8
Mar
Mar
Schools call for a “balanced teaching of global warming”
USA Today reports that US schools are finally calling for both sides of global warming to be taught, because it is after all, a theory — not a fact:
The teaching of climate change is under attack in some U.S. public schools. This week, South Dakota’s Legislature passed a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming.”
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life,” says the resolution, which passed with mostly GOP votes. It also says global warming is “a scientific theory rather than a proven fact” and a variety of “astrological” and other “dynamics” affect weather.
That last paragraph is really going to send alarmists over the edge.
Source: USA Today
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Dr Phil Jones Head of Astrology, University of East Anglia – that has a nice ring to it.
They don’t use astrology anymore… they use Puxatony Phil…if he comes out of his hole and sees his shadow it’s 10 more years of global warming.
I gather they didn’t want to use the term “astronomical” since one meaning is “very great”, but astrological essentially isn’t correct.
Probably should have just said “natural dynamics” and left it at that, since it covers solar, galactic etc.
That said, I applaud South Dakota.. now, if the rest of the country, and the world, could follow suit..
The resolution (a non-binding “urge” to educators) you laud is being roundly and derisively ridiculed in the US. Very mainstream but nonetheless conservative publications like Forbes say:
“Here in the U.S. we have a never-ending competition among the states to see which one can enact the dumbest laws….
Wow! The South Dakota legislature has declared, by majority vote, that the ancient pseudoscience of astrology “can effect world weather”! Astrology, of course, is a superstitious belief that the movements of stars and planets can affect our daily lives here on Earth, a belief that has no basis in science. Some people – including, apparently, the South Dakota legislature – still take it seriously, although most view astrological forecasts as light entertainment.”
“(Perhaps South Dakota was jealous of all the attention that creationists are getting by attempting to legislate the teaching of creationism in other states. Bradford Plumer over at The New Republic thinks this is their attempt to win the “dumbest state in the nation” prize.)”
And we mustn’t ignore “thermological” causes. Do the wise SD legislators realize that thermology is the analysis of detailed infrared images of the human body? I suppose all our warm bodies also affect world weather – it must be true, because the SD legislature says so. And “interrelativity”! They must mean “interrelatedness”, but how nice to bring in Einstein’s theory here. I can’t quite grasp how relativity has anything to do with global warming, but I probably don’t know as much physics as the South Dakota legislators.”
“Now let’s look at a couple more of the new law’s assertions:
WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide;
This is equivalent to passing a law stating that the earth is flat. Voting on it doesn’t make it true. Even if it were true, legislators have no business passing laws declaring scientific facts – they shouldn’t pass a law declaring that the earth is an oblate spheroid either. In any case, this one is just wrong. Here’s a plot showing global average temperatures for the past century, which make it pretty clear that temperatures having been warmer the past 20 years.”
The article goes on and on.
You can read the whole article at:
http://blogs.forbes.com/sciencebiz/2010/03/south-dakota-legislature-declares-that-astrology-can-explain-global-warming/.
Thanks for bringing this up. Had no idea of the goofball details.
The carbon crisis cartel doesn’t understand the scientific method.
Kids are taught that the experiments must be observable. They must be able to replicate the experiment. That means Jones needs to lay out how he cooked the data so the kids can cook it the same way.
Wouldn’t be doing my job unless I pointed out that the summary of this story is completely wrong:
1) No “US schools” called for anything.
2) The lower house (what an understatement) of the State of South Dakota passed a non-binding resolution “urging” teachers to be balanced about climate change theory instruction. This is a state with a total population of about 700,000.
3) It “urged” that all presentations of the theory be made, including astrological, thermological, cosmological and other interrelated forms.
4) Clearly the morons didn’t read what they signed. n nIf they had they might not have become the laughingstock that they have.
One very insightful commentator pointed out an indisputable truth. Whether the world is cooling or warming, the effect is not going to be globally negative in every part of the world. If you can’t agree so far it indicates that your brain is starved of oxygen and need medical help.
It’s a major problem when you design a hypothesis that defies common sense that is plain to a squirrel. If the planet warms it must benefit barren cold tundra or if it’s cooling then the deserts must benefit. All this rain we’re promised must do domeone good, though we’e pomised droughts too and water shortage. I’ve never heard of a water shortage in a monsoon. Nature must be the eternal prankster if it has the cunning to apply its effects so selectively as to bring doom to everyone. Normally there are winners and losers, but this is more of a Biblical prophesy than a scientific one.
The commentator conscludes that any climate forecast that only signals doom for everyone, is not an impartial scientific enlightenment, but merely political propaganda.
Just a thought – it’s not even a Biblical prophesy as even with Noah’s Ark the fishes were happy, but not so with the newly named ‘weirdos’ of AGW.
Gotta admire that spin to try and divert attention from posting this goofy event and then misrepresenting what happened.
Is it bad for everyone if most of Russia and Canada benefits, but equatorial regions have big population displacements? Or do we just say good for Russia and Canada and bad for the equatorial people? Or do we say great for the US military as it is dispatched worldwide to assist destabilized countries? Keeps people busy and well trained! Funny you guys don’t present the military and security issues around this topic, by the way.
Don’t be disingenuous, Graham. You are the one plying propaganda.
You clearly don’t get out much Ed. Russia will benefit because they fixed their targets before their economy crashed, so they have a windfall gain of Carbon Credits that everyone else wants back, because they are serial polluters andand have made a fantastic profit and can actually incraese CO2 emissions. That’s aside from the fact that Russia is one of thw orld’s worst countries for toxic pollution. I read somewhere that they pump radioactive liquid waste straight into the water table and are one of the major reasons that the Baltic Sea is a toxic soup.
Are you suggesting that Carbon Trading is supposed to represent some form of population control ? I agree with you Ed that it is being used to manipulate some fundamental factors unrelated to climate, and I’m glad that you’re prepared to own up. However, the fundamental flow of cash is not even going to perform some ‘bonkers’ humanitarian purpose. This is a massive shift of money from the ordinary people in the West to the rich in the underdeveloped countries. You only have to see where these subsidies are going, and even Western companies will transfer to them to pick up the bucks, but don’t expect their motives to be altruistic. My favourite example is the bt Bringal episode. remarkably enough, something in which Terin had involvement. Maybe you’d enjoy eating vegetables with their own inbuilt genetic insecticide.
While I’m at it, I’ll remind you that wind turbines are an interesting novelty when they are of a miniature size, made of plastic and scare birds in our garden or amuse the kids. As far as power generation goes you might as well harness butterflies and even Obama seems some of the flaws in using bio-fuel, and has stated it must be reined back.
Carbon sequestration – now there’s a novel unproven technology a lot of people are throwing your money away on. Some African countries have experience of that process under natural conditions
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/mhalb/nyos/nyos.htm
Th lawsuits would be phenomenal and pretty hard to blame on anything else if it went wrong, and I must remind you, this is all expermental thus far, which is strange because the UK is planning any new coal power plants to use carbon sequestration, with our own Bermuda Triangle in the North Sea.
Germany has a demonstration plant operating – one problem, it releases the captured carbon into the atmosphere – DOHHHHHH
http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/blog/2009/07/17/schwarze-pumpe-part-2-ccs-carbon-captured-but-not-stored/
It seems that Germany is nervous about saving the planet by killing all biological life forms.
Graham:
And I’ll apologize in advance for this: I think you’re tilting at windmills.
Where did all this wind antipathy come from?
I can only speak from where I live. At present, the US has 34,000 MW of wind installed, or the equivalent of 42 typical coal plants. Our far north states have quite a bit: Washington 1,850 MW; North Dakota 1,200 MW, Minnesota 1,810 MW. In fact, all but 14 of 50 states have wind capacity.
My home state, which has all of 1.8 million inhabitants with a land area of 121,000 square miles (546,000 sq km or 31.4 million hectares) has 560 MW of wind generation with more on the way. Nearby there are 2 solar thermal plants under construction that will produce 750 MW each on a 24/7 basis. The wind wholesale power costs 3 cents/kwh, and the solar will cost around 5 cents. This is unsubsidized power (no carbon offsets sold) that’s quite economic, going right into the grid.
Hardly garden toys, but then, this is not Britain.
“Clean coal” or CO2 sequestration as planned by my government is another matter. These projects are testament to the lobbying power of Big Coal (who are also behind all of the anti-EPA and much of the denier propaganda). I no more trust the “geologic” stability of CO2 storage as I would radiological storage. Can it be done? Sure, but at a ridiculous cost. And the whole notion presumes continuation of the archaic “build more central generation” electricity model. Take those costs and invest them in adding storage capacity to the grid, grid optimization and improving distributed generation technologies.
There- we’ve discovered an area of agreement!
Ed,
If someone could harness your wind there would be no energy problems. But on the other hand you have so much hot air you could create global warming all by yourself. I just can’t fathom where retards like you come from. People like you (lemmings) are the reason the world is screwed up.
Gosh, Johnny, I know facts are pretty scary sometimes, and make you feel like you don’t really know what you think. We adults call that “insecurity.” You should have someone take a look at yours- it seems pretty bad.
And I hope you asked Mommy and Daddy permission before you used their computer!
There’s a good boy!
How cutsey wootsey Ed. Back to belittling as you have nothing but hot air. Blowhard.
Ed – you seem to be the only person on this awful website talking any sense!
Thank you, Matthew!