Farage Murdoch Gove Boris

[An_Inspector_Calls]

I read today that Gove has removed climate change 'education' from the geography syllabus. On that basis alone, he shall be deemed a hero and savant in my eyes. Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/17/climate-change-cut-national-curriculum

[amateur51]

I read today that Gove has removed climate change 'education' from the geography syllabus. On that basis alone, he shall be deemed a hero and savant in my eyes. Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nal-curriculum

Great stuff, let's teach children that the best way to cope with modern life is to stick your head in the sand

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The National Curriculum was invented by Kenneth Baker and is therefore a bad thing. I got outt of classroom music teaching because of its strangulating effect.

[Mr Pee]

I read today that Gove has removed climate change 'education' from the geography syllabus. On that basis alone, he shall be deemed a hero and savant in my eyes. Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nal-curriculum

[french frank]

Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian

Oh, yes, much 'better' to have annoyed the Guardian.

"Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option."

http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2010/05/07/climate-change-and-the-integrity-of-science/

However, much more important to annoy the Guardian.

[ahinton]

I read today that Gove has removed climate change 'education' from the geography syllabus. On that basis alone, he shall be deemed a hero and savant in my eyes. Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nal-curriculum

I'm no apologist for Mr Gove and am not inclined to believe that there won't be yet another U-turn on this, but on what basis does such a move mark him out as a "hero" and "savant" and in what? The climate has always been changing and it's unlikely to stop doing so because Mr Gove decides to remove it from a schoolteaching syllabus! To cut this out of the national curriculum or indeed any other kind of schoolteaching curriculum is tantamount to implying that climate either doesn't change at all or it's not a factor in the study of geography or maybe even both. How absurd is that?

If we're really talking not mere climate change per se but specific arguments as to the extent to which recent, current and likely future climate change is man-made, I happen to believe that it's as daft to assume that it's all down to human activity as it is to deny any possibility of human culpability and that the jury's out on this at present; that said, some of the measures that could be taken in an attempt to reduce it might ultimately be beneficial in reducing air pollution even if they're found to have no appreciable effect on climate change. Do some people believe that the industrial revolution brought about climate change as a consequence of vast increases in industrial fossil fuel burning, even before the internal combustion engine became a feature of our lives during the last century? If so, little has been said about it! All this kind of thing should, however, be addressed as part of school geography classes and, if they're not covered sensibly and adequately, the outcome can only be negative.

[eighthobstruction]

It seems to me the perfect contemporary polarised subject that could debated in school....covering both science/english/history/biograph/philosophy etc....exactly what Gove (the ex Pres of Oxford Union) has been asking for....bizarre....

[Bryn]

I'm no apologist for Mr Gove and am not inclined to believe that there won't be yet another U-turn on this, but on what basis does such a move mark him out as a "hero" and "savant" and in what? The climate has always been changing and it's unlikely to stop doing so because Mr Gove decides to remove it from a schoolteaching syllabus! To cut this out of the national curriculum or indeed any other kind of schoolteaching curriculum is tantamount to implying that climate either doesn't change at all or it's not a factor in the study of geography or maybe even both. How absurd is that?

If we're really talking not mere climate change per se but specific arguments as to the extent to which recent, current and likely future climate change is man-made, I happen to believe that it's as daft to assume that it's all down to human activity as it is to deny any possibility of human culpability and that the jury's out on this at present; that said, some of the measures that could be taken in an attempt to reduce it might ultimately be beneficial in reducing air pollution even if they're found to have no appreciable effect on climate change. Do some people believe that the industrial revolution brought about climate change as a consequence of vast increases in industrial fossil fuel burning, even before the internal combustion engine became a feature of our lives during the last century? If so, little has been said about it! All this kind of thing should, however, be addressed as part of school geography classes and, if they're not covered sensibly and adequately, the outcome can only be negative.

John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius et al had already noted and described the Greenhouse Effect considerably before the internal combustion engine had much of a chance to impact on the process. The coal age started well before that of petroleum.

[ahinton]

Oh, yes, much 'better' to have annoyed the Guardian.

"Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option."

http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2010/05/07/climate-change-and-the-integrity-of-science/

However, much more important to annoy the Guardian.

Somehow I do not imagine that Mr Rusbridger's piano practising activity will be adversely affected by any "annoyance" here; of course the paper's not been "annoyed"! - so the premise itself is invalid for starters.

But thanks for posting this link, FF. Let's look at those five points in it:

"(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more."

OK; all of these seem at first glance to be reasonably logical and relatively unbiased, but let's examine them a little more closely. They don't offer much of a clue (although, to be fair, the introduction to them suggests that it would not be possible to do so anyway) as to how natural and human-induced climate change proportions out. That excessive burning of fossil fuels is so last century for a variety of reasons by no means all connected to views on climate change should surely be obvious by now; the sheer costs of extraction and distribution are becoming increasingly onerous economically and there are alternatives that would become ever more viable if adequately explored and implemented, as indeed they should be. That said, the above omits to mention any specific human activity other than excessive fossil fuel burning as a contributor to climate change (apart from deforestation whose effects could largely be overcome by sufficient replanting in any case), despite the claim that "most" of the concentration of heat-trapping gases has been brought about by human activity and that we're all now "overwhelmed" by these human-induced changes. No mention is made of whether or how those trapped gases might be released from the atmosphere so as to reduce the adverse effects that are claimed for them. All in all, then, it's not especially convincing in and of itself, is it?

[scottycelt]

However, much more important to annoy the Guardian.

As The Guardian has a distinct tendency to constantly annoy others with its wearying 'politically-correct' liberal dogmatism, some of those others might consider themselves at least mildly entitled to occasionally experience a little bit of schadenfreude at its expense.

Unimportant and even unworthy, maybe, but understandable most certainly.

[ahinton]

John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius et al had already noted and described the Greenhouse Effect considerably before the internal combustion engine had much of a chance to impact on the process. The coal age started well before that of petroleum.

Indeed so but, as I mentioned, there's precious little discussion or even recognition of this, as it suits certain politicos to try to persuade us all that it's a relatively recent phenomenon. I presume that it would not suit such people to promote the fact that this kind of activity's been going on for centuries and all that's changed is the level of that activity and the sheer amounts of fossil fuels that are being burnt; after all, the pressure to undo mere years of adverse activity is surely as nothing to that of trying to undo centuries' worth of it.

My best hope is that those "in charge" get their heads together to act in ways that will ultimately enable most of us to drive around in solar-boosted all-electric vehicles, power much else from electricity generated by non-fossil-fuel sources and ensure that the best use is made of other efficiencies such as good insulation, heat exchanging facilities and the rest, so that the need for fossil fuels will be able drastically to reduce rather than continuously to increase as is the case at present; all of these things are already happening in some places but to so small an extant as barely to scratch the surface of the issue. If this all changes over the next few decades and non-fossil-fuel generated energy becomes broadly the norm, how long might it take for the effects of the man-made aspects of climate change to be reversed thereby, assuming that they can and will be so reversed? Who knows? Until we have a clearer idea as to how much such change is man-made and how much natural, that question will remain unanswerable - which doesn't mean that we should do nothing, of course.

[Richard Barrett]

It would seem that there's a very close correlation between people who stand to benefit in the short term from doing nothing about climate change (politicians in rich countries, corporations profiting from fossil fuels etc.) and people who claim that it isn't happening and/or seek to suppress research into it and any unfavourable evidence produced thereby. That should already tell us something. The more time spent squabbling over the causes of climate change, the more catastrophic its consequences will be, however it was caused. All the verbose sophistry in the world isn't going to alter that.

[MrGongGong]

I read today that Gove has removed climate change 'education' from the geography syllabus. On that basis alone, he shall be deemed a hero and savant in my eyes. Even better, it's annoyed the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nal-curriculum

It just marks him out as more of a dickhead than we previously thought ........

http://www.badscience.net/2013/03/heres-my-paper-on-evidence-and-teaching-for-the-education-minister/

[french frank]

As The Guardian has a distinct tendency to constantly annoy others with its wearying 'politically-correct' liberal dogmatism

It's doing its job, then. . Let's just hope it isn't 'here today, gone tomorrow' like the politicians it 'annoys'.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

It would seem that there's a very close correlation between people who stand to benefit in the short term from doing nothing about climate change (politicians in rich countries, corporations profiting from fossil fuels etc.) and people who claim that it isn't happening and/or seek to suppress research into it and any unfavourable evidence produced thereby. That should already tell us something. The more time spent squabbling over the causes of climate change, the more catastrophic its consequences will be, however it was caused. All the verbose sophistry in the world isn't going to alter that.

Last time I looked, by world standards, rich countries like Germany, the UK (most of western Europe in fact), and the US were doing lots about climate change, so your correlation seems somewhat specious. Unless, of course, you're correlating the number of corrupt politicians in those countries, in which case better to scrap all climate change initiatives until that's sorted out. And who/where are your imagined people trying to supress debate on the subject and research? Why! it seems to me to be those that tell us that the science is settled, the debate is over, and all with contrary views should just shut up!

In my experience, if you have a problem it's usually best to assess the causes and weigh up the solutions to avoid wasting effort on either non-problems or wrong solutions.