I don’t mind climate change being taught in schools, but what texts will be used and what material will be distributed to students?
Will it be taught by activists and advocates through a strictly political and ideological lens of anthropogenic co2 as the villain, or through the lens of climate change as not being clearly understood and as an ongoing, and not just a recent phenomenon, but more importantly, not a man made phenomenon?
Will it teach that climate is chaotic and non linear (that outputs are not proportional to inputs)?
Will it include facts such as the rate of sea level rise of 1.5 to 1.7mm per year (150mm per century), has been the same over the last 150 years since the end of the little ice age when the planet started to warm and nothing like the Al Gore, IPCC and media hyped projections?
Will it teach that despite the media and political hype, the rate of cyclones, hurricanes and major weather events haven’t changed much, if at all?
Will it teach that during Holocene Climate Optimum of between 4,500 and 8000 years ago, was far warmer than today and explain why?
Will it explain why, when co2 levels were at pre industrial levels, temperatures were as warm or warmer in the Roman and Medieval warm periods
Will it explain how it is that although co2 output increased between 1975 and 1998 by 11% along with temperature, why it is that between 1998 and the present day temperature remained static while co2 rose another 9%? This same disparity also occurred between 1860 and 1880, 1910 and 1945 and then from 1975 to 1998.
Will it explain how it is that in 70 of the past 155 years, average global temperatures paused while co2 levels increased?
Will the syllabus mention that there are many factors effecting climate including the conveyor belt of ocean currents, sunspots, the tilt and wobble of the planet on its axis, the wobble of the sun itself every 179 years, and the travel of the solar system through the spiral arms of the Milky Way?
Will the syllabus also explain how and why not a single instance of modelling by the experts has been borne out by reality? For example the modelling failed to predict the 20 year temperature increase hiatus from 1998 to the present day but the experts had the evidence of previous pauses over the last 150 years they should have been able to replicate.
There are half a dozen or so elements and inputs and no constant or consistent arrangement of those inputs and elements that causes the climate to change. Despite the bluster by experts, pundits and talking heads, it is not understood and there is no rhyme or reason to it.
It is truly a Rubik’s Cube and just when they think they’ve got it figured out, it slips through their fingers.
If none of these are included in the climate syllabus then they’re not being taught climate at all, but rather being brainwashed with political ideology.
If students as the story says, ‘..will be asked to make up their own minds about what is causing it.. ‘ how will they be examined in the HSC. It would seem to me that if left to make up their own minds and draw their own conclusions then any answer is a correct answer. Or will they be marked down if they don’t regurgitate the party line that anthropogenic co2 is the villain?
Well said Tim Ball!! Our education system is indeed in dire straits, in need of a good dose of salts to clear away the deadwood & make way for new blood, prepared to follow the scientific method!