David James, a former teacher at Wellington College, has written a scathing piece for CapX about the ’radical’ educational proposals put forward by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. As someone who spent 10 years as an education reformer and co-founded four successful state schools, I concur with everything David says. It begins:
A new academic year has broken, has it not? And with it, inevitably, come the calls for GCSEs and A levels to be reformed or abolished outright. Following on from the recent Times Education Commission’s demand for a total ‘reset’ of education comes a similar call from former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The report, “Ending the Big Squeeze on Skills: How to Futureproof Education in England”, published by Blair’s Institute for Global Change, is similarly radical in its calls for changes to assessment.
I say ‘radical’, but actually the arguments put forward in the report, the language used, the unfounded claims made about what such changes can deliver, are all depressingly familiar to anyone who has followed the ‘skills vs knowledge’ debate over the years. The argument can be boiled down to something as simple, but as dangerously misleading, as this: our children are being assessed by an outdated system, and in order for them to thrive we need to change how they are taught and examined so they have the skills for the future workplace. Blair’s position is almost identical to his son’s who, earlier this year, also called for exams to be replaced by something more suited to a future nobody can predict.
What is surprising about this report is that although it is keen to present itself as wired up to the cutting edge of educational thinking (the first paragraph of the Executive Summary includes mandatory buzzwords and phrases like ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and ‘AI’) as author and assessment expert Daisy Christodoulou has already argued, it is anything but original or progressive. Indeed, Christodoulou points out, rightly, that most of the arguments included in the report, like Blair himself, were the future once, but are now outdated. They are as cutting edge as microfiche and over-head projectors.
If we are to reform schools then it has to be based on evidence that shows the outcomes work. To do otherwise would be to risk the future prospects of young people. None of the recommended reforms in Blair’s report do this.
Take continuous assessment. The report argues for the replacement of GCSEs and A levels with a new qualification based on the International Baccalaureate (Blair’s love of the IB is long standing) that includes “multiple, rigorous forms of continuous assessment”. Leaving aside the fact that this is a misrepresentation of the IB diploma, which relies very heavily on final, highly demanding, examinations – continuous assessment is less fair than final examinations like GCSE and A level. How do we know this? Because we have gained two years of evidence which clearly shows how teacher-assessed grades distort outcomes, add significantly to the workload of teachers, result in huge grade inflation, and, worst of all, hit the poorest children the hardest.
But such is the hatred of examinations that the authors of the report would favour anything else instead, irrespective of the potential damage such changes could have. For them, schools “rely heavily on passive forms of learning focused on direct instruction and memorisation”. They remain completely unaware of how insulting this is to all teachers and pupils; and of course, they can never name a school, or a teacher, or a pupil, that actively does any of this – nor can they accept that direct instruction and memorisation are actually good things that help pupils learn. No, for them such qualities illustrate a ‘narrow set of methods and subjects’. So, instead of studying English, Maths, Science, as well as languages, the humanities, sport, music, and other subjects available at GCSE, Blair’s team would favour our children being taught the “4 Cs: critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaborative problem-solving”.
Worth reading in full.
What’s so astonishing about this hackneyed report is that the authors put forward their proposals as if they’ve come up with something cutting edge and original, apparently unaware that these romantic notions – teach creativity! – date back at least as far as the mid-19th Century and have been shown to fail over and over again. That’s the problem with so many education ‘experts’ – they know virtually nothing about the subject.
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Very simple answer to the headline
Because they don’t want this to end
Because it will make their friends (and ultimately themselves) very much richer and they think they might end up in history as the person who saved the world from thermal armageddon.
It is just now a question of he who pays the piper.
‘Carbon’ and Covid are two sides of the same coin, the debased currency of a toxic brew of fear, ignorance and self-righteousness. The masses of humanity have lost their minds, driven insane by a hollowed out corporate media and corrupt governments. Now comes the end game, the culmination of millennia of behind-the-scenes planning. Take courage. Prepare yourselves. Be prepared to lose everything. It’s going to get dark. Stand firm. Read, read, read, read and pray. Don’t lose heart. It will be worth it. The ending of this story is already written.
I agree but prefer to view them as different cheeks on the same arse as to different sides of the same coin.
Good one, permission to use widely. . .
Because it’s elite dogma, and it’s much more comfortable to be on the same side as the Official Truth than it is to be on the outside, for the kinds of people who mostly populate our media and politics these days. These are modern social taboos.
That’s why our media coverage is so warped and systematically slanted on all the elite dogma issues – covid panic, climate alarmism, “racism”, “homophobia” etc. It’s very uncomfortable to expose yourself to the kinds of attacks that follow if you step outside the cosy warmth of conformism on these issues, and it can be genuinely dangerous, both to your career and to your personal safety, and you can find yourself facing police and judicial harassment as well, in the more tightly enforced cases.
This is the society we have allowed to be built around us, over the past few decades.
Very nicely put sir.
What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human activity was a dangerous planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass-delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison. Richard Lindzen, MIT
I was somewhat surprised when Naked Wines sent me an email telling me how proud they were to be going net zero and doing their part in reducing evil plant gas. My subscription was quickly cancelled. Companies that stupid don’t deserve to survive.
You never hear any of them say “We’re proud to be shutting down in order to get our emissions down to zero!”
Likewise I always ‘click off’ YouTube ads that try to preach at me about
climate changenet zero rather than tell me about their product or serviceOnce upon a time, advertising tried to sell you stuff by making the product appealing. Then they tried by associating the product with some worthy cause. Now, the adverts feel like propaganda films with a product endorsement as an afterthought.
There is a rather revolting advert on YouTube from, I think, Twix snackbar, that spends two minutes promoting cross dressing/trans boys before a single freeze frame at the end using the word ‘Twix’.
God knows how any of these firms can justify paying for it. Maybe they believe the shit themselves, or the ad men and women sell it to them. I suspect the ad men and women think of themselves as crusaders
I purchased from a woke, well-known Canadian retailer an expensive coat as a gift for my daughter in law. They couldn’t put it in a box with tissue because “these don’t conform to our impact policy. We are a sustainable company!,” came the smug explanation.
“Where is the coat made?,” I inquired.
” Either China or Asia,”the college graduate replied. “China,” he confirmed, having checked the label.
”Ah, China,” I smiled, “ the world’s biggest polluter.”
Talk about brains full of mush!
China, with of 23 of the worlds most 25 pollution producing locations, not attending COP26. Wonder why?
It will also baffle historians why we are a society allowed politicians such as Boris Johnson to use this climate change nonsense as a cover to destroy western civilisation and propel us all back to the preindustrial revolution days while more sensible countries such as China and Russia carry on as normal.
Let’s see how bozo & chums enjoy a lifestyle consisting of digging ditches in the mud and shit in the wet and cold with wooden shovels while carnivorous rebels chuck rocks at rabbits for a living.
R. Lindzen, Willie Soon, Will Happer, David Legates, Bob Carter (sadly deceased), Jim Steele, Anthony Watts, MacIntyre & Mckitrick, Peter Ridd, Paul Homewood & many others are heroes for truth as far as I’m concerned. Their treatment over the past decades was a a clear forerunner of the howling anti-scientific alarmism and lies that have played out during the covid con.
True science is dead. For now.
Ha Ha! In my small provincial town, they are having a ‘Clang for Climate’ at 6pm today. Middle-class wooly minded liberal folk will stand (in the rain), reliving the good old Clap for Carers days but this time they’ll be aiming their rousing panclatter, not towards the carers they couldn’t see outside their house at the time, but towards the heavens themselves in a show of solidarity with the world’s most influential billionaires and against bad gases. Don’t be late! Bring a pan! Don’t do any critical thinking and get clanging!
It really is barely a rung above belief in witchcraft.
People who wish to live according to graphs presented to them by their masters.
Most witches these days go by the disguise of ‘computer modellers’.
Eighteen months on, and in an interesting reversal, now you might possibly get the clap from the carers.
Reminds me of an Alien Invasion movie where all the groovy young things party in celebration on the rooves of skyscrapers believing they are here to save humanity from itself.
When the aliens launch their attack the young things are their first target.
Mars Attacks! And yes perfect summing up of their abject stupidity!
We are a society are regressing back to the days of uneducated tribes. People are engaging in pointless rituals – banging pots and pans to the heavens in the hope that the Powers that be ruin their lives and destroy their prosperity so that the weather improves slightly. It won’t be long before we are sacrificing the first born in ever household so that the Gods allow the world to warm by 1 degree C instead of 2 or reduced the R number below one or whatever the latest nonsense is that politicians are putting about as a means to control the woolly minded unthinking sheep.
I can assure you my middle class northern town will be first to adopt said sacrifice rituals!
it worked out well for the Aztecs.
Luvvit!
The Senior Editors and Owners walk in the same circles and go to the same parties as the elites. They are all looking out for each other.
Sub-editors know that if they want to get on the next rung they must tow the line.
Journalists know that if they want the best commissions and promotion opportunities then they must tow the line.
True of every major newspaper and broadcaster in the US and the UK.
“Sub-editors know that if they want to get on the next rung they must toe the line”.
In the same way that an academic wishing to study the sex life of the natterjack toad won’t get funding unless ‘they’ demonstrates that it is changing due to manmadeglobalwarming.
I grow most of my own veg and salad, I noticed in spring 2020 and even more so this year that I really struggled to get seeds germinating and to grow on… I had to ‘feed’ everything more than usual. Could be poor technique on my part but in discussion with family in the north east (I live in the southwest) and friends living near me they all found the same problem.
I suspect it was due to a fall in CO2 levels due to lockdowns etc but I’m not a scientist. I have also noticed far fewer bees this year and many I did see were dead ones.
Contrary to your experience I have had an outstanding crop in N Cheshire.A surfeit of brassicas, with purple sprouting broccoli standing 6ft high (no sprouty bits yet though) and root crops straight and true (except the spuds of course!). Altogether better than the previous year and I put it down to a warm, dry Spring getting stuff off to a flyer.
Lucky you! A bit further north we had a cold spring with late frost which delayed everything by 3 weeks!
What is it with this post that has offended so many people?
Proper scientists in the field know that In ages past megafauna existed in conjunction with very high levels of CO2. It increases the biomass.
You don’t need to be a scientist to work out that it has nothing whatsoever to do with atmospheric CO2.
Current levels of atmospheric CO2 are around 410ppm (parts per million).
Mankind’s proportion of that is around 4% = 16.4ppm
The reduction in mankind’s CO2 emissions were estimated to be (perhaps) somewhere between 9% and 14%.
Take the higher number just to be safe: 16.4ppm x 14% = 2.3ppm
In other words, assuming there was any measurable fall in mankind’s CO2 output (which isn’t measured, it’s modelled by computer) we went from 410ppm to 407.7ppm.
This entirely ignores natural emissions which more than likely made up the difference.
Yaas, strangely overall CO2 levels weren’t affected at all. A fair clue that ‘net zero’ will achieve nothing (other than further destroying western civilisation, impoverishing billions and likely killing millions). The Age of Insanity continues.
For the same reasons “Why Aren’t Journalists and Politicians More Sceptical About the ‘Covid’ Policy, Given that it’s Based on the Outputs of Unreliable Models?” perhaps?
It doesn’t pay to be sceptical more like. They won’t understand the models anymore than the politicians do.
Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a “correct” one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity. George Box
I’m not sure that most journalists are worthy of the title. They seem more like frustrated/failed politicians and activists or attention seekers. They all seem to have an agenda, or follow an agenda set by their bosses. Of course journalism has always been entwined with politics, but now that politics is somewhat monochrome, there is very little real opposition from political or journalistic opposition.
Politicians either believe in this nonsense or see it as a good way to get more power, spend other people’s money, feel important, or some combination of the two. They do like a “glorious” project. They used to start wars against other countries, now they wage war on their own people. I don’t think they care much either way. I once asked a
Main stream journalists and their editors are ‘just following orders’ of the media owners, who are ‘just following orders’ from the elite trillionaires…..just my opinion.
There are very few worthwhile journalists around these days. Proofreading seems to be a thing of the past from the lowliest local to the nationals they are awash with basic errors in English and in fact.
So long as the gist of the article agrees with the accepted truth it gets passed.
Sadly many of the professional scientists I know (mainly children of friends) feel they are on a funding treadmill where there scientific work is equally shared with the daily grind of seeking income for the next project or the continuation of the current one.
Anyone who says ‘the science is settled’ and conspires to shut down the presentation of contrary evidence is the enemy of true science. They behave like this because they do not wish to be persuaded to change their view. The first (‘the science is settled’) is a religious dogmatism that justifies their propaganda, and the second (censorship, punishment, coercion) is a political act.
The climate change bandwaggon (laughably called a ‘climate emergency’) has been the warm up routine for the Covidian cult, and showed how it was possible to brainwash people, instil fear, and manipulate messaging, and thus effect social change.
Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre, and sometime Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (UEA), who generated climate scenarios the UK Government, the European Commission, UNEP, UNDP, WWF-International and the IPCC, rather let the cat out of the bag in aligning what he was up with climate change and his personal socialist agenda:
In my view any expert who says “the science is settled” should be immediately removed from their post and never employed again. Science can never be settled, it is important that theories and constantly tested and new research is done. That is how science had progressed and new ideas are developed.
If you know anyone who still believes the myth that CO2 emissions cause climate change then please share this 8 minute video which concisely explains why that is not the case:
https://youtu.be/n-W76C0kkwc
Personally, I beleive that the CO2 = Bad propaganda is for 3 reasons:
1) To promote nuclear power.
2) To undermine developing countries industrial potential.
3) To provide the global banking elite with a trillion dollar cash cow for the administration of carbon credits.
Climate change is a huge bullshit con! If it exists then it’s natural. Ask them how the ice age melted without the interference of humans and why was the world not 100% under water when it did melt. Also ask them what happens to water in a glass when the ice cubes melt?
Its usually empty by then in my house.
. . . or the Mediaevil Warm Period, or the Little Ice Age, or the Roman Warm Period, or, well, most of the last 12000 years being likely warmer than now. I’m sure they’ll find a way of homogenising them all out of existance soon, creating the biggest hickey stick ever seen. After all, if the data don’t fit the hypothesis. . . change the data. Works every time. . .
I believe climate change is the work of immigrants. I have models which show that CO2 levels and temperature levels in the U.K. rise in parallel with numbers of overseas immigrants settling here. Instead of obstructing the highways, the extinction rebellion crusties should be agitating for ‘net zero’ immigrants.
There is a direct correlation between the disappearance of pirates and the rise in climate change, we need more pirates.
400 a day coming in.
Pirates?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4zul0BuO8A&t=509s
Unusually warm northerly winds with a smell of sulphur expected over most parts of the UK during the 6limate 6hange 6onference due to a week long excess of bullshit.
The IPCC models all, with one exception , contain a fudge factor. Its the ‘forcing’ referred to in the article , the assumption that CO2 increases will drive water vapour to reflect more heat back to the surface. The one exception is the Russian model. Only one model has got anywhere near forecasting outturn for 30 years, the Russian model.
Climatiologists have been seeking real life evidence in the atmosphere for the ‘forcing’ for 30 years, they have been totally unsuccessful.
Without this fudge none of their models would show anything alarming at all.
In the real world there has been a slight increase in minimum temperatures, no change in maximums. If anything we have an outbreak of world shattering mildness.
But of course none of this matters to the likes of the UN who want to transfer wealth from industrialised countries to developing ones ; social engineers who want to transfer wealth within societies; totalitarian politicians who want to use the scam to control; and above all the bankers, financiers and energy companies who want to make $trillions imposing disruption on economies.
Cold not heat kills, and the poorest will get colder than most and increasingly die due to these policies.
Evil walks the planet in full view cheered on by the willing idiot middle classes of the western world.
Excellent piece.
Journalists and politicians have one thing in common. The vast majority of them are arts graduates, many of whom are arithmetically illiterate, a failing which they boast loudly about.
In the same way that policies about public health are no longer decided or implemented by medical professionals but by graduates in Public Health who know nothing about disease control.
Why Aren’t Journalists and Politicians More Skeptical…”
You need to ask?
Please could someone breakdown the 97% of naturally produced CO2 ref: Well, humans only contribute 3% of all CO2 entering the atmosphere.
Most of the arguments made in this excellent article have been made for many years in places like ‘wattsupwthat’ (sometimes referenced on this site).
Unfortunately it starts off in error by saying “delegates to COP26 face up to the rather inconvenient truth that the average temperature in Scotland hasn’t moved for about 15 years”.
Part of the problem is that they never face up to any inconvenient truth, they just ignore it. They ignore that the most beneficial eras of human history coincide with warm periods. That post Roman ‘Arthurian’ Britain was described in contemporary chronicles as a ‘wasteland’ not because of invading heathens but because of a decade or more of harsh winters caused by a volcano ( might have been a comet) as witnessed by other civilisations throughout the world.
32,000 greenies sitting around agreeing with each other, so many that some have been put up on otherwise idle cruise liners; sleepy Joe with his entourage of 85 cars, the hypocracies just go on and on.
Anyone remember the Copenhagen shindig? Many of them couldn’t get home for Xmas because a sudden freeze grounded the airport and closed the roads. Poetic justice.
Wasn’t it a couple of weeks ago that there was food shortage scaremoungering due to a shortage of CO2? That terrible gas that makes plants grow.
In aeons gone by the existence of megafauna always coincided with high concentrations of CO2, it enhances the biomass.
That CO2 is added to greenhouses to a level 3 times normal background levels to increase crop productivity seems to just pass them by.
I wonder what the c*nts Johnson & Sturgeon have in store for us after the COP26 sh*tshow ends on 12th November…
Lockdown Scotland for sure as the untested, unmasked, unquarantined, ‘vax status undeclared’ great and the good return to their lives of idle luxury leaving the unprotected denizens of Scots hospitality to share The Covid with friends and family.
Yeah, I know it’s all b*llocks.
Once Lockdown Sceptics starts going on about ‘Climate Change’ you know it’s a never-ending story. It is almost impossible to prove ‘Climate Change’ (whatever that means).
Covid and lockdowns was a big enough subject, and an on-going one at that. What next – a discussion on religion? Or abortion?
It’s Daily Sceptic, not Lockdown Sceptics. And as was recently pointed out here above the line, there are clear parallels and connections between the various panics and ideological zealotries being used to manipulate us.
But it was always clear from the start that Young had no intention of restricting discussions to a particular topic or party line.
Yes, glad to see ‘Daily Sceptic’ living up to its new name & beginning to take on the other anti-scientific paradigm that’s driving our world to insanity and mass suicide (genocide?). . .
Never let an inconvenient truth spoil the narrative.
I call them the ‘Change the weather Cult’.
Money.
From global warming, to climate change, to (at one point) global weirding?!?! to the climate emergency to the climate breakdown, this is the classic Orwellian ‘global crisis’ that can never ever be identified and can never ever be solved but we must KEEP FIGHTING. Just like the war between Eurasia and Oceana.
If anyone’s interested I did some bored maths the other day to demonstrate what the governments 3 trillion pound psychotic Net Zero ponzi scheme is going to cost us and what else you could buy with it.
Three trillion pounds:
636 missions to Mars.
The cost of an Uber journey across our entire solar system and back.
6000 brand new hospitals with free parking.
42.6 million trained nurses.
230 million trained police officers.
3 million KLFs with 3 million furnaces.
12 million ambulances.
750 million ICU ventilators.
24.8 million affordable homes or social housing.
Free university education for 60 million students.
A cheap briefcase containing £100,000 cash for every household in the UK.
200 billion clean water tanks in Sudan.
500 billion plastic taps in Sierra Leone.
60 billion hand washing stations in Mozambique.
3 trillion pounds towards cleaning our oceans of plastic waste.
3 trillion pounds towards protecting rare and endangered species across the world from poaching.
3 trillion pounds towards finding a cure for cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Altzheimers, AIDS, malaria or any other potentially devastating disease you can think of.
Net Zero: 3 trillion pounds of our money straight into the pockets of some of the wealthiest people on Earth without making a dog fart’s difference to its temperature.
Or perhaps 3 Trillion tax relief (i.e. not collecting it in the first place)
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/11/fourteen_is_the_new_fifteen.html
How the hoax was started.
On a global level, both highly accurate satellite measurements and surface measurements show that there has been no warming for seven years – and counting.
There are many surface global temperature records. The attached summarises the most important.
The important text is “data plotted with respect to a 1981-2010 baseline”. If you change the baseline you change the shape of the curve. You are picking a baseline that supports your assertion. The “seven years and counting” doesn’t pick a baseline, as the baseline always starts now.
I don’t see that at all – surely changing the baseline just moves the curve up or down – like changing between Centigrade and Kelvin. Perhaps you can give an example?
Fraud.
If you think it is fraudulent to suggest that changing the baseline doesn’t change the shape of the curve, then please explain how it does change the shape.
No, applying constant adjustments/ homogenisations to the data & infilling for long-gone reporting stations without making it clear that this is what has been done. . . is fraud.
You and I are in the minority here! After all the pseudo-science churned out by governments about COVID it is understandable that some now think that global warming is a hoax.
Governments around the world have encouraged many to believe that all science is manipulated by politicians and the media and should therefore not be trusted.
These are sad times for science.
I am very used to being in the minority on this site
. . . and I (we) am(are) very used to being the minority amongst the wider public/friends and family. Meaningless, of course, but gives you a sense of our frustrations, though on a rather smaller scale (see COP26).
Last chance to save the planet, eh?. Again.
Climate science has been manipulated and propagandised in the same way as covvy for approaching 30 years (hockey sticks anyone?). With any luck, debunking the antiscientific covibollox will lead to a more sceptical (and scientific) approach to climabollox. But I’m not holding my breath on either – for the same reasons.
For the last time, modelling isn’t science, it’s arrogance! At best, it’s applied ‘science‘ which is worlds apart from actual real scientific method, i.e. the study of nature & how can you study something that hasn’t happened yet?
What we are experiencing is a liberal pandemic, a liberal leftist endemic, An attack on humanity & nature, its liberal ideological dogma resurfaced. Most of which I subscribed too for much of my adult life, but I’ve seen the light & recognize it for what it is, a re-branded resurgence of communism.
Liberals are the greatest threat to all life on earth, their concept of nature & natural process is irreparably corrupt, they are a danger to us all. Another Brick in the wall with lyrics
For the last time, modelling isn’t science, it’s arrogance!
Surely it depends on what you mean by a model? A common interpretation is simply a mathematical representation of key aspects of a phenomenon. In this sense Newton’s laws of motion are a model. Like all models they capture really important aspects of the phenomenon – the motion of massive bodies. They do this extremely well but, again like all models, they are not perfect. Climate models also attempt to capture the key aspects of climate mathematically. Key differences between these models and Newton’s laws include:
Does this make them not science? Well they are still very useful. Their predictive power track record is actually not bad but even if it were limited, they are very useful, possibly essential, for growing our understanding of how a very complex system interacts and they highlight possible outcomes when considering action.
None of this is to do with politics – it just a way of doing science with strengths and limitations.
The Green Agenda confers power on politicians, so they adopt it. The anti-capitalists push them to destroy their economies (the point of ‘environmentalism’) and big business virtue signal to convince Govt to introduce regulations that will destroy the smaller competition. In the meantime, all the ‘mucking about’ destroys the lives of people who just work for a living and don’t lie, cheat or steal. The only world their ‘betters’ know.
Has anyone found a link to the article mentioned :In 2018 the long established Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland warned that the Scottish and U.K. Government green energy policy was likely to lead to severe electricity blackouts. Such events, it warned, “lead to death, severe societal and industrial disruption, civil disturbance and loss of production”. I’ve searched and can’t find it. Would love to read it.
Some squirt on BBC Breakfast this morning (31/Oct) maimed that without the action taken so far, we’d be heading for a 3-4 deg{C) rise. Talk about manufacturing nonsense! No talk of China or India etc though.
These people are just factually ignorant parrots who never do any research and simply regurgitate what some other twat told them. If they took their heads out their arses and did some simple Arithmetic they would understand they are talking BS.
This is the calculation, using internationally recognised data, nothing fancy, no hidden agenda, just something we can all do by taking our socks and shoes off and the sandal jockeys don’t even need to do that!
Atmospheric CO2 levels in 1850 (beginning of the Industrial Revolution): ~280ppm (parts per million atmospheric content) (Vostock Ice Core).
Atmospheric CO2 level in 2021: ~410ppm. (Manua Loa)
410ppm minus 280ppm = 130ppm ÷ 171 years (2021 minus 1850) = 0.76ppm of which man is responsible for ~3% = ~0.02ppm.
That’s every human on the planet and every industrial process adding ~0.02ppm CO2 to the atmosphere per year on average.
Assuming atmospheric CO2 is the culprit, at that rate mankind’s CO2 contribution would take more than 20,000 years to double which, the IPCC states, would cause around 2°C of temperature rise. That’s ~0.0001°C increase per year for 20,000 years.
One hundred (100) generations from now (assuming ~ 25 years per generation) would experience warming of ~0.25°C more than we have today. ‘The children’ are not threatened!
Furthermore, the Manua Loa CO2 observatory (and others) can identify and illustrate Natures small seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 but cannot distinguish between natural and manmade atmospheric CO2.
Hardly surprising, mankind’s CO2 emissions are so inconsequential this ‘vital component’ of Global Warming can’t be illustrated on the regularly updated Manua Loa graph.
Mankind’s emissions are independent of seasonal variation and would reveal itself as a straight line, so should be obvious.
Not even the global fall in manmade CO2 over the early Covid-19 pandemic, estimated at ~14% (14% of ~0.02ppm CO2 = 0.0028ppm), registers anywhere on the Manua Loa data.
Why am I not surprised?!
“man is responsible for ~3%” – Can you tell me where the other 97% came from?
Oceans, rotting biomass, algae, volcanoes. . .
So the oceans, rotting biomass, algae and volcanoes started chucking out lots more CO2 about 150 years ago and their output has increased exponentially, in lockstep with the amount of fossil fuels we burn?
Interesting hypothesis. Anything to back it up?
There is a misunderstanding about the 3% which the more informed sceptics fully accept. There is carbon cycle which is more or less in balance in the short term. So there is a massive amount of carbon going into the atmosphere and a massive amount going out. In the last couple of hundred years the carbon in has regularly exceeded the carbon out leading to the increase in atmospheric CO2. The 3% is a proportion of the carbon in, not a proportion of the excess which almost entirely manmade. We know this because fossil fuels create CO2 with a different blend of isotopes of carbon from naturally produced CO2 and the increase in CO2 reflects this.
If you are curious to listen to leading scientists debunking the “climate crisis”, take a look at Heartland’s recent 2021 Climate Conference, which is currently available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/HeartlandTube
The presentations give a non-alarmist view on climate science and paint a sorry picture of the IPCC’s broken models, climate data manipulation by official agencies, misattribution of extreme weather, and a disconnect between the underlying science and the IPCC’s alarmist summary for policymakers.
It is difficult to see how any reasonable person can claim that “the Science is settled”.
What’s really interesting is that Covid seems to have done the planet a favour.
A couple of years ago virtually every single mainstream media outlet with a comments section would have been littered with climate alarmists pushing their nonsensical pseudo-science in response to any article mentioning climate change.
Since covid began, accompanied by the general rise in scepticism overall, there are almost none of these people around any longer.
It might have something to do with the eye watering cost NetZero will entail. The £1tn+ Theresa May committed the country to in order to ‘combat’ climate change is the general Taxpayers contribution. What the government doesn’t tell anyone is that to have the UK housing stock achieve NetZero standards will cost individual householder about £100,000.
The only people to profit from this cash bonanza will be the banks. I notice an advert from the Halifax on the radio this a.m. jumping on the bandwagon already and offering to help householders insulate their homes. That will, of course, mean taking out a £100,000 mortgage extension with them. And that’s only for the average British home (3 bedroom semi detached?).
I suspect an awful lot of people are coming to their senses over the climate change nonsense.
They ignore it because that’s nothing to do with their depopulation plan
Take a look at this. There is a downloadable leaflet in PDF format available. “A fantastic piece of work and something that badly needs to be seen. It is clearly and lucidly expressed and covers the key topics.” It really should be compulsory reading for all schoolchildren.
I’m afraid it may be too late for many of the adults whose brains have been befuddled by the MSM for too many years now.
https://www.beautyandthebeastlytruth.com/
Watch out! Yellow snow alert….
Yup, ‘arthropogenic climate change’ is best summed up by the phrase ‘don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining’.
Climate is one of the most complex, non-linear, chaotic systems known to man and, therefore, by definition, cannot be predicted. To ignore chaos is fraud.
To claim that any extreme weather event is caused by man’s emissions of carbon dioxide is fraud.
Carbon dioxide is a tasteless, colourless, odourless, non-toxic trace gas in the atmosphere, essential for all life on Earth.
“Climate is one of the most complex, non-linear, chaotic systems” – as is turbulent water flow, but it is safe to predict that if you jump in a river you will get wet.
Erm, which proves. . . ? Water is wet? Don’t think you need a model for that.
Which proves it is possible to make predictions about complex, non-linear, chaotic systems. Another example is economies. Really hard to predict in detail but keep increasing the taxation rate every year and you can predict you will get a big problem one day.
Hurrah for simple truths.
Exellently written piece. Hard to summarise the bucketloads of evidence against AGW, but this article focuses on some of the more compelling arguments.
“But of course the science that states humans are causing all or most global warming is ‘settled’. But of course it isn’t. The suggestion is an unproven scientific hypothesis based on the output of climate models that over a 30-year period have yet to record an accurate forecast among them.”
1) The percentage of Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has increased since the industrial revolution. This has come mainly from burning fossil fuels. If you don’t believe it has come from fossil fuels take a moment to explain to me what happens to the gasses from your boiler flue, or from the tailpipe of your car.
2) Greenhouse gasses absorb radiation that would otherwise be emitted into space, thus increasing global average temperature. In 1896 Svante Arrhenius worked out that CO2 is really important because it stops us freezing to death.
As Scottie said “ye canna change the laws of physics”.
3) “Accurate forecast” is a big smelly red herring. No-one can make an accurate forecast even a few days ahead, and no climate scientist would claim to! Weather systems are chaotic. What we do know is that keeping hold of more of the sun’s energy raises the *average* temperature of the earth, we also know that this is happening on a very short timescale. These changes are likely to require expensive and disruptive mitigation if we are to avoid negative impacts on humans and other lifeforms – or maybe they won’t, perhaps we should just cross our fingers, and ask our grandchildren to cross theirs too.
4) Fossil fuels will run out (please let me know if you disagree). Before they run out they will get horrifically expensive. Should we wait for this to happen, or is it more sensible to change our energy sources now?
“Fossil fuels will run out (please let me know if you disagree). Before they run out they will get horrifically expensive.”
Fossil fuels are relatively cheap so there can’t be any problem on the supply side. Don’t believe me, then check your latest domestic fuel bill? The unit cost of electricity is about SIX times more expensive than the unit cost of gas! Yet craven, virtue-signalling politicians are in the process of forcing consumers to use electricity only. It’s their lunatic polices that we need to fear not the climate! They are betraying future generations.
Fossil fuels will eventually become superfluous because our advanced technological world will powered by safe, clean nuclear fusion energy, not by medieval methods such as wind power and wood burning. The investment in so-called green energy should be directed to developing nuclear fusion reactors. Commercial nuclear fusion is a question of when, not if.
“Fossil fuels are relatively cheap so there can’t be any problem on the supply side.” – that is true today*, but when planning energy sources one must look into the future. Meanwhile, are you happy with Putin controlling your gas supply? I’m not.
Fusion may or may not become a reality, but remember that it will still have a cost. Electricity from fission is not cheap. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources of electricity, they do not pollute and they are very safe, what’s not to like?
Why? Journalists from the MSM don’t challenge it because their careers would suffer if they did. Politicians don’t challenge it for the same reason (plus most of them are too dense, anyway).
It’s driven by the UN and the globalists. It’s about Control, and to achieve that first they have to control the narrative.
Answer: Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Bad news sells, and it seems the public in general are gullible and easily influenced by the garbage pumped out by the MSM, and Big Tech will do all it can to suppress any alternative view.
Thank you for the article, a voice of sanity amid a crescendo of propaganda It’s good that sites like DS are providing unbiased reporting a view from the other side of the argument.
Same tricks, same players. All roads lead to Rothschild. Just today I saw a post on FB about Joanna Lumley, another Rothschild shill, who plugs the climate change fraud endlessly. These people, like the Johnsons Bojo and Stanley, take their orders from Rothschild and like lying deceiving pieces of shit that they are, they deceive the public into believing in all kinds of things that arent true, like the “man-made CO2 is destroying the world and trashing the climate so you must do what we tell you” con.
They are however running geo-engineering programmes which change the weather but of course they deny all that and trick everyone into believing thats all conspiracy theory when they have been doing such things for decades.
Bottom line a bunch of lying criminals are tricking and deceiving everyone into believing in a load of bullshit, and people need to get out of their hypnotic states and start seeing this shit for what it is.
Here are some good links to back up what I am saying:
FRANKENSKIES
https://vimeo.com/222928194
The Oxford Global Depopulation Agenda 2025
https://www.bitchute.com/video/LyLretdObH0d/
‘Dimming the sun’: $100m geoengineering research programme proposed
https://web.archive.org/web/20210329103727/https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/25/top-us-scientists-back-100m-geoengineering-research-proposal
This gives an insight into how they can use the health of the planet as a tool of control:
Report From Iron Mountain
https://www.pdfdrive.com/report-from-iron-mountain-e57187892.html
The green welly brigade thinking they know how the world works when in reality they wouldn’t know which way to turn a screwdriver. Middle and upper classes indulging in the latest fad in an attempt to salve their consciences for their excessive consumption, safe in the knowledge that their lifestyles will be unaffected.
Call me a denier, or stupid if you like, but doesn’t that big orangey fire-ball in the sky probably have a bigger influence on the temperature than how much CO2 we are belching into the atmosphere? Net zero is a pipedream of luvvies and lefties, and the spineless politicians who think green policies are vote winners. I hope and pray that those in power really do start following THE science, and not the hippy claptrap which seems to be winning the argument at the moment.
“Net zero is a pipedream of luvvies and lefties” – no, net zero will be a reality when fossil fuels become prohibitively expensive before running out. Or do you think that fossil fuels somehow replenish themselves at the rate we use them?
Why? For the same reason MSM doesn’t report the real facts about Covid.
The issue for the sceptical scientist in the current climate is who will fund their research and who would be prepared to peer review and publish their work? Even long-standing scientific bodies and associations couch their tacit support for the “settled” concensus with mealy-mouthed statements that draw the ire of many reputable fellows of their respective scientific societies whilst not providing them with the platform to argue or present any contrary case. This is censorship and the closing down of valid debate for fear of any backlash from what they see as the mainstream scientific community…supported by a brainwashed general public and encouraged by a compliant and emotive MSM and those scientific “experts” in receipt of generous stipends from their paymasters.
I am very much in support of the way the Daily Sceptic has taken on some of the “bad science” used to justify lockdowns etc.. But this article makes me sad. It’s well below the standard I have come to expect from the Daily Sceptic.
1) “the average temperature in Scotland hasn’t moved for about 15 years” – so what? Can you find me a climate scientist who “predicts” that temperatures will increase at a steady rate every year and in every part of the world? No, of course you can’t. The effects of global warming are chaotic and cannot be predicted in detail.
2) “For years, average November temperatures in Scotland have been dropping like a stone. It’s so bad that temperatures are falling to levels last seen in the ‘90s – the 1890s.” – supported by a graph which shows average temperature of 6.7 degrees in the mid 1890s and 7.8 degrees in 2020.
3) “unproven scientific hypothesis based on the output of climate models” – no, global warming is not based on models, it’s based on physics, greenhouse gasses absorb radiation that would otherwise shoot off into space.
4) “humans only contribute 3% of all CO2 entering the atmosphere” – yes, but before we added that 3% things were roughly in balance – lots of CO2 into the atmosphere and lots of CO2 out again.
Let’s imagine your income is the same as your outgoings, all is well and your bank balance stays constant. Now let’s increase your outgoings by 3%, what happens? you’ll end up in debt. You have picked what will seem to the uninitiated to be a small (and factually correct) number in the hope that their curiosity does not take them too far.
5) “Covid pandemic cut human global CO2 emissions by 7% in 2020. It had no discernible effect on the overall rise” – the earth is big, really big, and it stores a lot of heat, expecting to see an effect because of a 7% drop in CO2 output (as opposed to concentration in the atmosphere) for a short period is just plain silly, or deliberately misleading, I’m not sure which yet.
I agree, a lot of the claims made by the media about global warming are complete and utter bollocks, and are simply there to gain clicks. as with COVID, the media are doing proper science a disservice.
“there has been no warming for seven years”
… but a clear upward trend over a longer timescale.
There might be a debate over causation and significance – and the role of CO2, which has taken on far too much prominence – but not about the bleedin’ obvious, nor about the more general issues of anthropogenic environmental change.
(And, no, I’m not an apologist for COP26 posturing)
Actually Luke, the amount of Forensic Evidence that exists that supports the well-known facts about the Holocaust is suprisingly small. Also, as we all know, approximately 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, but again, the basis for arriving at that number is surprisingly unscientific and inconsistent and it’s not an easy fact to substantiate. So the comparison with Climate Science might more apt than you think.