When Bill Koutalianos enrolled his young daughter into Stanmore Public School, he was assured that the school had no intention of showing Al Gore’s film, Inconvenient Truth.
When he dropped his daughter off at school on the morning of 25 August, Mr Koutalianos was horrified to see the school had produced its own global warming/climate change alarmist school play entitled “The Beginning of the End of the Beginning”. The play was performed that morning under the COLA (covered outdoor learning area) by unsuspecting young children and inflicted on an even younger audience.
The play had approximately fifty student performers divided into groups: the cleaners, the scientists, the robots and the scavengers.
The cleaners and scientists were dressed in white overalls and hoods – reminiscent of the recent TV images of Greenpeace activists vandalizing a scientific facility.
The robots were dressed in black and green with cardboard cogs. They crawled around on all four limbs like vacuums cleaners cleaning the ground, guided by the cleaners.
The scavengers, who appeared to represent ordinary citizens, were dressed in rags. They seemed to worship a potted plant, perhaps meant to represent some future green utopia. At one point, they were herded together like cattle and restrained by others. At other times, they were lying on the ground playing ‘dead’, presumably due to the sign-posted natural and other catastrophes.
Signs held up by students included NO FUTURE, THE END IS NIGH, THE END IS NEAR, THE END IS REALLY CLOSE, DOOMSDAY IN X DAYS. Other signs related to earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Perhaps the most disturbing image was of children playing dead while students held up a sign that read SEAS RISE MILLIONS LOST.
“These are rather alarming and inappropriate messages to be conveying to young children who do not have the capacity to weigh up the conflicting science of the climate change debate”, Mr Koutalianos said.
“This was a deliberate attempt to link global warming alarmism to unrelated geological catastrophes. Presenting our children with such inaccurate information through subtle innuendo, whether through science class or theatre, is completely unacceptable in the context of an educational institution”, continued Mr Koutalianos. He continued, “The science has been politicized and is disputed and our children should not have to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Climate/carbon propaganda should be kept out of our schools, until the adults sort out the truth from the lies.”
Mr Koutalianos has written to the Principal and offered to meet her to discuss the production. He has sent a copy of his letter to the Education Minister as well as copies to other parents.
are you serious??
there is a consensus on this with 97% of scientists agreeing regarding mans impact on climate change. To argue that you know better against the science is arrogant and want to inflict your minority skeptic argument based flimsy unproven pseudoscience and political propaganda on small children by preventing them from knowing the truth is offensive.
Let the kids embrace the reality that mankind has ruined the environment and to prepare for when things get much worse!
Sorry to break it to you PAUL but you could not be more wrong about things if you tried, climate debate aside it is not anyone’s most certainly NOT a schools place to enlist idealistic indoctrination methods such as this when dealing with children, children should be taught fundamentals not ideology or theoretic what ifs, the stress you are putting a child under by doing this alone is of more concern to me than anything else, children do not need to bear the brunt and guilt of others, I for one do not feel guilty about the environment it does a pretty good job polluting itself, volcanoes, vegetation decaying, animal waste and refuse and waste that permeates greenhouse gasses from the ocean is trillions of times more abundant and volatile than man’s contributions to the system. Whats more is the selling out of australian money and hard worked for national fortune that will be palmed off to the IMF for nothing more than a piece of worthless paper that will declare we saved the environment. the IMF!!! a group of people we dont have anything to do with will be taking OUR money and blowing it doing NOTHING for the environment and NOTHING for australia, and you are dim witted enough to support such a thing? do everyone here a favour and leave the country if thats the case because to support a carbon tax or price of any sort is to DESTROY that which australia is. and just so you know the world 5 biggest polluters on a whole will never reduce emissions so so much as 5 new power plants a decade in china will totally void any effort we make. just so you know.
just though i had better add that china add more than 5 power stations burning what is referred to as dirty coal a year so inside of a year the chinese void any efforts we could make over a decade! get the hint moron
Dear Mr Ison,
I respect the fact you used your own name for your comment. You talk (presumably about Mr Koutalianos)”inflicting a MINORITY SCEPTIC argument”.
You attack the views of what you say is a MINORITY: It is irrelevant whether a scientific theory is advanced by a minority or the majority. Science is not determined by “a consensus of the majority” but by the scientific method of arriving at the truth through facts.
You attack SCEPTICS: I want all my scientists to be sceptics! Sceptics are convinced by facts not by fashion (opinion fashion, that is). There are many scientists contesting the theory of “global warming” including ex-IPCC scientists. Just have a look at this website for those references.
You therefore attack the scientific method. In do doing, you are far less likely to arrive at the TRUTH.
That’s good news for you! No need for you to worry about the “global warming doomsday” sceario because it isn’t going to happen. You have far more to fear from the new era of Soft Totalitarianism that we will see if Julia Gillard gets away with her socialist Carbon Tax!
Sincerely,
Tempe Harvey
Paul Ison
August 29, 2011 at 6:12 pm
are you serious??
there is a consensus on this with 97% of scientists agreeing regarding mans impact on climate change.
Paul,
Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet…see/listen to link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm
“What it means to be green” – YR 3 study topic. Indoctrination is rife as a result of the NC. There is plenty for kids to study in science without politicising it. We sent this letter of protest to the school.
Re: School Newsletter, issue 22.
We understand that the new Multi Domain concepts arise from the new National Curriculum, which schools are obliged to follow. The concept for this term is “Sustainability” and our daughter “will consider what it means to be green” as the Level 3 essential question.
Obviously terms like “sustainability” and “green” carry meanings related to environmental political movements. One might be green without holding to the policies of the Australian Greens Party but this needs some effort at differentiation. We were confident that the school would not wish to engage in indoctrination or a partisan political effort, but then we looked at the CERES organization which gave your teachers “an opportunity to access current research and thinking about environmental issues and hear about potential resources for students”.
The CERES Strategic Plan 2008-2011 (available on Google) represents a comprehensive ideology with a radical “green” agenda putting “environmental” values before Christian and humanist ones with which it overlaps seductively. CERES does not allow multiple causes of climate change, only anthropogenic climate change; it has no uncertainty about the direction and degree of climate change, there is only disaster if we do not act “in the very short term”; it urges us to take “massive” action now to avert this disaster; it requires action at the “individual and household” and “global” levels. This is a scary scenario.
At primary school level, there is more than enough to learn in established climate science without getting into controversial areas. The realm of established science is quite different from the realms of current government opinion on “scientific consensus” or of IPCC summaries for policy makers or of CERES current thinking. Uncertainties remain about the relative contributions to recent global warming of natural and anthropogenic influences. A reliable, accepted estimate of climate sensitivity remains elusive. We ask that school science teaching recognizes the limits of what is known about climate.
Though CERES and the environmental websites for children may offer much that is useful, interesting and innocuous, it would be green (in the naïve sense) to think they could represent the range of current thinking on climate change or that they are not aggressively pursuing a mission of propaganda and indoctrination. How does the school propose to provide balance and avoid indoctrination in this extremely complex and controversial area given the only source the school has nominated is CERES?
Predictions about climate change are too uncertain to be called established science and too complex to deal with at primary school level. We would be pleased to discuss the CERES environmental agenda with any teacher or group of teachers, with other parents or with climate scientists. The views of other parents may be reflected in the current opinion surveys. We do not seek to impose our views but prefer that the school avoid controversial areas.
It is pleasing to hear that children are taught about the efficient use of energy and water, about frugal habits, about established facts of climate change, about the risks of environmental degradation and the chances of environmental improvement, and about the value of all life on earth. It is desirable that children learn about geography, history, culture and science, as a rigorous search for truth, with the best teaching skills and with liveliness.
Phrases such as “clean energy future” or “carbon pollution” are propaganda. Coal-based power was recently considered a crucial source of Australian prosperity and an important commodity we have to offer in trade with other countries. It used to be called cheap energy and, if you are poor, that is the best sort. China, India and other populous developing countries will not deny themselves cheap energy as it would be antithetical to their development.
“Sustainable” is a word which used to have so many meanings which the director of learning points to in her last paragraph – “How do I sustain myself? How do I sustain myself as a Catholic? How do I contribute to the sustainability of others around me and my environment?” With sustainability as the key subject for this term, there is potential for political indoctrination of our daughter with a radical environmental agenda. There is also the potential to learn to sustain wonderful things in her individual life, in family life, in Christian life, in Australian democratic life and in life on earth.
This sustainability topic may allow teaching about the values that could make our lives in Australia even better. We hope to see the dismal conditions of many of our fellow human beings improved but doubt this will be achieved through “sustainability” studies. Human development is not a “Multi Domain” theme on the national curriculum so we will be teaching this at home, until it is.
With kind regards from Sophie
Due to my own interest, and as a scientist and engineer, I have researched this topic thoroughly.
1/ IPCC data reveals that all anthropogenic (human-released) greenhouse gasses combined total less than 2Wm2 of warming.
2/ The Earth’s climate is naturally regulated (and has been for billions of years) by a negative feedback mechanism involving anomalies in the OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation). The OLR can, (and has very recently, in 2010/2011) varied by more than 80Wm2 over a 6-month timescale.
3/ This means that human-produced effects on the Earth’s climate are currently far too small to have any effect at all.
Summary: As far as the Earth’s climate system goes, Human Carbon Dioxide (and other) emissions are irrelevant.
To get a balanced, sane view of the scientific data go to;
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#An overview to get things into perspective
On such events students can display their talents and than develop them in the future.