The Decline and Fall of British Education

I'm not obsessed with global warming. It's just that advocates are crazy. Today's atrocity is the U.K.'s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which last week sent a global warming "resource pack" "to every secondary school in England". The government-sanctioned lesson is grounded, in part, on the well-known American scientist Al Gore. The pack contains:

• DVD copy of An Inconvenient Truth


• DVD containing four short films commissioned by Defra:

  Tomorrow’s Climate, Today’s Challenge
  My CO2
  Diaries of the Climate Change Champions
  The Carbon Cycle animation by Climate Change Champion Sofia Selska

• A leaflet on the Sustainable Schools Year of Action


• Links to comprehensive online guidance on how teachers can use these resources in the classroom.

According to British bureaucrats, the mailing would prepare the students for current policy discussions:

Schools Minister Jim Knight said: "Climate change is one of the most important challenges facing our planet today. This pack will help to give young people information and inspiration to understand and debate the issues around climate change, and how they as individuals and members of a community should respond to it. . ."

Climate Change and Environment Minister Ian Pearson said: "The commitment and enthusiasm of young people will be essential to meeting this challenge. We must ensure that they have the tools and the information they need to make informed decisions about their lives and their communities, which this pack for secondary schools will help to provide."

This prompted Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask in Lords debate whether there "will be material supporting the view that climate change is not being caused primarily by carbon dioxide emissions?" and, in particular, "whether [the government] will consider sending the Channel 4 documentary film 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' to schools to balance the views put forward by 'An Inconvenient Truth'." The former program, broadcast earlier this year, presented evidence too inconvenient for Gore and the other TOOTSIFs. A logical counterweight, right?

Not so fast. Though claiming to provide "information and inspiration" and to promote "debate," the Defra definition allows only one outcome: "There is a clear scientific consensus on the causes and impacts of climate change." So the government decided not to include the Channel 4 documentary, claiming the materials already were balanced. Apparently, balance means something different over there -- kinda like "lorry" and "truck" perhaps? -- the lesson "learning objective" is to ensure students:

• know that pollution from our activities in the developed world is the main cause of climate change;



• understand some key damaging impacts of climate change around the world and that developing countries are suffering the most;



• understand that we in the developed world have the chief responsibility to help reduce climate change and so contribute to the well-being of people and environments worldwide.

The materials warn of the cave-man economy to come:

The way we live our lives is directly impacting on millions of poor people around the world because of our high energy use, which is leading to global climate change.

I can't think of a better way to train the next generation of creative knowledge workers.

Some Brits aren't sheep; unhappy parents have sued the government, claiming the one-sided packet unlawfully fails to offer a "balanced presentation of opposing views." No ruling yet.

The upside?--maybe Britain will keep Gore.

(via England Expects)