Comments on: Greens secure $13 million for environmental education

By: Duncan Bayne

Duncan Bayne — Sun, 14 May 2006 21:15:51 +0000

You’re all missing the bloody point! It doesn’t matter what curriculum is taught … what matters is that there’s only one curriculum, and parents have no say in the matter.

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By: aladin

aladin — Sun, 14 May 2006 20:56:11 +0000

I hope some of these dollars make their way to Napier, where, according to supporters of acquiring more dolphins for Marineland, children learn to respect dolphins better when they see them ‘up close’.

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By: stuey

stuey — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:31:39 +0000

where’s your proof that only one view of environmental issues will be taught in schools as a result of the new govt-greens environmental education funding?

I believe that what is taught in our schools goes out of its way to be fair and balanced.

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By: Michael Ellis

Michael Ellis — Thu, 11 May 2006 08:41:59 +0000

It does concern me that only one view of Environmental Issues will be taught. In this area there are many half-truths, fudges, and guesses – on both sides.

For instance, the internet is generally not a source of fact.

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By: Duncan Bayne

Duncan Bayne — Thu, 11 May 2006 02:59:04 +0000

Ya know, this just goes to show how bad state-controlled education is, regardless of which particular curriculum they’re pushing.

Simple fix: stop taxing the crap out of parents, let them send their children to a school of their choosing, that teaches what they want their children to learn.

Of course, the Government won’t let you do that. Even if you want to send your children to a ‘private’ school while paying for the public system as well, they’ll still control what your children are taught.

Why?

Because most politicians view the education system primarily as a system of political indoctrination (and, secondarily, as a daycare centre so both parents can work to pay their tax bill).

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By: BucolicOldSirHenry

BucolicOldSirHenry — Thu, 11 May 2006 02:55:16 +0000

Mug: “This review of the state of Climate Science from a Canadian bunch is well worth looking at, for someone with more patience and ability to try to understand the position of their opponents than BOSH is showing.”

Actually, muggers old chap, I think I have been remarkably patient with you over our various exchanges on global warming.

Now you cite a paper from the “Climate Science Coalition” web site. Sadly, if you had the patience to reference that paper’s claims against the real science, you would find that it is all agenda-driven cherry-picking. You might be better to refer to the recently leaked draft of the first section of the Fourth IPPC report. That’s where you will find a truly serious overview of the science in this area. It isn’t “uncertain” any more.

By the way, Tim Lambert has some good stuff on our little gang of septics (sic):
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/05/you_too_can_be_a_leading_clima .php

As I’ve said to you before, if you want to debate (or denigrate) the science, read the real stuff first.

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By: mugwump

mugwump — Thu, 11 May 2006 00:06:54 +0000

Thanks BucolicOldSirHenry, but I think you maintain the monopoly on idiocy in this debate.

This
review of the state of Climate Science from a Canadian bunch is well worth looking at, for someone with more patience and ability to try to understand the position of their opponents than BOSH is showing. Information is drawn from a variety of sources and the information is put into context well.

This is well reading, and really isn’t “anti-green” at all, for instance, from pp17:

Besides the urban/rural influence, the impact of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system is being increasingly recognized and studied. In a landmark paper by PIELKE et al. (2002), the impact of land-use change and associated landscape dynamics on the climate system has been documented. It is further concluded that a more complete indication of human contribution to climate change will require the climatic influence of land-surface conditions and other processes to be included. Many of these processes will have strong regional effects that are not represented in a globally averaged metric.

Blaming locally observed climate changes solely on one global cause, especially given the uncertain evidence, is bad science.

Besides, it’s much better to focus on the environment in the context of local changes, they are directly observable, have a much shorter time scale, and most importantly, you can see the impact of your efforts to benefit it. That’s still very much Green.

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By: bjchip

bjchip — Wed, 10 May 2006 19:55:39 +0000

Liberty, I dunno what they do here, but I got Economix when I went to High School in the states. Basic part of the social-studies curriculum. Is this not the case here?

Then when I was a little older it was a required course at Uni… only by then I was firmly grounded in science and nearly flunked cause I couldn’t accept some of the economists underlying assumptions.

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By: libertyscott

libertyscott — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:44:40 +0000

Here is an idea, why don’t we spend exactly the same teaching children basic concepts of economics. They need that to function properly, to earn a living, set up businesses and understand how humanity works – simple matters like demand/supply, scarcity, price, productive, dynamic and distributive efficiency.

They will need balance after all.

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By: BucolicOldSirHenry

BucolicOldSirHenry — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:30:29 +0000

Oh, mug, you don’t give up, do you? I suppose I should credit you for persistence, but the idiocy involved in maintenance of your position on global warming is too persuasive.

Fool.

(I suppose that’s an ad hom. Fine. Call me Gregan.)

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By: mugwump

mugwump — Wed, 10 May 2006 07:06:06 +0000

Let’s just hope they don’t start teaching that Anthropomorphic Global Warming is established Fact – religious education in schools should not be compulsary.

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By: Duncan Bayne

Duncan Bayne — Wed, 10 May 2006 05:08:56 +0000

Libertarians have long argued that the public education system, i.e., compulsory eduction controlled by the State (regardless of whether it’s taxpayer funded or not) originated in Prussia, as a system of political indoctrination.

This story is one of the many proofs of that argument.

Have a read of this if you want to learn more; the specifics relate to America, but it is perfectly applicable to New Zealand as well:

FedEd: Education for Global Government

Suppose your aim is to obtain power over an entire society. You’ve decided that violent revolution is not the way to go. It’s disruptive, and if history is any guide, you might get your own nose bloodied a time or two. What do you do? …

We’ve had such a network for well over a hundred years. It’s called the public education system. We have Horace Mann and his Harvard Unitarians to thank for doing more than anyone else to get it started back in the 1840s. Mann studied the “Prussian model” in Europe and returned home to found the first such schools in this country. This model involves the state raising children to meet the needs of the state. This model gave us the word kindergarten, the product of an analogy between raising children (kinder) and growing vegetables in a garden (garten).

…

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