Just Stop Oil funder Dale Vince is pressing ahead with plans to flood British primary schools with environmental and Net Zero societal propaganda. Children aged 11 and under are being taught that they face an unprecedented global climate emergency, with the possibility that the planet is entering a sixth mass extinction. The solution of course is “sustainability” and green energy, a matter that is dear to the heart of multi-millionaire Vince. His ageing onshore wind farm company Ecotricity has collected £110 million in green taxpayer subsidies over the last 20 years, at a time when he has pocketed at least £43 million in various corporate payments.
The Ministry of Eco Education (MEE) was started by Vince in 2021 with the stated aim of “greening up the curriculum”. From an initial base of 15 ‘pioneer’ schools, it is working to scale this up to 1,000. MEE operates by inserting its messaging into all aspects of primary learning including transport, energy, food, nature and society. It aims to “save teachers time”, and it claims to have “rearranged the national curriculum” around what it describes as big questions. MEE also claims to be working with secondary schools to adapt its primary approach to Key Stage 3.
Although few lesson examples are available on the MEE website, it is easy to piece together some of the ideas being taught. A lesson on veganism notes that industrial farming has negative impacts on the planet, but apparently “isn’t just about food”. Most of the sources quoted are little more than promotions for veganism with a link to a Guardian article explaining why vegans don’t eat honey. There does not appear to be any discussion about the wisdom of removing all types of animal protein from the diets of very young children, something that many scientists think should be done only under strict nutritional supervision.
The education leader of MEE is Paul Turner and a video is supplied of him talking to a group of young children in the Ecotricity tent at the Womad festival. Bouncing around a giant globe, he explains that the correct level of carbon dioxide in the planet is the ‘magic’ number of 360 parts per million (ppm). Quite how he is able to point to such a precise – if magical – figure to stop the climate changing is not explained. There are many eminent scientists who think it is a little on the low side for animal and plant life to prosper. Certainly, the children are not told the dinosaurs lived in a world of plant plenty at a time when CO2 levels were much higher. Turner, who is described by MEE as a “radical geographer”, tells the children that we need to “hoover” up all the gas, and on this front Dale is making a contribution.
In fact the current level of CO2 is around 420 ppm and recent increases are believed to have led to a dramatic 14% greening of the planet. Hoover up all this extra CO2 and veganism starts to seem an ‘unsustainable’ option. Remove nitrogen fertiliser from agriculture as many eco-extremists want and the consequent massive reduction in crop yields starts to look like mass famine.
But then it isn’t just about the planet is it? In a paper published by MEE titled ‘Foundations for an Eco Curriculum’, it is said that “we are increasingly recognising that any efforts to tackle climate and ecological emergency must also respond to the structural inequalities inherent in society”. Furthermore, “any eco school curriculum must explore ideas of social structures and processes as much as they do the natural environment, as well as exploring the intersection of ideas such as gender, race and inequality. From a young age, children are aware of injustice and can apply ideas of fairness and the environment.”
In other words, children can be caught young and brainwashed with horrific, largely unsubstantiated tales of climate and ecological collapse – a process they have no intellectual ability to question – and be marched towards a collectivist society where ruling elites remove many personal freedoms and lifestyle choices. Oh, and energy can be provided by useless windmills requiring enormous public subsidies by enlightened philanthropists such as Mr. D. Vince.
Needless to say, MEE is not the only green educational propogandist operating in the U.K. As the Daily Sceptic reported earlier this year, other elite money is pouring into British schools. London-based Climate Science aims to supply free teaching materials, with children encouraged to plot implausible temperatures rises of 11°C, taught that alkaline oceans are ‘acidic’ and write letters to policymakers claiming “our house is on fire” in the style of Greta Thunberg. Among the billionaire backers are Schmidt Futures – the family foundation of former Google boss Eric Schmidt – and the Grantham Institute at Imperial, partly funded by green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham.
MEE is also involved with the Young Green Briton Challenge, which has also attracted the ambassadorial support of TV activist Chris Packham. The new scheme operates on a Dragons’s Den format with 16 schools competing to win a £1,000 stake for a green project. Recently, Packham gave his backing to eco-protesters breaking the law and suggested that a “radical flank” could attempt to blow up oil refineries. For his part, Vince has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to Just Stop Oil, a group that engages in civil disobedience and criminal damage.
What a fine example these men set for the youth of today.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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