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Letters from Sixth Grade Students Reveal Global Warming Indoctrination Bill Haymin By: Maureen Martin Published In: Environment News The Heartland Institute www.heartland.org If you doubt teachers across the country are trying to brainwash schoolchildren with global warming alarmism, take a look inside the sixth grade classroom of teacher Michael Steria at David A. Brown Middle School in Wildomar, California. Twenty-five sixth graders teamed up to write eight letters to The Heartland Institute describing what they had been taught about global warming. Steria sent the letters to the institute in March. (The letters themselves are posted here.) [GO TO HEARTLAND.ORG AND CLICK ON TO THIS ARTICLE TO READ THIS LINK] The students said they learned about global warming by reading 10 articles about it. None of the articles, however, was about the science of global warming. Many described terrifying consequences that supposedly will result, convincing the students all living things--including all human beings--will be dead in 10 years.
Steria´s Teachings Global warming "means that if we don´t fix the climate, everything will be destroyed and we won´t be able to survive," two students wrote. Others found their global warming lessons similarly frightening (all transcriptions are as the students wrote and sent them, uncorrected): "I think your fools for denying G.W. you know it could kill us all & you´re just adding to it. I want you to help stop G.W. not increase it." "We are going to tell you about global warming. I don´t care if you don´t want to read, but I´m making you read it you horrible people." "We feel that it is wrong what you are doing. We know that you know that global warming is NOT we repeat NOT a myth, And we think it is selfish that you would take money over yours and your peers lives." "We feel upset because you are making Global Warming worse instead of helping it. We know that almost half of the country knows that G.W. is a crisis. We know that you could help the environment with the $800,000 you have." "We feel that they are destroying our planet by saying G.W. is not a crisis. You think GW is not a crisis but it is; you know deep down that it´s a real thing that´s happening. Everyone has a part in helping GW, and you´re making worse." "I do not think that what you are doing is right because you are telling people that global warming is not a crisis. If this is not a crisis, how come floods have occurred in asia, Mexico, and India. Plus, how can you explain why the glacier glaciers are melting. they can´t melt themselves, because they are in the coldest region in the world." "Air pollution shrinks fetus size, 31 states target global warming, World must fix Climate in 10 years-UNDP, National disasters have quadrupled in two decades, and Global Warming Denier Group funded by Big Oil Hosting Climate Change Denial conference." Off-Topic Articles The students say they read 10 articles about global warming; their letters describe and identify seven of them. Three of the articles have nothing to do with global warming or greenhouse gases. Two are dire predictions from non-scientists at the United Nations disaster relief agency, the U.N. Development Programme, and nongovernmental organizations engaged in disaster aid. One article relates state efforts at monitoring greenhouse gases. Antarctic Ice Melt Scare Lacks Scientific Support By: Patrick J. Michaels The Heartland Institute www.heartland.org The Washington Post recently ran a shocking above-the-fold article warning us of "Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica." A new paper by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows a net loss of ice where most scientists thought the opposite would occur, the story noted. The Post went full-bore with this one, spreading the article on to an entire interior page. The piece ends by noting that Rajenda Pachauri, head of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is so concerned that he is personally going down to inspect the situation. Record Sea Ice He should. Before he even gets to Antarctica, Pachauri is going to see something even more surprising than Rignot's finding. Despite a warming Southern Ocean, the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica is now at the highest level ever measured for this time of the year, since satellites first began to monitor it almost 30 years ago. This represents a continuation of the record set last winter (our summer). Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, we can also look at the departure from the average for ice mass in a given month. At present, the coverage of ice surrounding Antarctica is almost exactly two million square miles above where it is historically supposed to be at this time of year. It's farther above normal than it has ever been for any month in climatologic records. Around now, because it's summer down there and the ice is headed toward its annual low point, there should be about seven million square miles of it. That means, as data in University of Illinois' Web publication Cryosphere Today shows, there is nearly 30 percent more ice down in Antarctica than usual for this time of the year. IPCC Predicts Growing Ice All of the IPCC's models of Antarctica in the twenty-first century forecast a gain in ice, as a warmer surrounding ocean evaporates more water, which subsequently falls in the form of snow when it hits the continent. It's simply too cold for rain in Antarctica, and it'll stay that way for a very long time. Concerning Antarctica as a whole, the IPCC's new climate compendium notes "the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region." Other studies, such as Peter Doran's in Nature in 2003, show actual cooling in recent decades. (There is a small area of significant warming in the peninsula that points towards South America, but this is less than 2 percent of Antarctica's total land mass.) There's brand new evidence, just published in mid-January in Geophysical Research Letters, of a striking increase in snowfall over that peninsula. The few snowfall records that are available elsewhere in Antarctica show considerable variation from decade to decade, so discriminating the "signal" of increased snowfall caused by global warming from all the rest of the "noise" may be very difficult indeed. We see the same problem with hurricanes and global warming. Their strength and numbers vary considerably from year to year. The year 2005 was the most active ever measured in the Atlantic Basin, while 2007 was one of the weakest in history. How do you find the fingerprint of global warming amid such variation?
So it's not warming up, and the snowfall data are equivocal, yet the continent is experiencing a net loss of ice. How can this be, and is it even important? The current hypothesis is that warmer waters beneath the surface are somehow loosening the ice. That's plausible, but again, there's precious little proof of it. And further, the bottom line is that there is more ice than ever surrounding Antarctica. One of the tired tropes that reverberate throughout global warming reporting is that inconvenient facts get left out. In this case, it's blatant. Midway through the Post's page-long article comes a statement that "these new findings come as the Arctic is losing ice at a dramatic rate." Wouldn't that have been an appropriate place to note that, despite a small recent loss of ice from the Antarctic landmass, the ice field surrounding Antarctica is now larger than ever measured? Patrick J. Michaels (pmichaels@cato.org) is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. This article first appeared in the American Spectator on February 5, 2008. San Francisco Regulators Seek Greenhouse Fee By Tom Tanton Published In: Environment News The Heartland Institute www.heartland.org San Francisco-area air quality regulators are proposing to charge a fee to most businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. The fee--4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide--would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants and would include landfills, factories, and small businesses such as restaurants and bakeries. The largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the Bay Area, the Shell oil refinery in Martinez, would pay $186,475 a year for its 4.4 million annual metric tons of emissions. The largest emitter in Santa Clara County, the Hanson Permanente Cement Plant in Cupertino, would pay $44,507 a year for its 1.05 million tons. Foot in Door The levy proposed by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District would replace voluntary local measures that have recently slowed local greenhouse gas emissions. If the fee is successfully implemented, supporters of greenhouse gas fees are likely to seek similar ones in other cities and states. "The climate is changing, and we think that everybody needs to help with the solution and pay their fair share to reduce greenhouse gases," said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco, according to the February 9 San Jose Mercury News. Taxes in Disguise? The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has regulated smog for the past 50 years in nine counties around San Francisco Bay. The air district's board could take a final vote on the proposed greenhouse gas fee by May. Broadbent said the proposal is designed to raise $1.1 million a year, the Mercury News reported. "It is not a 'carbon tax' but a cost recovery fee," Broadbent said, according to the article, "because the money would not go into a general fund, but would be used instead to pay for the air district's global warming reduction programs." "California, regrettably, has taken the lead in obfuscating the differences between a tax and a true fee," responded Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, in an interview for this story. "The proposed global warming 'fee' is clearly a tax," said Coupal. "There is little if any nexus between fee payers and the alleged harm sought to be addressed, and there is clearly no direct benefit to the fee payers." Successful Current Programs The proposal is being closely watched around the state because it would represent the first time companies have been hit with direct levies based on their greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses already pay various surcharges on energy use to fund greenhouse gas emissions programs, but this is the first time a fee would be charged per unit of such emissions. To date, most greenhouse gas reduction programs in the U.S. have been voluntary. The voluntary programs have been much more successful than the mandatory ones put in place in other developed nations. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy has been declining for the past 10 years and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are slowing faster than emissions in the European Union, which relies on mandatory restrictions. Chasing Businesses Away Consumer groups and business officials reacted warily to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's proposed new fee. Tupper Hull, a representative for the Western States Petroleum Association in Sacramento, said hitting oil refineries and power plants with fees could end up hitting consumers in the pocketbook. "This proposal will raise the cost of producing energy and fuel for California consumers, and at a time when consumers have concerns about what they are paying," said Hull, according to the February 9 San Jose Mercury News. "We can't say how much that is, but it is a significant concern." Hull also said if some of the other 30 air districts in California begin copying the idea, the state will have a confusing patchwork of rules right at the time government is trying to craft a statewide implementation plan for Assembly Bill 32, the greenhouse gas reduction law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) two years ago. The proposed fee would be especially harmful because costs and tax burdens on California businesses are already significantly higher than in the rest of the country, critics note. The neighboring states of Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon each have much lower energy costs and tax burdens, and therefore are better able to attract new business development. "Other states, such as Florida, Nevada, and Arizona, are cheering the proposal," Coupal said. "They will welcome with open arms those businesses operating in California whose tolerance for nuttiness has run out." Tom Tanton (ttanton@fastkat.com) is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. Disclaimer: Posting articles does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article. All articles that are posted are aimed at getting people to think & consider the various issues, ideas & factual research presented. Reprinted by permission Presented by Bill Haymin, 2008
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