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Alabama NewsAlabama Politics
Junk Science Exploits Children
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: July 31, 2001
Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization in Birmingham, AL.
Suppose your children read that a scientific report was just released which showed that over the last six months ambient temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere have risen by more than 50 percent. What conclusion do you think they should properly draw?
If your children have been brainwashed by radical environmentalists, they might conclude that the report is proof that global warming is occurring and that drastic measures must be taken to stop it. But if they thoughtfully processed the information, they would realize that a 50 percent increase in ambient temperature from January to July is normal. People that live in the Northern Hemisphere call it summer.
While the above may be a bit too simplistic in describing the hysteria over global warming, it is true that those who believe in catastrophic global warming distort studies and misinterpret information in order to indoctrinate the public, and especially impressionable youth.
For instance, many schoolchildren are being taught that global warming is a proven scientific fact and that the earth is in imminent danger unless governments do something to stop it—such as implementing the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, which was drafted in Kyoto, Japan during an international summit on global climate change, is a treaty that would impose major restrictions on emissions of greenhouse gases. These are gases that are produced as a result of burning fossil fuels such a coal, wood and oil.
According to those who support ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, these greenhouse gases are causing the earth's temperature to rise. They believe the earth's temperature will rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees over the next 100 years causing worldwide destruction of biblical proportions.
At least that's what their theories are. But the fact that they can't prove their theories and that there are serious disagreements among scientists about whether global warming is even occurring hasn't stopped the radical environmentalist movement from trying to force the United States to sign the Kyoto treaty. Nor has it stopped them from attempting to brainwash our children with misinformation that is intended to frighten them into becoming political activists.
For instance, Time For Kids, a children's version of Time Magazine, featured a cover story on global warming which was distributed to kindergarten children at a local school. The article told the children that a breakdown in nature is occurring: glaciers and polar ice are melting; coral reefs are dying; and the life cycles of native plants and animals are being disrupted. And there’s more…it’s all because of global warming and the United States is a major cause of it.
The magazine was blatantly political in that it made President George W. Bush appear to be a bad president because he decided not to support the global warming treaty while former President Bill Clinton supported the treaty. According to Time For Kids, Bush opposes the treaty because it would be too costly for U.S. companies to meet its limits. In other words, kids, President Bush is only doing what the evil corporate industrialists tell him to do.
In addition, the magazine urges children to encourage their parents not to buy gas guzzlers such as SUVs and instead buy cars that get at least 30 miles per gallon. The magazine even leads children to conclude that if people were to stop driving to work there would be no more global warming. Yet the fact is, that even if global warming is occurring, only about three or four percent can be attributed to human activity.
Time For Kids bases its claims on the politically doctored United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The magazine does not report that though scientists conducted the study itself, the report was written by government representatives.
Nowhere in the Time article are the children told that the lead authors of the [study on which the IPCC report was based], Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, do not agree with the published report.
Moreover, Lindzen and Christy have concluded there is no real evidence that global warming is a threat. Lindzen, who is considered to be one of the world's leading
atmospheric scientists, has said that the IPCC report misrepresents science and exploits the public’s lack of knowledge. He has stated that public officials should ignore the report, which has been politicized to the point of uselessness.
While it may be useless for making decisions that will impact the economic health of the United States, the IPCC report is very useful for political indoctrination. Just ask your kids.
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