Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera wants to require schools to show Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” to every student every year, starting in first grade. Andrew Wolf writes in the New York Sun:
Mr. Rivera, who up until now never seemed to be particularly interested in the education issues of his community, where test scores rise a lot slower than the temperature of the earth, seems to have found a new cause.
“Al Gore has suggested that every science class in America watch this film,” Mr. Rivera says. “My legislation will mandate the showing to all students in grades 1 through 12 because the message of this documentary must be seen by every member of the next generation. They are the ones most likely to listen.”
Via KitchenTable Math.
In Canada, a high school student complained Gore’s movie is inescapable.
First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.
Those Canadian kids would be grateful to see the movie only once a year.
My favorite line is this one: “The Environmental Revolution we need to confront global warming, if there is one, will come from the youth, as most uprisings do, not from their parents, who are mostly too entrenched in old behavior and lifestyles to be willing to make real change.”
If showing documentaries at school caused social change we’d be living in…. a society in which no one ever blocked up one nostril while blowing his nose in order to more forcefully evacuate the other.
(I saw this on a Disney filmstrip when I was 10.)
Well, OK. Peter Rivera, if quoted correctly, is crazy.
Please note that he’s quoted by somebody who also says that there isn’t any proof that DDT is harmful to humans.
I’m not worried about global warming because I know that there’s nothing can be done about it. There are just too many conservative Republicans. They’ll still be cursing Al Gore when the water level reaches their chin.
Lots of good reason not to be watching Al Gore’s film:
—–
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html
Global warming debunked
By ANDREW SWALLOW – The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007
Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.
Man’s contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn’t change the climate if we tried, he maintained.
“We’re all going to survive this. It’s all going to be a joke in five years,” he said.
—-
> No studies have emerged that conclusively
> prove that DDT harms humans.
Well .. there have been lots of studies that made claims that DDT is harmful to humans, but it’s difficult to find any that document human deaths that resulted from absorbing DDT from the environment.
This paper outlines the reasons why DDT’s being banned wasn’t such good science –
DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud:
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
With malaria deaths at 1M-1.25M and 300 to 500M malaria cases per year globally, there is every reason for the DDT question to be reconsidered.
Lots of good reason not to be watching Al Gore’s film:
h t t p : //www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html
Global warming debunked
By ANDREW SWALLOW – The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007
Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.
Man’s contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn’t change the climate if we tried, he maintained.
“We’re all going to survive this. It’s all going to be a joke in five years,” he said.
—-
> No studies have emerged that conclusively
> prove that DDT harms humans.
Well .. there have been lots of studies that made claims that DDT is harmful to humans, but it’s difficult to find any that document human deaths that resulted from absorbing DDT from the environment.
This paper outlines the reasons why DDT’s being banned wasn’t such good science –
DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud:
h t t p : //www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
With malaria deaths at 1M-1.25M and 300 to 500M malaria cases per year globally, there is every reason for the DDT question to be reconsidered.
I’m not worried about global warming because I know that there’s nothing can be done about it. There are just too many conservative Republicans.
Whattya mean? Isn’t the President urging us to put more ethanol in our cars? That’s the solution–use more ethanol. Grow more corn. Use up the land. Drive food prices up. But don’t drive fuel efficient cars. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
…now that we have heard from the left side of the Bell Curve…
With malaria deaths at 1M-1.25M and 300 to 500M malaria cases per year globally, there is every reason for the DDT question to be reconsidered.
Precisely.
Even though I disagree with the consensus on Global Warming, I’m still showing excerpts of the movie. Since it has achieved such an influence, it seems, over certain individuals I cannot ignore the movie because there are those who will portray it as the scientific truth.
So I’m using it to explain how the media and politicians have coopted the debate between actual scientists. Hopefully this will immunize my students against the hype should they ever watch it again (which is likely).
Perhaps I’m cynical, but I’ve seen too many apocalypses in my lifetime that haven’t come to pass:
1. the population bomb
2. peak oil
3. global cooling
4. nuclear winter
5. global warming
6. climate change (covers warming and cooling)
7. bird flu
Have I missed any others?
Darren,
My favorite is your #3, which the media seems to have completely forgotten…
A common thread in all those threats is the prescribed cure – massive controls over the economy and lifestyles, an end to freedom to decide. Bikes for the commonfolk so as not to obstruct passage of the limos of the elect.
Darren, you only scratched the surface. Here are a few more:
Mad Cow Pandemic
SARS Pandemic
Ebola virus
Nanotechnology
Nanobots
Genetic Manipulation
GM foods
Nuclear Reactor Meltdown
Near Earth Objects
Black Holes
Super Volcano
ooo, don’t forget my favorite: Africanized Killer Bees!
And lets not forget the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
saccharine (or some other Canadian-mouse killing sweetener)
alar
Red dye #2
salt
sugar
meat
fish
processed flour
cell phones (at least three times)
power lines
electromagnetic allergy
multi-chemical allergy
tooth fillings
estrogen-like pollutants
collapse of the international banking system
collapse of society/bunker-building boom (so to speak/write)
Y2K
pesticides
fertilizer
plasticizers (car interiors and food containers)
radon
lead solder in plumbing
lead
peak oil (Darren got there ahead of me but it bears repeating)
And yet stubornly we continue to live longer.
Arsenic in the water
Asbestos in the schools
The elimination of asbestos fireproofing in the WTC 1 & 2 is thought to have contributed to the early structural failures when the substitute protection was jarred lose by the impact.
I had my students do a little activity today where they identified portions of the documentary as being actually on topic or a basic off-topic emotional appeal. They decided that the “dcoumentary” was overwhelmingly off-topic.
Another good student comment was Gore’s use of the phrases “You should already know this,” “this is basic stuff,” etc. as a way to force the watchers to accept the assumptions made by the Global Warming hypothesis.
I might go for it if they added the a rebuttle viewing of
“The Great Glogal Warming Swindle” documentary:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2332531355859226455