Essay by Eric Worrall
The CO2 ate my homework…
Climate change set to drive down school results and job prospects: Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index
Zurich Australia & Mandala
03/02/2025Extreme heat is set to reduce the academic attainment of Australian students by up to seven per cent, which could translate to $73,000 in lost earnings during their lifetime, according to a landmark new report.
…
Extreme heat is projected to reduce writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, and numeracy by over 7% in some parts of the country by 2060, with students in the Northern Territory and Queensland disproportionately impacted.
Two-thirds of schools in Australia currently face high climate risk. This is set to increase to 84% of schools by 2060 under an intermediate climate scenario with 2 degrees Celsius of warming.
Australian students are projected to experience 34 annual heatwave days by 2060.…
Mandala Partner Dr Adam Triggs said:
“High classroom temperatures can slow children’s cognitive ability and cognitive function, impairing the way students make decisions and process and retain information.
“Under a 2C temperature rise by 2060, our modelling shows this could equate to a $73,000 reduction in lifetime earnings – the equivalent of missing an entire year of employment.
“Perhaps most troubling is how climate risks compound existing inequalities. The same schools already facing socio-educational disadvantage are often those most exposed to climate impacts, creating a double burden for vulnerable communities.
…
Read more: https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2025/02/climate-change-set-to-drive-down-school-results-and-job-prospects-zurich-mandala-climate-risk-index/85797/
The referenced report is available here.
The NSW and Queensland education systems have bigger problems than climate change.
We pulled our kid out of the Queensland state system because of out of control bullying. During the last week, a visiting education inspector approached me and asked me if there were any problems. I explained we were pulling our kid out and why. I’m guessing the school teachers gave the inspector a different story, because I got some pretty angry looks a few days later – one of the teachers must have spotted me talking to the inspector, and figured out too late where the inspector’s information had come from. None of them lost their jobs for lying to the inspector.
In addition, there is a big problem with experienced teachers in remote communities. Newly qualified teachers are pressured to serve a few years in the outback, but there are real risks to safety being posted to such schools, so I doubt they stay long. Many outback towns in Queensland and NSW suffer lawlessness and gang violence, along with high levels of alcohol and drug abuse. Towns like Alice Springs in the Northern Territory regularly feature in the news in Australia, but there are plenty of messed up remote towns which rarely make the news, perhaps because they are not serviced by a high quality airport.
I saw one of these trouble spot towns in NSW with my own eyes in 2023 on a road trip. The town rarely makes the news, they don’t have a regular air service. I spoke to someone who was repairing an EV charger, he was laughing – repairing that charger was making him rich, the gangs kept wrecking it. The town doesn’t have a gasoline station, and many of the shop windows are boarded up. The EV charger repair guy kept his van door locked the whole time, even though he was only 3 ft from his van. In the time I stopped, two teenagers did a walk by of my vehicle. I didn’t hang around for long.
I’m not dissing the people who stick it out, and try to deliver an education to students despite intolerable working conditions – those people are heroes as far as I’m concerned.
But there are a lot of issues with Australian education which need to be fixed, which have nothing to do with climate change.
And even if climate change did become a problem, an air conditioner and a bit of building refurbishment is all that is required to make poor quality school rooms habitable, whatever happens to global temperature.
If you want to see how bad gang violence is in some inland towns in Australia, the following video provides some insight.
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It’s alright, when the CO2 level drops, all those kids will go back to school, the parents will keep an eye on them and the world’s population will all travel to global destinations on unicorns.
One by one, the world’s problems will be erased, if only we stopped burning coal. Thankfully it’s only world temperatures causing all this mayhem.
If only…
/s for anyone too thick to notice.
You forgot to add that penguin, because they live in the coldest place on Earth, are evil geniuses, and those supposedly really smart kids going to Singapore schools at roughly the Equator, are actually quite stupid, regardless of the test scores because sciency activists’ feelings and imaginings are more credible than actual test scores in our advanced modern progressive and tolerant world, and if you can’t believe that there will be a re-education session or unemployment in your future.
“Climate Change Alarmism is Causing Aussie Education Standards to Plummet”
As with all these moronic stories, a simple word added to the headline makes it 100% true.
Fire a few administrators, and hire a HVAC tech. Surely the administrators cost more than the tech, so save funds.
Most logical idea that isn’t allowed in the green cult.
Aussies have regressed to this state? Say it isn’t so, Sheila!
It is, Bruce.
Well, that’s silly. It will affect everybody equally, so net change is zero. Everybody will be equally dumber. Nothing to worry about.
Those with AC will be smarter.
Alternating Current?
Definitely will be smarter!
(240v in Oz too)
Yeah that is the kicker the report statement goes
“High classroom temperatures can slow children’s cognitive ability and cognitive function, impairing the way students make decisions and process and retain information.”
That literally excludes that schools can be air conditioned.
On the contrary Rud.
The “smart generation” who came through the 1960’s to 1970’s did not have A/C in the classroom or the opportunity to stay at home because it was too hot.
The only causation I can see (apart from curriculum changes) is that A/C is the root cause of the decline!
Indeed, jay. None of my schools in elementary through high school had A/C. And my house didn’t, either. We lived in the mid-Atlantic in the US where it was hardly cool in September and May-June. And none of my dorms and most of classrooms in college did not have A/C. Somehow, I survived.
No Air Conditioning in schools when I was a kid.
But, we didn’t start school in August (the hottest month), either.
Maybe tax it to complete the plan.
The only risk to the tikes’ education is that “Climate Change” is included in every aspect of the curriculum. Teach kids falsity and they learn nothing.
Also keep making claims that their future lives will be grim because of constant ooga booga life-threatening weather, and it’s no wonder the kids can’t see the point of getting out of bed and going to school.
Some of us here will remember the doom-laden outlook we had to endure during the late 50s – early 60s MAD era (Mutually Assured Destruction) of the US – Russia nuclear war tensions.
Gallows humor was rife amongst the kids back then.
The Australian gets it wrong again
It isn’t Climate Change causing standards to plummet.
It’s Climate Change propaganda indoctrination in schools that’s causing education standards to erode.
Is there nothing it can’t do?
It certainly causes a proportional rise in B.S. degrees (Not Bachelor of Science either)
Here’s another example of BS supposedly caused by climate change. It seems as though these falling education standards are becoming the rule in most English-speaking countries as policy makers there have become more concerned about student dropout rates than actual standards. So what easier way to keep kids in school than to water down the curriculum which in turn helps inflate grades and boost graduation rates. Whether the kids actually learn anything is secondary or even immaterial as long as school officials can display numbers that make it seem that mastery of skills and concepts has actually occurred. If not, simply blame it on the century’s favorite whipping boy: climate change, human-induced, of course.
Paraphrasing, ‘extreme heat reduces Australian academic achievement’.
Golly, I thought we invented air conditioning a century ago. Problem solved.
Oh, forgot— cannot use AC much on a AUS grid mostly powered by renewables.
Something about a stupid study implicitly predicated on a stupid policy.
A bit of apparent ‘down under’ math: stupid x stupid = stupid^2.
Regards to down under frequent WUWT contributor EW.
Thanks Rud. If they put a fraction of the effort into solving the problem that they put into coming up with BS excuses, education standards would radically improve.
Hi Rud, Your maths is wrong. Stupid x stupid is not a square. It is at least to the power of 10 and probably more.
T^4?
We don’t need no Education…
We don’t need no Thought Control…
Sure, but what good will the air conditioners be when Australia succeeds in destroying the electrical system? Will the schools only be open when the wind blows and sun shines? /s/
It’s the Australian politicians who need educating.
They don’t seem to understand that there is no climate crisis.
They are off on a wild-goose chase.
They see CO2 in everything. Even when it’s not there.
The phrase ‘Alice Springs Youth Chaos’ is missing the word ‘Aboriginal’ for complete information.
The Aboriginals have huge social problems, NT Senator Jacinta Price, herself an Aboriginal, said last year in a speech she has received death threats for exposing the extent of the problems, such as rampant child abuse and incest, along with drug abuse and alcoholism in Aboriginal communities, and also received threats and abuse trying to do something about the problems.
But the kids who bullied my kid were white, so it’s not exclusively an Aboriginal problem.
Yeah, there are bullies everywhere, of all races.
I suggest starting the kids early in the martial arts so they know how to handle bullies when they come along.
Most bullies are cowards.
I had a Cherokee Indian friend when I was in grade school. We two were in the third grade, about nine years old, and my friend Calvin Magpie’s little brother was in the second grade at the same school.
One day Calvin’s brother came running around the corner at recess time crying and his arm was bleeding where his vacination scab had been torn off by a fifth-grade bully named Windell, when he was roughing up Calivin’s little brother.
Well, Calvin was very angry at this and he went roaming around the playground looking for Windell, and we found him, and, to my surprise, Calvin jumped on Windell and knocked him to the ground, and so I felt like I needed to help Calvin, since Windell was older and bigger than Calvin, so I jumped in and grabbed Windell’s arms and held him down while Calvin pummeled him.
And about that time, the *real* tough guys on the playground, Johnny Rondon, and his gang of sixth-graders (Johnny had written his name in the concrete outside the school auditorium; you walk by the school, you see his name, to this day, I think:).
So Johnny and his buddies walked up to watch the commotion, and I saw them and thought me and Calvin were going to be in a lot of trouble, and Windell started whining to these guys and telling them to get me and Calvin off of him, and Johnny and his buddies burst out laughing, and then I realized we weren’t in trouble, they were laughing at the pathetic bully who couldn’t handle two third-graders.
Windell got loose from Calvin and me, and took off running, shaking his fist at us and telling us he was going to get us, but he never came back to school. He was probably too embarrassed to face the older guys.
I didn’t know martial arts at the time, but Calvin’s “mad” took care of that. 🙂
The climatistas can’t solve real problems if they blame everything on climate change.
Thank goodness
A little overly verbose
Let me fix it for you
The climatistas can’t solve real problems
if they blame everything on climate change.What a load of codswallop! As a 72-year-old I went to school in Queensland in summer when there was no air-conditioning other than flow through ventilation. 38-degree Celsius days were not uncommon and often accompanied by high humidity because that is the stormy season. We not only survived, but we also thrived. I would back my Mathematics and Economics degrees against most of the students coming out of today’s universities. Oh, that’s right, my university didn’t have air-conditioning either and again I survived.
However, the cr*p that is taught in our schools might be the problem. Curriculum failure is much more likely than weather and climate change to explain the nonsense being force fed to our children.
If your like Western Australia any school in those hot areas has Air Conditioning because the teacher union demands it.
I see that your school didn’t have high standards.
ah, back in Days of Yore !
But we West Aussies are tougher than a brick outhouse, and as hot. LOL.
I bet the first-graders were asking –
“Miss, Miss, whose grandad is that sitting in the front row?”
“Extreme heat is set to reduce the academic attainment of Australian students by up to seven per cent, which” includes 0 percent if you understand how math and the words “up to” work.
I am sure Nick will be along to tell us about the model for that.
Nick et al are currently very busy fine tuning their dooming models in the hope Trump doesn’t delete them all-
Anticipating Future Sea Levels
I suspect the models and the modellers can be very flexible like Colombia and Mexico in that regard.
Models! We don’t need no stinking models.
I’d rather look at what the actual data shows us about “heat” trends…
One would like to find out who pays these clowns who churn out this junk. Fair dinkum. Australia’s population is largel around the coast and enjoys a moderate Temperate Climate. Even if there was “global warming” which there isn’t Australia would be the least expected. I bet they curb out the same report for everywhere just changing the key parameters.
Bullshit from top to bottom and mug taxpayers somewhere pay for this BS.
The rot starts at the top and we have to get rid of these idiot fantasists and their woke drivel-
Renewable storage ‘experiment’ falling apart before Labor’s ‘very eyes’ | Townsville Bulletin
They have to go to the polls by May and hopefully Australians are waiting for them with a baseball bat like the US electorate with the Democrats.
What can I say, government has taken over education, healthcare, transportation, energy and many other things. Everything they touch turns to crap. Their job is to lightly regulate and other than that get the hell out of the way. This study sucks, the authors should be fired, whoever authorized it should be fired, whoever paid for it should be fired, whoever reviewed it should be fired and whoever published it should be fired.
Just remember the doomster’s golden rule:-
All STEM ignorance can be fixed with more slushfunding and helicopter money-
Large battery trial aims to improve renewable energy use in SA towns
PS: Doomster logic- If you cut back on some slushfunding we’ll cut it all off-
Dems threaten government shutdown to stop Trump and Musk
I think the Democrats are only harming themselves with their resistance to Trump and the majority that voted for him.
The people who voted for Trump see this resistance by the Democrats as being directed at them and their nation, and they are not going to take kindly to it.
How do you explain Tasmania with its literacy and numeracy at 47%?
Must bite my tongue.
How do you explain Tasmania? Too many Devils and not enough Tigers
We do have furries in the local school that want a litter box.
You have my condolences
That’s appalling, I didn’t know it was that bad.
The litter box or the 47%?
Not 33 and not 35 but 34 annual heatwaves. Climate Science has a will polished crystal ball!
Besides that:
The IPCC Assessment Reports tell us:
IPCC AR4 Chapter ten Page 750 pdf 4
Almost everywhere, daily minimum temperatures are projected to increase faster than daily maximum temperatures, leading to a decrease in diurnal temperature range. Decreases in frost days are projected to occur almost everywhere in the middle and high latitudes, with a comparable increase in growing season length.
For a future warmer climate, …Globally averaged mean water vapour, evaporation and precipitation are projected to increase.
In other words milder weather with more rain.
Plants LOVE IT
“Almost everywhere, daily minimum temperatures are projected to increase faster than daily maximum temperatures,”
So less winter heating will be needed… saving on CO2 emissions. 🙂
In Australia, schools are closed in January, when the most likely actual warmth happens.
A few minutes ago I sent to WUWT the second part of my analysis of Australian heatwaves, hoping that it is accepted.
The article uses simple analysis of primary temperature data to assert that these heatwaves are NOT becoming hotter and longer. The data need reworking before it can answer if they are becoming more frequent.
Why is the education sector getting worked up about air conditioning and heatwaves, when the heatwaves pattern has been the same for a century or more?
Teachers, heal thyselves. Geoff S
Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone!
(Pink Floyd)
“Why is the education sector getting worked up about air conditioning and heatwaves, when the heatwaves pattern has been the same for a century or more?”
They are seeing what they expect to see, not what is really there. It’s climate change propaganda doing it. They have been conditioned to think the temperatures are getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter, even though they are not any hotter today than in the past, in actuality.
‘I can’t believe this article was published. Someone should pay for the authors to fly to Singapore — which is as warm as Australia, but students constantly rank among top countries in STEM scores.
I have been to Singapore in summer. Unbelievable heat/humidity, even though already ‘acclimatized’. True, the original ‘Singapore Sling’ bar was already AC.
As was everywhere else inside. Not a renewable energy source anywhere.
Alt headline:
Same facts, different answer.
My family transitioned from coal to gas heat in the late 1940s. The first auto came in 1950, and an early refrigerator with a tiny freezer about the same time. Next a clothes open-top-washing machine; dried outside on a line. Next was a window A/C. All before 1960.
“Now lookin’ back I understand
We were walkin’ in high cotton”
{song lyrics from Alabama}
Sadly chocolate slice/diabetes combo might be the best law and order effort in the Alice.
My uncle is Aboriginal, I used to have the most amazing breakfasts as a kid when staying at his house, he’d go into the garden and collect random edibles. He’s a smart guy, he used to work for the CSIRO, his kids are all professional people.
Places like Alice Springs represent an awful lot of wasted potential. If the kiddy fiddlers and other assorted scum were rounded up and dealt with, some of those kids might have a chance, before they become so damaged they blow their brains out with whatever mental anaesthesia is most available.