The British government has put climate change at the ‘heart of education’ since 2021. Not maths, not English or science, but climate change. In fact, climate change was incorporated into the school curriculum as long ago as 2013. I am learning now exactly what this means: lessons in climate change… in French!
The ‘issue’ of climate change has been taught to me since I started Year 8, aged 12. I have been told that climate change is something to worry about and it is going to affect my life. I have always had my doubts but, worryingly, this lesson has a significant impact on some students’ mental health. According to the Telegraph, more than half of teenagers think the world will likely end in their lifetimes as academics warn ‘eco-anxiety’ is on the rise.
Thankfully, the COVID-19 restrictions prevented the topic from being taught at the start of my secondary school career. But I am now in Year 9 and the climate issue is front and centre. And I don’t just mean we’re being taught about climate change in Science and Geography. This year, we’re learning about climate change in French. No more memorising how to order un croissant avec café au lait or how to tell your friend it is une belle journeé de printemps. Oh no. We are learning how to regurgitate ‘climate emergency’ propaganda in French. Some examples of the questions that we must answer in French are: ‘What do you do to protect the environment?’, ‘Are you environmentally friendly and how?’, ‘Are you passionate about the environment?’ and ‘What concerns you about the planet?’. My teacher does give you the option of not agreeing with the general tenor of the questions, and says you can say the opposite. Unfortunately, she doesn’t teach us how to say that.
Surely, there are better things for schools to teach us in French? I don’t think I will go to France when I am older and have a conversation with anyone about climate change. Before this, we were learning about normal things, like describing our school and what instruments or sports we play. Now, it’s all about saving the la planète.
We are mostly taught about global warming and how quickly our planet is heating up. Apparently, the average global temperature is due to rise by 4°C by the end of the century. In fact, global temperatures have increased barely at all in the last 25 years, apart from a blip in 2014 caused by El Nino, an entirely natural phenomenon.
We’re also supposed to worry about carbon emissions. It’s drilled into our heads that we need to reduce our carbon footprint and, if possible, be carbon neutral. At the end of a script that we must learn by rote, our teachers talk about air pollution and urge us to take a bus instead of a car. But does a bus not release carbon too? Trains emit the lowest CO2 per mile, 177 grams, while buses come in at 299 grams per mile, second only to cars at 371 grams. Surely, we should be encouraged to take le train? Nonetheless, CO2, which is always called a ‘greenhouse gas’, is plant food and not a pollutant. CO2, which is only 0.04% of the atmosphere, is beneficial to trees and plants without which we cannot survive.
If global warming is taking place then it may be good for some countries. Although U.K. weather is unpredictable, it’s extreme. In summer, the average temperature ranges from 9-18°C and in winter the average is between 2-7°C, but it can drop below 0°C. Summers becoming hotter and more prolonged was among the many impacts that climate change has allegedly had on the U.K. However, would it not be better if our temperatures did rise? For the entire United States, excluding Hawaii and Alaska, the summer season averages 22.2°C. They seem to survive.
There is no need to instil this generational panic about climate change. We particularly don’t need to be taught how to panic in another language. But unfortunately this worry has already made its way into people’s heads in my school. I was discussing climate change with one of my friends last week, when he blurted out some nonsense about how we should be doing more and worrying more about it. I simply trotted out some of the facts I’ve cited above and he instantly changed his mind. Most of my peers agree with me about this, but the few that do not have been quick to change their minds to when I present them with the counter-evidence. I should say, neither I nor any of my classmates has ever had any pushback from our French teacher for being climate contrarians – I think she’s just happy we’re intellectually curious about something. But she still hasn’t taught us how to express our scepticism in French!
I’m glad I’ve been able to save a few of my peers from being sucked into the climate worry hole. But I worry that most of my generation will be needlessly stressing out about it for years to come.
Jack Watson, who’s 14, has a Substack newsletter called Ten Foot Tigers about being a Hull City fan. You can subscribe here.
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Teaching pupils about climate change is completely bizarre. They’re not supposed to worry about political decisions they’re at least old enough to vote.
Truly terrifying that this highly politicised ideological propaganda is being taught even in language classes. Whatever happened to the utility of un cafe et une croissante s’il vous plait? Are you only expected to converse with the French about ‘le climat’ these days rather than their amazing food – or the footy, for example? So sad.
(One correction though – the UK’s climate is described as temperate maritime and is not ‘extreme’. Go anywhere away from coasts into continental land masses and the weather does become more extreme – compare London with Berlin or Warsaw, for example.)
Pure indoctrination.
Save earth? Net Zero Kills freedom
2019-2021 Freedom Loving Conservative Boris Johnson increased the Communist Propaganda in schools.
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Another excellent piece Jack. Good to know all is not lost in future generations. Well done keep up the good work.
I first became aware of the climate change fallacy when I began reading Mark Steyn around 2008-2010. At the time I was teaching English as a foreign language and I realised to my horror that climate change propaganda was all through the course books I was using to teach. Every text book has a chapter on the environment. No wonder, really, seeing they are published by Oxford University Press and the British Council.
These people managed to capture a generation of people who were to become politicians by begin anti-establishment and thus (viewed from the eyes of a teenager) somehow cool and important. I’ve already encountered people in their twenties who simply roll their eyes when they hear the word climate because they simply can’t stand it anymore. And there’s more of this to come. The COPsers are digging their own graves with this approach because they’re doing exactly what the people who lost out against them did in order to fight them.
Hear hear. Keep fighting the good fight, Jack.
All summed up neatly here: https://youtu.be/bDcjDc288S4