PrintDecember 12, 2009
Get Global Warming Out of Our Schools
Because of the recent revelations of "Climategate" (see source materials below) and my experience raising two children in private and public schools in California, I believe we need to start a nationwide campaign to get "global warming" immediately removed from the curriculum of our schools.
We cannot wait for politicians or activists to do any more damage to our future generation. "Global warming" is not just an objectionable and discredited scientific theory. Teachers are grafting the loony climate-change premise onto lifestyle, religion, and politics in "science" classrooms. It cannot stand.
The leaked e-mails and subsequent evaluation of their contents, which inspired the term "Climategate," sound the alarm that we have been fooled for thirty years. There is good cause to believe that the "global warming" data was contorted to achieve a desired result, that true facts were suppressed or destroyed, and that truth-tellers were censored by climate gurus on a mission.
Even if a local school district does not want to accept that "global warming" has been completely debunked, the argument can be made that the "theory" is so suspect that it will likely be investigated in Congress, if not in a criminal fraud venue. It cannot be passed off to students as "settled science." Insist on removing "global warming" until there is consensus sometime in the future.
For those who do not have children, or whose children are either young or grown up, let my recent personal experience with public school science instruction provide an insight:
My children were gifted students in accelerated programs as they entered public high school from an excellent, traditional, private K-8 school. The college preparatory classes for talented students in many public high schools are called Advanced Placement (AP) classes. These classes can be applicable as college credits. In short, AP classes are seen as a desirable "elite" fast track to get into a good college.
There was only one AP biology/earth science teacher at our local high school. It was at "back-to-school" night the very first fall, as the teacher stared at the ceiling choking back tears telling us about the dying polar bears, that I learned we had a problem.
My oldest daughter ended up having this teacher for an advanced science course each year. I told my daughter to do what she must to get good grades, but I also provided her with alternate information. Behind the scenes, I spoke to administrators about my concerns. Their response was to infer that I am not very sophisticated and certainly not as wise as they are. My daughter begged me not to agitate the teacher, the principal, or the other parents out of fear that her grades would suffer. I bit my tongue for six years at the request of my children. That was then.
This high school's most talented science students were required to accept the theory of "anthropogenic global warming" in their advanced classes because they were taught by a very overt climate-change activist. She incorporated "global warming" into some part of her science curriculum every semester in a well-respected school, in a desirable school district, in an affluent suburb of San Francisco. There was always a climate project or a connection made to Earth's crisis. The kids were encouraged to take part in the teacher's pet social causes and public protests.
I was paying $10,000-$11,000 a year in property taxes during the time my kids were in high school. With the district's portion of property tax -- which was later augmented by one, then two, then three parcel taxes -- approximately $1,200 of my property taxes was going to public schools. There was an additional $2,000 in "add-ons" each year in public high school for supplies, field trips, sports uniforms/travel/coaching fees, and academic and sports boosters clubs. I drove on field trips; chaperoned sports tournaments, dances, and graduation events; bought snacks; hosted sports pasta feeds; and attended PTA meetings and all sporting events, even if my kids weren't playing. In other words, I participated in their public education, and I paid and paid and paid.
What return did I get on this investment in the California public schools?
My daughter was required to see the movie An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. As time went on, she began to argue with me and told me I was provincial, unsophisticated, and a "flat-earther" because I do not accept that carbon dioxide is a dangerous chemical which is warming the earth. The science teacher was not only preaching the "Earth is GAIA" philosophy to her students, but she was also giving her young thinkers "attack words" for talking points. She drove a wedge of disrespect between me and my children which continues even though they have now graduated. On the topic of "climate change," my daughter still has an arrogance and disdain for deniers. The public school teacher, abetted by her administration and protected by her activist teachers' union, interfered in my relationship with my child and taught her that it was not only acceptable, but admirable to disrespect parental values.
My experience is extreme, but probably not unique. Leftist activists are teaching our children nationwide. They are working overtime right now to build an ever-bigger electorate of pliable, Kumbaya-spouting mush-heads. They think they are smarter than we are. We need to protect the minds of our future generations.
My advice:
1. If you have children, home-school them if private school is not affordable or if public or private schools do not reflect your values.
2. Circulate materials about "Climategate," start petition drives, and set appointments to talk with your children's teachers, principals, and your local school boards. Find out what is being taught. Read the school text. Interview the teachers. Organize.
3. Direct your school boards to eliminate global warming from science curricula now. Do not take "no" for an answer. Provide the materials, get yourself on the agenda, and ask for a vote. Get it on the record.
4. There is frustration nationwide that even though "climate change/global warming" has been discredited, the mainstream news media and government leaders are pushing ahead with taxes and industrial standards anyway. Working at the local school district level is a good way to get at least some changes made quickly. It will accumulate long-term benefits.
Here are some useful websites and articles which can serve as materials for such a campaign:
Watts Up With That? website: "The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero"
American Thinker website: "Revenge of the Computer Nerds"
Science and Public Policy Institute: "An Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society"
Copenhagen Climate Challenge: "An Open Letter to the Secretary General of the UN" (141 scientists ask the United Nations to prove why climate change theory is legitimate)
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel: "Comments on Global Warming"
Climate Depot (continuously updated Climategate information page)
Junk Science: "Those Released CRU files"
It is not realistic to expect an international epiphany on climate change overnight. In the meantime, we can take back our schools.
Jane Jamison is publisher of the conservative news/commentary blog, UNCOVERAGE.net.
