TheBBC reports that:Global climate change is "very likely" to have a human cause, an influential group of scientists has concluded...The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said temperatures were probably going to increase by 1.8-4C (3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century. It also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by 28-43cm, and global warming was likely to influence the intensity of tropical storms....
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the findings marked a historical landmark in the debate about whether humans were affecting the state of the atmosphere.
"It is an unequivocal series of evidence [showing that] fossil fuel burning and land use change are affecting the climate on our planet."
In a series of reports from the conference in Paris today, BBC reporters have emphasised that this report is extremely thorough and conservative, having been prepared over several years by hundreds of scientists from scores of countries. It has described this report as putting beyond all reasonable doubt the statement that global warming is caused by man's activity.
And yet, over at Iain Dale's Diary, on the same day as this significant report is published, he is carping on about the government sending a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (incidentally a film much loved by Conservative councils, several of whom have organised special showings of it - e.g. at Newbury and Winchester) to all secondary schools.
Iain Dale describes An Inconvenient Truth as a "Propaganda film" and says that the government is seeking to "indoctrinate children" with it.
Fascinating.
He's right.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what the science is, it is not the place of the government to send out films like that to schools and mandate children watch them. That is propaganda, no matter what the truth or otherwise of it is.
We must teach our children to think critically, not to swallow the conventional wisdom of the day. We have too much anti-free speech rhetoric when it comes to the environment already.
There is no space for other theories about climate change, or ideas on how to cope with it either, dare to question the status quo and you are censored with cries of 'denier'.
Remember, Al Gore has an agenda - he's no liberal and goes for the big state every time. The government has an agenda. Iain Dale has an agenda. We cannot let any one of those have all the running.
Paul, I know you are a fair minded chap, so I just wanted to point out that nowhere in my post did I actually say I didn;t believe climate change was taking place. If the Government was to send a DVD to schools making the case against climate change I would also be against that. It is not the business of government to do this.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that clarification Iain - you can see I just asked the question!
ReplyDeleteThank you Tristan for your comment as ever. I am not sure that the government has mandated that children should watch the film - just sent it out. I am sure any showing in a school would be set in the right context by the teacher and I would have thought it would be a good exercise in critical thinking for the children.
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