the press and schools. Where did the 60’s radicals go? Media and education. Think “Ayers”.
Goes much farther back. See the Foundations, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and the Dewey person. Norman Dodd. Reece commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Dodd
The Frankfurt School is where it began. Indoctrinate through media and education the Marxist narrative, those ideas that could not be done politically at the time. We are now seeing the result as those that were raised in this way are now in politics.
Knocking the wall down let a lot of freedom in, but a lot of unseen dark matter also came out and to its surprise found a ready and inviting structure for their highly honed skills in a socialized Europe (and world universities and institutions), a new world order UN, well financed anti-capitalist, marxist NGOs, particularly the green ones (green in name only) and half their work done for them in the US to their surprise, probably. These chess players from behind the iron curtain didn’t lose the war after all.
” Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy.”
Hmmmm…energy to grow food, energy to transport, energy to build shelter, energy to provide warmth, energy to provide light; keeping hospitals running, ambulances and fire trucks ready, clean water pumped and distributed, and of course energy to brew beer. The uses are only limited by the creativity of the human mind.
To accomplish the task of teaching “climate change” without ever defining “climate” simply destroy individuality (the can be no differences under common core), punish expressions of wonder, isolate and defame any child (or adult) who deviates from the common message. In brief, destroy human creativity. Too bad for those who seek this, for it will never be possible.
Check me on this, but if they continue in this direction, shouldn’t we be able to make the case for a ‘tax strike’ until they cease and desist using our tax dollars to teach their religion in our public schools? Seems only fair.
Dump chemistry and biology in favor of a more holistic approach?
” . . . accept the political use of science and not follow the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry . . .”
Friends, we are inside the looking glass.
While this “secular” movement has the appearance of a moral philosophy (i.e. religion), it has a notoriously materialistic perspective that is amoral and opportunistic, which includes denigrating individual dignity and debasing human life. As for science, it routinely practices science outside of the scientific domain and resorts to conflating the logical domains: science, philosophy, faith, and fantasy, when it progresses the myth. For example, they replaced or supplemented biology and moral teaching with “sexual education”. As if boys and girls, men and women, need guidance to interpret the fundamentals of human life.
The most expensive education system on the planet with a product that is not even in the top 10. The focus on establishing political myths (e.g. “green” development, diversity, equality, “science” philosophy and fantasy) to grow special interests explains this extreme imbalance or misalignment.
Political myths are best established through indoctrination of the young and immature. A common misconception is the belief that this practice is limited to “religion” or moral philosophy, and family or community traditions. It seems that Western civilization has been infiltrated by a competing interest with the intent to displace and replace the traditional order and population. Pass the opiates.
Not even in the top 10? I am afraid that it works splendidly.
Wow! That “Climate Literacy” booklet is not only propaganda, but full of out and out lies.
I would love to see an edited version (Using Acrobat Pro) which corrects the assumptions and lies throughout. This is the first time I have seen concrete evidence of the true evilness of “common core”.
Most if the time you read about common core – common core is bad, common core is this and that, but this is hard-core stuff as far as I can see. This has to be dealt with, and the sooner the better…
Just as a for instance, they show a giant photo of Muir Glacier, a small glacier which has been retreating since around 1780. It was 18 miles in length, and is now 11 miles in length. I hate to keep harping on this, but why don’t show Hubbard Glacier, just “around the corner” which is the largest tidewater glacier in North America. It has been advancing since 1895. It has a length of 76 miles and like I said: status: Advancing.
And, also they show the “smoke” from a power plant, but don’t explain that that is mostly steam/water vapor, etc. etc. etc…..
I am getting really mad… Thanks a lot James Sawhill, and Jim Steele. What am I going to do about it??
Whatever I can, in some small way, to get the word out.
As far as the booklet, I tried editing using Acrobat Distiller, and was able on the cover to change Climate Literacy to “Climate Illiteracy” and the line under it to “A Guide for Useful Idiots and Communitarians”.
But actually my thought was to edit the booklet to change it to true science and actual data and truth about climate – however that could be done. Then we will print out millions of copies (funded of course by the Coke or maybe Pepsi brothers – sarc) and distribute them to school students.
It is easy enough to make this kind of thing. A few hours with Publisher, or Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator and presto, there’s your PDF, complete with totally irrelevant clipart photos.
For instance the “photo of a dry stream” isn’t a stream and never was a stream. It is the clay bottom of a very shallow pond with a concrete rim around the edge. The strange color of the clay suggests it is either a tailings pond or a sewage treatment pond drained and dried for routine scraping.
The entire caption for the photo was originally “Agricultural engineers Clarence Richardson (left) and Daren Harmel inspect a dry stream channel below a 15-foot flume”.
It appears to be an irrigation channel downstream from a controlled outfall, but it is hard to tell for sure. The “streambed” gives the appearance of drought and death, when in the real world the only water that the “streambed” ever sees is that which has been diverted to it.
Some guy (Bauer) that works for the USDSA has a photo library that is available to anyone that wants to use his photos. Each photo has a an original caption … this one was edited for effect.
(good propoganda lets the viewer jump to their own (emotional) conslusions. maybe common core should include “marketing through appropriate propoganda” as a portion of its curriculum. maybe the individual school districts should include classes on the “uses, advantages, and recognizition of propoganda”.)
J. Philip Peterson – I’d like to say you’re welcome, but I take no thanks in bringing bad news.
Incidentally, I sent this to Jim Steele for his excellent comments before shipping it here.
I think creating our own booklet for/with perhaps NIPCC and maybe through Heartland is an excellent idea.
I winder if they are teaching “the key to science” as taught by Richard Feynman?
I was thinking of not a propaganda piece as they have done for common core. (but sadly, if it has the Heartland name on it, they will label it a propaganda piece). They will not allow it in the “common core” schools, no matter how unbiased or accurate it is.
I wonder….??
“I would love to see an edited version (Using Acrobat Pro)”
Maybe start with PDF-Xchange viewer from http://www.tracker-software.com/. This will allow you to add text and imaging to a pdf. Basic versions are free. I do a lot of pdf editing as part of my work so I have the paid-for editor that looks like it is about $78 these days. The editor can also “flatten” the amendments so they can’t be edited, add pages, join documents etc.
The pdf file format is in the public domain, ISO 32000-1:2008, so there are other editors available that don’t cost a bomb, eg PDF Fusion by CorelDraw.
Example is here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf2brnm7rbrsddk/climate_literacy_booklet-pdfx.pdf?dl=0
I have added a one-liner to the subsidy farming image on page 2.
It would absolutely have to be measured, cautious, sober, and entirely devoid of ad homnem, scorn, or any reference to politics. Utterly non-polemical.
(Hint: any reference or implication of the word “lie”, “fraud”, clever names of refs., etc., etc., or any hint of sarcasm is to be considered polemical.)
What, no polar bears or tornadoes on the cover? That can wait for the next phase and the student workbook covers.
Sounds more like activism than science. Remember when schools tried to take values out of public education? We can now confirm this was only a pretext. They wanted to remove traditional values from education and substitute with progressive values.
Exactly. Like you, I was looking for the science and not finding any.
I used to have a teacher who objected to value judgments.
Now I object to value judgments.
According to UK media, two useful idiots have today blamed “climate change” for an increase in reports of sink holes (it causes extra rain, you see) and for the flood of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe (they’re trying to escape droughts in their own countries).
Words fail me!!!
It rains almost as much here in Sarasota Florida as it does in Tampa about 50 miles north, but they have far more sinkholes. They have far more limestone.
is this “common core ” similar to http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/
Our common core is what Michael Barber pushed in the UK when he worked for Tony Blair. Then he pushed globally via McKinsey and now as head of of Pearson’s Ed Division. UK is involved in GELP that I noted above. My book that I mentioned above also describes the crucial role being played by nef-new economics foundation in this ed push as well as the UN’s favorite contractor Mott MacDonald.
Note the use of the word common, they are close to giving it its proper name.
There go first principles. Now it’s pure propaganda, which can only be memorized, not understood. I am glad I’m getting old….
At least I have real scientific training, but increasingly that matters not. How can I argue about thermodynamics or CO₂ chemistry to someone who has never seen a periodic table? They will shoot back: “The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees!!”
THIS is a perfect meshing with Cook & Lew’s online “Denier-crushing Course”. Get the kids at the outset, then get as many adult stragglers as possible. And sit dumbfounded as Presidents give meaningless speeches in Swamps.
Or you can read the Pentagon report which is highly correlated.
MBtK,
I’m not glad I’m getting old. Other than that, I agree. I have one son getting ready to graduate high school and one just starting as a freshman, and am doing the best that I can to force them to think for themselves.
When the kids are given some introduction as to how to think and then told facts I was always relaxed that they would come up with some new thing that was an improvement ( OK, Goth was an error ). It seems tho’ that these educationalists cannot let the kids go without instilling their view of how things are. I am getting a bit despondent that I will ever see any sort of sensible, science led society in the UK.
( I am not a scientist, I am like an artistic type 🙂
Goth was not the error. Emo is the error.
I suggest for a few readers a strange but relevant movie called “Snowpiercer” which started out life as a comic book or graphic novel and put to film by a Korean director. The idea is that humanity decided to do something about global warming and sprayed something in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back out to space (something already true with aerosols) resulting in “snowball earth” and the survivors ride a railroad train that travels around the planet. It’s really about social stratification, everyone is assigned to a caste and/or a role in life, naturally those that the bottom don’t like it very much and those at the top love it.
The likely outcome of “common core” is to create classes of citizen most of whom will be conditioned to accept their decarbonated fates somewhere near the bottom. The upper classes won’t be subjected to that drivel and will thus rise to the top. It is a class maintenance tool, stratifying society by the very persons that proclaim the evils of social stratification.
I have decided that the cycle must complete itself; it is “Darwinian”. During hard times, such as the Little Ice Age, natural selection eliminates the “stupids”. But every generation breeds a Gaussian distribution of intelligence (and other traits); socialism ensures survival of the weakest until such time as the entire organism (nations, species itself) becomes vulnerable to a natural or unnatural disaster. That starts the cycle over and prunes the decayed branches from the tree of life.
I dunno, when I was at school when we didn’t like it we took over the colleges.
“socialism ensures survival of the weakest”
No it doesn’t. See, when the state guarantees free toilet paper for all there will be no more toilet paper, see Venezuela. Who gets the toilet paper when MONEY can’t buy it? (as that would be CAPITALIST) When MONEY can’t VIOLENCE can. Which is just a different fitness function, not brains, but connections, brutality, muscles, guns.
Socialism is for wars, lifeboats, and ants.
DirkH,
Maybe that should be revised to, “socialism ensures
survivalcreation of the weakest”hilarious.
creationists blog react the same way to biology / evolution in schools like WUWT to Climatology / AGW in schools….
That reminds me, Daniel, has a missing link between apes and humans already been found? Last I checked Homo Erectus now counts as highly developed, basically full Homo, while Australopithecantropus turned out to be just an ape sceleton, though, the most famous one.
70% percent of Americans believe that Jesus is the son of God, who created the earth with a few blast of lightening a wave of wand, and his son took off after his death to fly around the moon. So we’re not that advanced yet.
“Australopithecantropus turned out to be just an ape sceleton”
ha that is funny coming from an ape.
Hmph. Beware comparing European cities with rural America.
When I studied it, Homo Erectus was considered an offshoot, evolving from Homo Ergaster, which is at the root of the true transition to modern man. Homo Habilis was considered likely to be essentially a dead end. Even Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis is considered an elder brother, not a father, to Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
You mean Australopithecus. Lucy et al., no they were not ape like. Give the Palaeoanthropologists some credit, they know the difference. The homo genus and precursors, (hominids/hominins)separated from the higher primates or apes, chimps etc., 6 million years ago.
Some died out or became extinct or just evolved gradually. Homo florensesis ‘The Hobbit’ was a line that became separated because of isolation on the island of Flores, and somehow seemed to be related to Homo erectus. But it is a mystery still. They lived it is believed until 18,000 years ago, but killed by a volcanic eruption and I think some interference from the Homo sapiens who lived there. The Hobbit did have longer arms than Homo sapiens, that is most probably what makes you think they were ape like? They had small brains but comparison to their size and they made rudimentary stone tools. So the Lucy and ilk did not.
I assume that was a derogatory comment aimed at WUWT, the only problem was that it was incoherent.
Care to try again ?
He has to wipe his spittle off of his keyboard first.
I think what he meant is that there is a consistency in mental process of certain types of brains or mindsets focused on a belief, and that any challenge to that belief is met with similar defensive reactions regardless of the subject. It tends to be more prominent in conservative type minds (not political cons but one more likely to go straight to work for a large corporation than travel to India, or one less likely to try new foods if it’s served on a leaf or unique manner), rather than liberal minds who are more likely to congregate near universities because they learn new things, hear new music and are generally open to new ideas, right or wrong. I don’t think he’s actually laughing though.
Let him miss the trend of the recent peer-review literature — at his peril.
While I agree with you in part regarding your analogy, at WUWT posts and comments are roundly criticized, sometimes well, and sometimes not very well at all. It is up to the readers to use whatever education they have received in how to apply close reading strategies to written work as to whether or not a claim is substantiated, valid, and reliable. In this thread, very little meets that criteria in my opinion. We have a lot of babies thrown out with the bathwater.
Criteria is plural. The singular is criterion.
The federal regime has no place in education, IMHO. Common core is statist tyranny.
“…those criteria.” Thanks.
creationists blog react the same way to biology / evolution in schools like WUWT to Climatology / AGW in schools….
Why, yes. The minor difference being that one is essentially incorrect and the other essentially correct.
indeed Evan. Creationsits and WUWT are wrong, science is correct 🙂
There is a gigantic difference. Evolution is an exceedingly well-formed and extensively tested, falsifiable scientific theory that has withstood experimental and observational testing repeatedly. Anthropogentic climate change isn’t even a coherent set of statements, much less a testable hypothesis.
AGW is an exceedingly well-formed and extensively tested, falsifiable scientific theory that has withstood experimental and observational testing repeatedly.
Daniel, Is it hard to imagine a person who would react to both the same way? No, that’s dumb. That probably wouldn’t even happen in your circle of preempted thought. I see you react to the creationist/biology vs evolution with derision and yet accept CAGW on the same kind of authority. You wouldn’t be a democrat by any chance?
Notice how the word “climate” has morphed into “climate change”, clearly an attempt at brainwashing. It would be tough for school children, and even physics graduates, to learn the basics of how the climate system works. They should leave it at that, ditch the BS about “change”.
All the more reason for Private Schools, Parochial Schools, Home schooling…etc.
The “government factory schools” are beginning to look more like places running “Obama Youth” cadres. (And I don’t mean Obama!)
There is no mention of fact checking and model error evaluation. That alone makes it bad science education.
Common Corpse; Kill all original thought and the ability to think and reason.
hmmm. I have read the ELA and Math Common Core standards, and some of the newly minted Science standards. The ELA and Math standards do not at all kill original thought and the ability to think and reason. In fact, that ability is a major foundational focus. It does, however, seem less so with the Science standards.
And along with that, most future innovation will not come to pass.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Federal-Government-Assets-and-Student-Loans.php
It is worse than you think.
From the Climate Science Literacy Guide:
During the 20th century, Earth’s globally averaged surface temperature rose by approximately 1.08°F (0.6°c). additional warming of more than 0.25°F (0.14°c) has been measured since 2000
Is this statement true?
Well, how to lie with statistics.
The mean surface temperature rise throughout the 20th century was probably around 0.6 deg.C, or maybe a fraction more.
But, If we look at temperatures measured by satellites then the warmest year is still 1998 and it has been cooling since 2000 (though not to a significant degree).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2014/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2014/trend
If we look at ground station estimates, such as Hadcrut4, then there is no warming this century.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2014/trend
But, of course, you can also look at some other data set and perhaps get a different answer. But that fact that just confirms what we mean by ‘there has been no significant warming for 18 years’. It requires cherry-picking insignificant data, from a particular data set over a particular time period, to pretend otherwise.
But, to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies’s famous remark, they will do that, won’t they?
2000 is a pro-warming cherrypicked start-point. Always avoid startpoints and endpoints between 1998 and 2000 if you are going to use the study period as an assessment of the amount it is warming (or not). The Nino/Nina whipsaw leads to cherrypicking by both sides in this.
(Note that we use both, but we are not portraying those trends as typical, but merely using them to assess effects of warming and cooling periods on stations/microsite.)
There were a few cool years after 1998, IIRC. So choosing 2000 as a start year might give you a rise till 2014 on the GISS data set. It would be a cherry pick, tho.
A small chide. That is not how this statistic works. You start from the present (which provides maximum information) and work back to some date depending on the data set and the test method. There are two methods: zero positive slope in a regression (which Monckton used) and zero stastitically significant slope in a regression (which McKittrick used in his 2014 paper). Both properly done require statistical care about autocorrelation, which untreated produces a non random error bias violating the BLUE theorem. The warmunist starting point cherry pick criticism always was logicaly invalid. It confuses the end result with the starting point. Its fun slapping warmunists with that tidbit, since in addition to destroying their criticism, it reveals their ignorance of statistics. (Throw in autocorrelation and BLUE and watch them run for the hills rather than continue that particular debate.) Particularly fun at cocktail parties where you can sidle up later and hammer them on other matters like no accelerating SLR, no extinctions, no increase in extreme weather…
ristvan, your comment is eye candy.
kokoda
No.
That sounds about right to me, actually. But it is not particularly significant, and Y2K is a cherrypicked startpoint. (Arguably, 1900, as well.)
I find it absurd that the climate priesthood consider it essential that climate only be discussed by “real climate scientists” and then they propose that the Articles of Faith should be taught to schoolchildren as a substitute for learning the science necessary to understand what little we can of the climate. That is of course the point – the children will need to work out the science for themselves.
I shall have to paraphrase, as I do not recall the exact quote, but President Reagan said, ‘… if our educational system had been designed by a foreign government, we would have to consider it an act of war … … ‘
And if we don’t improve our instructional strategies, standards design, and math performance we will lose that war.
How about this one?—Question (liberal) authority.
How the he!! can science be “holistic?” It reminds me of the kid’s chemistry sets nowadays, there are almost no chemicals. When I was a kid, my chemistry sets had real chemicals, litmus paper, PH strips, candles, burners, flasks, test tubes, etc. I guess the contemporary chemistry sets are “holistic chemistry sets.”
I think it is great that schools will now be teaching the fundamentals of climate and climate change. Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities. Since the industrial revolution we have seen a steady increase in the amount of fossil fuels being burned as well as an increase in the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere which pair up with an increase in global temperature. The only explanation for this increase in temperature is human produced CO2, and since older generations clearly cannot grasp this concept it is great that they will be teaching children about it in hopes that they can impact our planet positively.
Megan,
Your error-filled statement as just political talking points. It’s also apparent by your statements that you have no background in science.
I’d ask you to stick around and engage in the conversation, but I know that you won’t and that no amount of data and truth would change your mind, or make you think that the possibility even exists that you could be wrong. You “believe it”, so it must be right.
I would love to stick around and engage, what points are you talking about exactly?
This is when someone is supposed to come in and say *crickets*, but no one will rescue you. They will just pull up another chart to support what they want to think or deny. Clearly no one wants to admit that we are causing climate to change faster and have population dislocations, fires, wars, droughts and bad wine, it would require some self assessment. Denial is easier.
To take one of your claims, fire, can here in Aus, a fire prone country, we’ve had one of the coldest, wettest and fire free summers on record all the while CO2 rises.
Patrick, climate change has an effect on wind and water patterns. Some places are experiencing extreme droughts, take California for instance, while other places are getting more rain and snow than usual. GLOBALLY we are seeing temperature rising.
Megan says “Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities. ”
Really??? You need to get your facts straight. That is the common assertion by alarmists but it is not true, but simply fear mongering propaganda. CO2 has risen at unprecdented rates but climate did not respond accordingly. First consider there has been a warming hiatus for 18 years. I have to laugh when scientists have been scrambling to explain the slow rate of warming, yet the devotees of CO2 try to scare the public about change happening faster than ever. LOL
Second consider that places like eastern USA and eastern Antarctic show no warming for 50 o 100 years, Nearly every tree ring data set show no or very little warming since the 1950s. Third scientists reported the rate of warming in the Arctic in the 1930s was faster than same cyclical warming seen today in the Arctic (read Chylek 2006) Fourth regional “average” temperatures may have risen, but largely driven by land use change and urbanization, while maximum temperatures have declined since the 30s many places such as in California.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/103207378.png
Finally the truly fast rates of climate change happened during the ice ages as is well documented for the Dansgaard Oeschger events. As the world warmed those rapid rises and falls in temperature were muted.
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/charles/images/gisp2_d18o_small.jpg
Megan I suspect you would be against debating climate change in the schools because it make students aware of these incovenient truths.
Thanks, Jim. Glad to have you here.
I believe it is you who needs to get their facts straight considering there has most definitely been warming since the industrial revolution. I am talking about warming on a GLOBAL level which you do not see since you are cherrypicking data. 2010 was the hottest year on record and global temperatures are still rising and we see that they are rising in correlation with the amount of fossil fuels that are burned as well as the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. Also your data refers to the year 2007 where we saw rapid cooling caused by a strong La Nina, again you are cherrypicking your data. Their is a difference between weather and climate I am talking about warming on a global level which is warming at a rapid rate caused by human activities. In the past CO2 levels rose at a rate of 1 ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate of increase is 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times as fast. In 2010 we saw the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increase by 30 billion tonnes. We are producing more carbon than the carbon cycle can recycle and this carbon is sitting in our atmosphere causing a green house effect and warming of our planet.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/sum_wld.html
Jim– the chart I linked in above is convenient in that it tells me you are hilarious too! More importantly everyone is hung up on models and 18 years and their own little nano second of a life on this planet, while Greenland took eons to form and tasty tuna took god knows how many years to evolve, but we’re sure trying to make them both go away so we can watch 3 TVs at once and eat all the sushi we can before it’s gone.
Thanks, Jim. Glad to have you here.
Always nice to hear from a Climate Station brother-in arms.
Another important consideration, Megan, is for you to determine the resolution of temperature reconstructions that are ubiquitously attached to current fine scaled temperature sensor data without proper explanation as to the effects of this splice.
MeganJ224
April 24, 2015 at 12:08 pm
“Climate has always changed but right now it is changing at a rate faster than it ever has because of human activities.”
Nope, that’s BS. In fact we even have a temperature standstill for 18 years now, not that that’s historically unique, happens in all climatic maxima, obviously.
If we have not seen climate change in the last 18 years how do explain the fact that 2010 was the hottest year on record?
Consider that the global average temperature is a chimera of many different dynamics, and then ponder why you are filled with fear and alarm from a questionable graph
http://landscapesandcycles.net/the-global-average-temperature-chimera.html
MeganJ224
April 24, 2015 at 7:42 pm
“If we have not seen climate change in the last 18 years how do explain the fact that 2010 was the hottest year on record?”
Gavin’s Magic Wand.
NASA produces two kinds of products: First, THe fudged pseudoscience from misinterpreting a vanishing number of terrestrial thermometers produced by the propagandist Gavin Schmidt at GISS. This product is for public consumption and keeping the “Fight Climate Change” taxpayer money running, 1.2 billion USD a year for NASA.
Notice that this product has NOTHING to do with NASA’s domain: SPACE.
Second, NASA via their satellites also delivers the basis to produce better global temperature measurements (better, because they violate the Nyquist or Shannon theorem less): UAH and RSS.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss
These products do not get any airplay by the warmunist media, yet interestengly they are produced in a much more hitech, much more expensive, much more NASA-specific way.
Maybe these are the products strategic planners – if the USA has any left – and has not replaced them all with delusional regime changers /promoters of political assassinations like Brzezinski and Nudelman – use? Of course, not for public consumption.
@jim Steele There are three main drivers of global temperature, solar activities, Milankovitc cycles, and greenhouse gas forcing. Studies show solar activity is having no impact on the warming trend, Milankovic cycles are actually cooling the earth, leaving only greenhouse forcing to explain the warming.
MeganJ224 – hope this posts in the proper place –
The “what’s left” notion is what pointed them at CO2 originally during a period when T and CO2 were spuriously behaving. Didn’t work before and hasn’t happened since, but they’d grabbed a valuable molecule and were otherwise entrenched.
What about oceans? No possible influence? It is a water world.
Megan, I encourage you to review some of the evidences that are cited as irrefutable proof that manmade climate change is happening, such as the receding of glaciers and the rise in sea levels.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/the-rhone-glacier-then-and-now/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/james-balogs-inconvenient-glacial-canaries/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/16/latest-noaa-mean-sea-level-trend-data-through-2013-confirms-lack-of-sea-level-rise-acceleration-2/
You’ll find that the global climate has been warming steadily for more than 150 years. The Rhone Glacier actually receded less rapidly over the last 50 years than the 100 years before that. Glacier Bay has been steadily receding since the earliest explorations in the 1760’s. The sea level has been rising in a slow and steady straight line for 100+ years.
Anything change that occurred prior to ~1950 cannot reasonably be blamed on CO2, since human emissions only spiked upward in a major way after that. So, if you have a straight-line increase for 100+ or 150+ years, that is just natural warming and there is simply no additional variation left for humans cause.
You said that the RATE of change has increased. If you know anything about statistics, you appreciate that it is much much harder to prove mathematically that the rate or variance of a measurement is changing than it is to prove that the average value is changing. They can’t even convincingly prove that the average temperature is above what would be considered a natural amount, trying to prove that the rate or variability of temperature has fundamentally shifted is so much more difficult that it’s ludicrous to suggest it.
I appreciate your .com references but I assure you that you have been misinformed. Like I told Jim above, in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before. Also you cherrypicked your data as well, 2010 was the hottest year on record, we also saw an addition of 30 billion tonnes of CO2 added to our atmosphere. We have seen a steady increase in the amount of fossil fuels burned, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere and the global temperature. There is no explanation to this except human causes. We are warming our world at an unprecedented rate by adding more CO2 to our atmosphere than the carbon cycle can recycle. We are also seeing that these increases are coming from the northern hemisphere where most of the burning of fossil fuels happen. We are seeing hotter years, increased storms, and bleaching of coral reefs with acidification of the ocean. These are major problems that are human caused, not natural.
You cannot cite a wordpress blog focused your agenda as valid evidence of anything. Every article and link is self selected and inherently biased. Cite something else (and not a lot of people…)
Like I told Jim above, in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before.
Heck, you can go further than that.
For the (paltry) last few million, CO2 has outright depleted, putting a large natural strain on evolutionary direction. That 2ppm/year, has lifted that pressure and we have seen a recent explosion of biomass and speciation, especially in the areas that need it most: The Sahel and the African/Amazon rainforests.
Fortunately, CO2 effect is a severely diminishing return in terms of temperatures (~1.1C/doubling, sans net feedbacks, which are not showing up in the data), so it is looking as if some decades down the road, we will break out of this ahead of the ecological game.
That is an optimistic scenario, yes, but it is looking very good. It’s not a game or experiment I would have entered into from card 1, perhaps, but there are 4 cards down now, like it or not, and it’s looking a lot like a pat hand. We got lucky.
Fossil Fuels are a temporary but essential phase in human development. UDCs utterly destroy their environments. DCs protect them. So, for now, let’s dig some coal, knock the U out of UDC and save us a whole bunch of trees and not-always-so-cute furry things. In the name of Gaia, let’s get cracking and let’s get fracking.
Megan: We are also seeing that these increases are coming from the northern hemisphere where most of the burning of fossil fuels happen.
%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.cnet.com%252Fnews%252Fhypnotic-nasa-video-makes-earths-carbon-dioxide-gorgeous%252F%3B770%3B383
This statement might seem defensible, given NASA’s computer simulation of global CO2 movement:
But when real observations from the OCO-2 satellite were published last year, the results were a bit different:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19dec_oco/
Simulations are not data.
@evenmjones CO2 is not depleting humans are adding about 29 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere every year and about 43% stays there and causes this greenhouse gas effect. CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in the last 15 million years. And since DC’s supposedly protect their environments why would wouldn’t we share green technologies with UDCs and help to lower global temperatures now before its far too late?
Juan, we know that most of the human produced CO2 is coming from the northern hemisphere because it takes the one to two years for the atmosphere to cycle CO2 from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere and we see that the south pole is about two years behind in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere when compared to Alaska.
“For the (paltry) last few million, CO2 has outright depleted, putting a large natural strain on evolutionary direction. That 2ppm/year, has lifted that pressure and we have seen a recent explosion of biomass and speciation”
what studies do you base your “speciation” explosion on?
Honorable moderator:
From her answer I discern that Megan is unable to follow the link I left above, to wit:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19dec_oco/
Is there an easy way to simply insert the map here so she can actually look at the result of observations?
[done – mod ]
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/mainco2mappia18934.jpg
Well stated, little one. You have learned well, but it is from the evil force (the dark side). You must unlearn what you have learned.
Megan, Megan. Please read your sources critically (which is one of the Common Core standards) and evaluate whether or not claims made are substantiated with valid and reliable research.
Megan,
Climate, however measured, is not now changing at anything like historical rates of change.
You have been severely misinformed. That is to say, lied to, & bought the lie hook, line & sinker.
I have not been lied to, you have believed cherrypicked data that does not give the full picture of climate change. If you look at data you will see a steady increase in the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 increase and global temperatures. Like I have said in every other post climate is MOST DEFINITELY changing at a rate that is unprecedented in the past carbon levels rose at a rate of 1ppm (part per million) in 500 years, the current rate is an increase of 2ppm in one year which is 1,000 times faster than before. I encourage you to look at data on a global level, not 2007 in California and certain years from only the U.S. Look at data on global level and you will see that temperatures are increasing at a very fast rate and that humans are the cause of this increase.
@milodonharlani– Can you cite a single example in history where a landmass the size of the united states experience record snow – in record time- and temperatures above the average by roughly 20 degrees (i’ll go find if you really need me to) while the other side of said land mass experience one its lowest precipitation rates and record winter temperatures roughly 20 degrees ABOVE the average? If so, I will never bother you guys again and go buy a Ferrari. Now… add in the fact that Sao Paulo, in the opposing hemisphere also suffered from the same level of drought, if not more so. Please show that is a regular event in history and I will then accept your argument and not Megan, Megan’s.
Megan,
We have definitely increased CO2 and temps have increased. So what? You keep mentioning the term “on record”, as if that is a significant term, which it is not, It is only political. Do you not understand that the “temperature record” refers to the instrumental, or thermometer record which only goes back to around 1850, in the middle of the Little Ice Age? Much of the warming since that time occurred pre- 1950, before CO2 could have had any effect. What caused that warming? There are several periods in recorded human history which had warmer temps than we enjoy today…the Medieval warm period, The Roman and Minoan warm periods… in fact, there have been 342 warming events distinguishable in the Paleoclimate record. What caused all of those warming events?
There is not a single modern temperature data set which shows a clear CO2 signal, related to temps. Do you understand the significance of that fact?
@leland who says “Can you cite a single example in history where a landmass the size of the united states experience record snow – in record time- and temperatures above the average by roughly 20 degrees (i’ll go find if you really need me to) while the other side of said land mass experience one its lowest precipitation rates and record winter temperatures roughly 20 degrees ABOVE the average?”
First what is your point? Are you suggesting the uniform blanket of CO2 radiatively heats up the west coast by 20 degrees and cools the east by 20 degrees? There is no physics that could support such a silly notion. But that pattern is easily explained by advection of warm and cold air with air masses constrained by the jet stream and modulated by the position of the Pacific High pressure system, which is a function of the Hadley cell, El Nino/La Nina and interactions with the polar cell.
Maybe you are suggesting rising CO2 causes the wavy jet stream? Most climate scientists don’t think it does. Historical evidence would not support that suggestions either. SImilar patterns have been seen as the oceans undergo natural regime shits as in 1934 setting up the dust bowl, or 1977 or today. Read The worst North American drought year of the last millennium: 1934 by
Cook et al. (2014)
Here’s a picture from newspapers in 1977 trying to explain very similar temperature patterns (from Steve Goddard’s site). 1977 was a severe California drought year while Boston “record snow”.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/103477951.gif
Its all well documented natural variability.
The new climate standards ( and alarmists) are trying to turn students into natural climate change deniers.
Come, now Meg. Skeptics are subject to peer review like anyone else, moreso, even. If we cherryick, we get tromped on by a herd of academic elephants. And recently, we have been privileged to do most of that tromping, anyway.
18 out of the last 19 (and I think it’s 20, now) peer-review studies on carbon sensitivity have shown lower (sometimes much lower) TCS/ECS than the IPCC CMIP3\5 models.
If you put stock in consensus, the New Consensus is that the IPCC got it wrong.
If you look at data you will see a steady increase in the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 increase and global temperatures.
I agree completely.
Alan, the medieval times did experience unusual warming, that is true, but globally the world is hotter now than it was then. The warming during medieval times was seen only in certain regions, not globally. When coming out of the little ice age we saw warming from the sun which leveled off around 1940, since 1940 the sun and volcanic activity has actually been cooling the earth. There have been warming and cooling events all through out the past but on a global level the Earth is heating at a fast rate and since 1970 human produced CO2 is the main source to blame.
No, that is not true.
And, that you state it is “true” does not make it true.
Jim, climate change will cause places to be colder while others show to be warmer. Since the 1970s the world has been warming at a rate of about .2 degrees Celsius per decade. Weather is sporadic and will continue to impose dramatic ups and downs. We expect to see record lows even during global warming. During the last decade we have seen twice the amount of record highs compared to record lows. Hot days are increasing by the decade, as well as the global temperature.
“18 out of the last 19 (and I think it’s 20, now) peer-review studies on carbon sensitivity have shown lower (sometimes much lower) TCS/ECS than the IPCC CMIP3\5 models.”
yeah, that was the claim you made on YT and failed to back it up with evidence.
Here in BC the public schools are loaded with anti development environmentalist propaganda. Of course the teachers are mostly true believers but bring in the High Priests” from Wildsight to do the real brainwashing dirty work. We wrote letters protesting this and the BC government actually listened!
The carpetbagger radicals are out of the BC schools…………for now.
Is it possible to have a section here at WUWT dedicated to education of our children. Perhaps groups can be formed to suggest a proper curriculum and others can comment on the choices. For those who have homeschooled or former science, technology, engineering, and math instructors, perhaps you can lead the way. Perhaps this can be combined with the Khan Academy online school and we can point the way for a proper education in these disciplines. Any thoughts on this idea? Anybody interested???
Thanks for considering.
Glenn999 it is nice that your comment included a recognition of homeschooling. Recognition for and understanding of home educators is to be desired because it may be easy to misunderstand something that many do not have any direct experience of.
Home schoolers are a very diverse group and it grows yearly. 2013 figures from HSLDA state, “The new report concludes that approximately 1,770,000 students are homeschooled in the United States—3.4% of the school-age population.” But although it is very diverse, I think there are some basic concepts that can help people understand the legal, civil and social foundation for the decision to home educate.
1. Parents have the right, responsibility, and duty to raise and educate any children they have.
2. It should be understood that home schooling means that the curricula is chosen by the parents – otherwise it cannot be considered to be homeschooling, but a form of public school extension program.
3. Each state has required subjects and hours of instruction which have been determined by the voters. Laws are to be interpreted liberally.
4. It appears to be a pattern that the states with the most unsuccessful public schools are the ones that want to regulate and oversee homeschoolers most.
5. Home schoolers pay for the maintenance of the public schools through their property taxes. (Ours are several thousand a year.) The money for books, materials, tutors, field trips, etc. are additional expenses. Most home schoolers do not want any form of financial aid from taxes because these come with greater controls. Many single income homes, which is an additional cost which must be counted.
6. Reasons to home educate are very diverse. Some withdraw their child because they have been told their child needs to go on psychotropic medications. Some have slow and some have highly gifted children. Some are extreme new agers who do not want to vaccinate and some are traditional families who simply want to be a part of their own children’s lives while they can.
7. Studies show that home schooled children perform in the 80%, whereas public schools achieve 50% averages in standardized tests – such as the Iowa Assessment test. The tests will be changed to fit Common Core, but this should not be used against homeschoolers. Results are independent of educational level of the parent.
8. You can do it. You do not have to imitate a school classroom. Older kids can help with the younger.
9. Learning can be a self-organized, self-motivated, and highly individualized, even at a young age. Your teenagers can and will learn things you do not know how to do!
10. Digital Natives are AWESOME.
refs: https://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2013/201309030.asp
state requirements clickable map: http://www.hslda.org/hs/default.asp
They ain’t nobody but us visitahs heah.
===============
Further down the road that Prof Harry Messel (Oz, around the 1960’s) was critiquing with his comment about “that bastard thing called general science”
They should make any child that tries to discuss contradictory data or scientific theories to stand on a stool and wear a sign of shame around their necks.
Ecch. I liked the academic standards of the past, but not the discipline. Too much stick, not enough carrot. A disciplinary broken windows policy is necessary, but we could have lightened up on the chokeholds. Besides, an error is not a lie, and critical inquiry is to be encouraged (both ways).
Also, there is a much wider beneficial sweep now that ed-critics fail to account for. Sure, absolute standards are lower. But the overall literacy rate is hugely expanded, so what’d’ya expect?. And the internet has us both reading like the devil and writing.
Here is a 1931 8th grade exam from the State of West Virginia. I believe most would have a hard time passing this test today.
Even leaving out the questions related to West Virginia, I would probably fail.
But I can’t resist what came to mind from the first question on page 2, “Physiology and Hygiene”.
Q: How do we know that “toothpaste” was invented in West Virginia?
A: If it was invented anywhere else it would have been called “teethpaste”.
(Apologies in advance.8-)
hmm…. Just being challenging doesn’t make a good test. It would be interesting to see how this test was evaluated. Did they have a scoring rubric? Was each test scored by more than one person? A test that will determined whether I get into high school had better be thoughtfully considered.
I have to wonder if the test writers themselves bothered to validate this test on a student population. The second question, for example is completely unclear as to whether they are asking for a single country producing all the listed items, or for one country per item. As a teacher using state approved, published reading texts, I found it useful to personally take the unit tests before giving them to my students. There are surprising things there. Example: The question asking third graders to divide “taxi” into syllables..
Well Juan,
Remember this was 1931. I kinda doubt there was much administrative resource to spend on things like scoring rubrics or validation on a test population. Times were lean and mean. Compared to today, there wasn’t as much fat in the system, if you know what I mean… So they ended up with some mistakes, like the second question which was missing the word “as”.
Most of the kids would never go on to higher education.
It appears they were mainly interested in breadth and depth, which was important more for basic survival skills than anything else.
Enter Dewey. (Urgh!)
In an odd way I welcome this kind of initiative. It separates those that can think from those that cannot. I have taught my daughter to question what she hears at school. The fact that others don’t do so is simply not my problem. In fact, is to my daughter’s advantage. She will lead while others will follow.
It is unfortunate that science has come to this, but the environmental movement has destroyed the credibility of related sciences knowingly and willingly to push their agenda. Some have said that the environmental scientists have already won the battle because they have the ears of the politicos.
However, pretty much everyone on these forums knows why they really haven’t won anything. The reason is simple – their science is dead wrong.
The alarmists have been out in full force trying to ensure state textbook adoptions do no choose books that that suggest debating climate science or testing it hypotheses. Internet snipers like slandering sou suggest debating climate science is pseudo-science. As I wrote earlier some of the leaders in this push like Camille Parmesan have prevented replication of her own work, so it was not surprising to see her advocating blind acceptance of the dogma in schoolbooks.
These alarmists simply want to secure their influence arguing “From the scientific perspective, there are simply no longer “two sides” to the climate-change story: The debate is over. The jury is in, and humans are the culprit.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/the-ultimate-irony-camille-parmesan-argues-texas-textbooks-need-to-get-the-facts-straight-on-global-warming/
The debate is over. The jury is in, and it is still not possible to predict a chaotic system with a discrete simulation of limited resolution over longer period of times.
Scientists should now QUICKLY distance themselves from “climate scientists” lest they lose all reputation. It is NOT ENOUGH to stay silent about the absolute quackery that goes on in “climate science” if you other scientists do not want to be called collaborators of grant theft!
…grand theft. heh. Both work.