Essay by Eric Worrall
I wonder if there is a case for challenging compulsory climate studies on the grounds that belief in catastrophic climate change is a state religion?
‘Face it head on’: Connecticut makes climate change studies compulsory
Enshrining the curriculum in law insulates the subject from budget cuts and culture wars related to the climate crisis
Sat 17 Dec 2022 19.00 AEDT
Starting next July, Connecticut will become one of the first states in America to mandate climate change studies across its public schools as part of its science curriculum.
The new law passed earlier this year comes as part of the state’s attempts to address concerns over the short duration – and in some cases, absence – of climate change studies in classrooms. The requirement follows in the footsteps of New Jersey, which in 2020 became the first state to mandate K-12 climate change education across its school districts.
Currently, nearly 90% of public schools across Connecticut include climate change studies in their curriculums. However, by mandating it as part of state law from grades five to 12, climate education will effectively become protected from budget cuts and climate-denying political views at a time when education in the US has become a serious culture war battleground.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/17/climate-change-studies-connecticut
There is legal precedent for considering belief in catastrophic climate change might be a religion.
In 2009, a judge in Britain ruled in favour of plaintiff Tim Nicholson in an unfair dismissal case. The Judge found that Tim’s climate beliefs were entitled to the same legal protection as a person of religious faith. Tim was suing his employer for dismissing him on the grounds of his beliefs in catastrophic climate change. “… In a significant decision today , a judge found Nicholson’s views on the environment were so deeply held that they were entitled to the same protection as religious convictions, and ruled that an employment tribunal should hear his claim that he was sacked because of his beliefs. …”.
Although Tim’s case occurred in Britain, sometimes US courts reference legal precedent from other nations with similar legal systems, when those foreign legal systems are viewed by US courts as a legitimate source of jurisprudence.
How would a judicial ruling that CAGW is a religion help children in Connecticut?
There is another precedent which might be useful. In the early noughties, there was a push in Kansas to teach Intelligent Design alongside or instead of the theory of evolution in biology classes. In 2005 Bobby Henderson created the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and used this alleged religion to demand equal access to Intelligent Design course syllabuses, on the grounds that teaching just one religious perspective in Intelligent Design courses violates the separation of church and state.
A judicial ruling that CAGW is a state religion might similarly be used by climate skeptics to demand equal access to the syllabus of climate religious studies courses in states like Connecticut.
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Great point. The state politicos are the Climate bishops.
Hopefully, parents will get ahold of the textbook/course material and take them to court. You know it will be filled with propaganda and lies.
Yes! Challenging it on the basis that it is a religeon is futile. Challenging the facts presented, exposing the lies, that’s the way to deal with this.
One can hope that at least some parents will inoculate their kids against this kind of misinformation…. I got lucky with regards to my (mostly) public school education as my mom was pretty proactive at giving me real facts to counter the tripe that a few of my teachers doled out.
I had a history teacher who hated Richard Nixon about as badly as some hate Trump today. While the book for the class only devoted maybe a half a page to Nixon and Watergate, the teacher went on and on about it for a whole class period or more. For some odd reason, Nixon’s party was never mentioned, nor was Kennedy’s or any other past POTUS. It wasn’t until I got out of high school that I discovered that Nixon wasn’t a Democrat. I asked my mom (this was long before the internet) and she told me all about Nixon. I told my mom that I thought sure Nixon was a Dem because of the way the teacher was hating on him….so in that regard, that lib teacher’s slant on history backfired, at least with me it did!
But no, my mom set me straight about Nixon and the events of that time. And there were other things she set me straight on as well. That taught me to question narratives, which came in handy when I went to college.
I had to take a course in “ethnic studies” in college (was required to graduate). Some of the course material was pretty bogus. One book I had to read and write a paper about the author struggled to try and prove that black Africans (as in sub-Saharan Africans) built the great pyramids and all of the monuments in Egypt. Well, having been to Egypt as a pre-teen, I had a first hand look at their monuments and artwork (and seeing local Egyptian populace) and I saw very few people that could have been considered black. So, I went ahead and wrote the paper, got a good grade on it and moved on.
By that point I learned that not everything you might be taught in a school is true. My aim was to get the grade, get my degree and move on with my life.
Hopefully at least some kids today have mothers (and/or fathers) like mine.
I would also add that I took a course about cults in college (wasn’t required, but it was a popular course so I’d imagine quite a few students took it anyway), and even though the professor was so far left she was out of the ballpark, the information in the course was pretty dead on. And yes I can easily see how this climate change stuff is very cultish.
I agree they should teach climate science – not the ideological alarmist stuff, but proper, unbiased, all fact realism – the science is not settled – CO2 is not the harbinger of doom, but an essential, life giving gas that all plant life on earth needs to survive, giving us O2 to breathe in return, the more, the better
it is vital we teach the future generations real science and that nothing is settled, until it is a verified, universally accepted fact
Lesson #1: The economic shutdown due to COVID proves economic activity and atmospheric CO2 are not related
Lesson #2: Man has produced 1 out of every 10,000 CO2 molecules in the atmosphere. The GHG causes them to vibrate with the energy of a -80C black body, which has no material impact on the other 9,999 molecule’s kinetic energy
Lesson #3: Using the NASA GISS Website, identify the cold and dry deserts in an experiment controlling for the Urban Heat Island Effect and Water Vapor. You will find that the majority of those locations show no warming with a 25% or more increase in CO2
Lesson #4: Explain why some locations show warming and others don’t, do the laws of physics cease to exist in some locations?
“might similarly be used by climate skeptics”
But WILL it?
While I agree with the discussion concerning the inherently religious nature of such discussion, there is another way to view the matter. For some years in the 2000s I taught Climate in a couple of general education courses (not science majors – one course was Current Issues in Science and the other Energy Culture). At that time, I expressed colleagues that me dream was to have students who had learned enough science in high school to be ready to dive into the climate issue. I had to teach some rudimentary science and then break down the issue – my goal was have students who could read popular writing on climate and understand how this or that claim/study fit into the bigger picture of the many aspects of the question (CO2 rising, continuing to rise, does it cause warming?, will more CO2 cause more warming? is warming bad? can political action “fix” it?, would the benefits of the political action exceed the risks/damage?)
Thus I think the worst thing about this Connecticut plan is that it wastes time teaching a political/religious view to students who lack the basic science needed to even think about climate as a science issue. Few students know something as simple as the distinction between weather and climate, the CO2 cycle, let alone the major atmospheric/oceanic flows that form the climate.
O Boy! Critical Climate Theory coming to a school district near you.
I think it’s safe to assume that these courses will have little or nothing to do with Meteorology or the history of past events that were more frequent and more devastating than today’s Headlines.
It it be centered on the need for “social change to achieve climate justice”.
The science of biology (XX, XY chromones) has taken a backseat in classrooms in favor of the ideology of the few to gain power.
Why not do the same to with CliSy?
I’m worried Florida is going to sink under the weight of all the people moving there to escape nonsense like this. (H/T Hank Johnson).
Given that pretty much every nationally representative scientific body on the planet agrees that the recent (man made)increase in CO2 is warming the climate and that it is likely to cause issues for life on the planet, I think it is important to keep the younger generation informed. To not do so would be neglectful/irresponsible/ down right wrong.
Here’s a list of the organisations in case you missed it… https://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html
Argument from Authority.
The history of Science (if you ever bothered to consider it) is the history of the ‘consensus’ view being quite wrong.
E.g., ether; heavier objects fall faster than light objects (of the same dimensions and size); geocentric theory.
When Wegner was proposing that the continents were moving around the surface of the Earth, he was told he was wrong. He was vindicated a few decades after his untimely death.
Any perusal of Temperatures vs. CO2 concentration (such as Bill Illis’ magnificent 750-ma chart) will demonstrate conclusively that there is no relation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and average global temperature.
It really wouldn’t hurt you to learn some Science at some point in your life. This website can help.
Vlad
“Argument from Authority.”
Yawn. What a cop out. I knew someone here would recite the WUWT mantra. There is a reason these organisations endorse the idea that CO2 is warming the planet. These are not amateurs sitting round fiddling on blog sites. They are the finest minds in the field. Yes, yes,, I know, that doesn’t mean they are definitely right, but they have a way better shot at it than any other group.
The overwhelming evidence would suggest that man made CO2 is the most likely reason we are warming. Now if you have a better explanation let’s hear it?
“Any perusal of Temperatures vs. CO2 concentration (such as Bill Illis’ magnificent 750-ma chart) will demonstrate conclusively that there is no relation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and average global temperature.”
Ummm I think you will find there is….
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf
Berkley Earth? Seriously?
So sad you do not realize there’s been well over four billion years’ worth of climate change, and carbon dioxide had nothing to do with it.
And, it’s not a “WUWT mantra” about Argument from Authority. It’s called a logical fallacy, whether you like it or not. If your only resort is to cite that ‘everyone else believes it’, then you’ve really nothing to stand on.
I’m going to assume that you’ve run the cross-correlation on Bill Illis’ chart, as most of the mathematically-astute here at WUWT have done. Publish your correlation coefficient before you make a further fool of yourself.
I shan’t hold my breath waiting for your coefficient; my guess is that you’ve no clue how to run one anyway.
Regards,
Vlad
Berkley Earth was to be the darling of the skeptic community till they released their results. Then true to the skeptic cause when the results were in and they didn’t fit the narrative, they ran away bleating and accusing the team of fraud.
“Publish your correlation coefficient ” Ha ha, you are a clown sir…
Not sure what is so ‘clownish’ about a correlation coefficient. Do you have one, or not? If you do, then tell us what it is, and what it means. If you do not have one, or know how to calculate one, then please state that information. Otherwise, you have nothing upon which to support your original claim.
I state again, it is my belief that you have no clue how to find a correlation coefficient at all; Bill’s original 750-ma chart disproves the “CO2 causes climate change” narrative. This is your chance to dispute/disprove his information.
You could also benefit (as in, ‘learning some Science’) from the post with Dr. John Cristy.
If nothing else, at least run a cross-corr on Scotese’s data; I’m not a big fan of his chart, since it makes it look like Earth climate only operates in one of two modes, which we know is less than accurate.
Regards,
Vlad
And you could learn from starting at the basics instead of trying to use big words to impress people. Here, read this. It is from two of the most respected organisations on the planet (unless you are down a hole looking for big words). Let me know if there is something you don’t understand….You will notice they don’t use your “correlation coefficient.” Maybe they are not smart enough…
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://royalsociety.org/~/media/royal_society_content/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/climate-change-evidence-causes.pdf
So, you are Mathematically and Scientifically illiterate, and instead of having your own, independent thoughts and thought processes, you are only capable of regurgitating what you’ve been given from others.
So sad.
If you did understand things, you would know that Paleoclimate data and such are basic. The fact that such data contradict your cherished, unfounded beliefs tells me that you are in need of remediation. I’ve not seen you post recently on JoNova; that’s another place you can learn things; I know I have.
Maybe you can come back when (or if) you have some type of Science/Math background, and can speak from your own knowledge and experience, and not live vicariously through others.
Mods, I will request that Simon be restricted unless and until such time as he answers the challenge of Bill Illis’ 750-million-year T vs. CO2 chart. He makes essentially no contribution here, being only capable of posting links, and not capable of generating a cogent thought of his own.
Thanks for playing, Simon,
Vlad
OK Jo Nova is a known crackpot. I’m not wasting my time there. And I don’t think the mods care two hoots about your overblown ego or demands.
And thanks for bringing up Dr John Christy (That’s called an own goal, and if you are going to quote someone at least show you have a level of intelligence by spelling their name right) who actually agrees that CO2 is in part causing the recent warming. As does Anthony Watts and Dr Spencer. In fact it is very difficult to find a scientist working in the field who doesn’t agree with the concept of anthropogenic warming. You on the other hand??????
“Vlad the Imposter” more like.
I’m disappointed, Simon. This entire exchange has been a run of logical fallacies on your part. Textbook examples. I recall you used to do at least a little better than that.
That said, I’m glad to see you stuck around after the registration requirement. Apparently it bothered some others to have to do so.
Nice to hear from you Tony. I wouldn’t have missed registration for the world. Was easy.
HIs discussion is that the models are inaccurate, and these same ‘models’ are the basis for much of your hysteria.
Believe it or not, within the ‘skeptic’ community, there is disagreement about the amount of ‘heating’ any CO2 is capable of. If Dr. Christy believes there is ‘x’ amount, I’m fine with that. My basis for my belief is my own study of geologic time, which shows that the effect of carbon dioxide is negligible.
I applaud Dr. Christy for his opinion, which is likely based on his own study of the question. His interview was most insightful. You should try it,
Vlad