This post is not about the legitimacy of climate change. I personally believe in climate change but require more evidence as to the extent of how our actions will cause ‘dangerous’ ramifications,
There is a campaign to teach children climate science following a certain ‘consensus’. Only trouble is, education doesn’t and should never operate using a consensus model. Education is about an exchange of ideas and the search for truth. It isn’t about hammering one line of thinking at the exclusion of others.
The worst byproduct of the ‘consensus technique’ of teaching children is that educators realise that many children won’t understand the science of it, so they have resorted to alarmism and outrageous prognostications instead. This not only scares children, but is phoney and grossly insensitive.
One of the most shameful aspects of the scare-mongering over “global warming” (sic) is the way that children are exploited and frightened.
Save the planet for the sake of our children and our grandchildren, goes the line. Over and over again. Children will be hardest hit, and so forth.
There is anecdotal evidence that young children are being seriously frightened by this event, an event that may in fact not be happening, may not have very serious consequences, and probably cannot be stopped.
A young child wrote to the website of UK magazine Country Living, saying she was scared because she had read a report that “global warming” (sic) would bring more and poisonous spiders to her garden.
A four year old boy had to receive psychological treatment because he had become irrationally and uncontrollably frightened into believing the end of the world was nigh and that he was about to die.
Surely instead of frightening kids with stories about dead polar bears and melting ice caps we can teach the positive aspects about looking after our environment, such as recycling and conserving electricity and water. After all, positive behaviours are best brought about by positive messages.
Click on the link to read Our Children and the Disgusting Climate of Fear
Tags: Climate Change, climate science, consensus, Education, reaching consensus, reaching consensus in the classroom, Science, teaching climate change
Topical Teaching 
Leave a Reply