The Religion of Environmentalism

Yesterday afternoon, when checking the headlines at FoxNews.com, I came across the headline "Environmental Lesson Plans Drawing Praise, Concern":

Could environmental education be crossing into environmental indoctrination? Some critics say yes, as schools boast that such curricula simply is teaching children ways of caring for the earth.

Being a "good" student at Western Avenue Elementary School in Flossmoor, Ill., means more than just doing reading, writing and arithmetic well. It also means trying to save the planet.

"It's really important to help the earth and save the polar bears," 9-year-old Duree Everett said, as she colored a "go green" sign at her desk.

I've seen it myself, in my substitute teaching. In one school I have subbed at extensively, the entire student body, in the daily morning assembly in the cafeteria, was treated to a presentation by some 5th graders scare-mongering about global warming.

I have no problem teaching students about conservation, about not littering, about recycling and about being water-conscious, but I draw the line at pushing unproven environmental theory as hard fact.

Turn off the TV and the lights when you're leaving the room for a while. Don't go off and leave the water running. Recycling metals, plastics and papers reduces the amount of stuff we have to put into landfills, and some parts of the country are hard-pressed to get more space to expand existing ones, or to start new ones. But I just don't buy into the expansion into "people are killing the polar bears by driving SUVs" and talking about carbon footprints.

Just be aware of what schools are teaching your kids... And I say this as a certified teacher.

Interesting suggestion to get the debate in the public forum

"Weather Channel Founder: Sue Al Gore for Fraud" was a headline that got my attention. Seems John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, thinks the only way to get a real, honest debate between actual climate scientists is to sue Al Gore and other global warming alarmists (to include those companies who profit off it through the sale of "carbon credits") for fraud.

"Is he committing financial fraud? That is the question," Coleman said.

"Since we can't get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal challenge and went into a court of law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the legal proceedings with the discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific testimony from both sides, we could finally get a good solid debate on the issue," Coleman said. "I'm confident that the advocates of 'no significant effect from carbon dioxide' would win the case."

Coleman says his side of the global warming debate is being buried in mainstream media circles.

Interesting concept, so long as you don't end up in something like the Ninth Circuit, or end up with a activist judge on the case...

The article continues:

"As you look at the atmosphere over the last 25 years, there's been perhaps a degree of warming, perhaps probably a whole lot less than that, and the last year has been so cold that that's been erased," he said.

"I think if we continue the cooling trend a couple of more years, the general public will at last begin to realize that they've been scammed on this global warming thing."

Of course, the global warming alarmists will find some other way to justify their prescription to "fix the climate". Probably blame the cooling on the warming (I've already heard such arguments). I still stand by my belief that the earth's climate is far to complicated to make long-term predictions, as it is far too complex and we have no idea what we don't know that we don't know about it. Heck, the meteorologists have been having trouble accurately predicting how active the hurricane seasons will be, post-Katrina. And, that problem has taken the form of predicting far more activity than has actually developed, resulting in them having to revise downward their predictions for the number of named storms. [Knowing climatologists and meteorologists aren't exactly the same thing, they are related scientific subjects:] If they can't get short-term predictions right, their long-term predictions' accuracy must be called into question.

What was that about global warming???

January 2008 global temperatures were .75°C cooler than they were in January 2008 2007. That is the single largest annual drop in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) data set, which goes back over 200 years.

Also, the Artic sea ice has grown more than the average for the last three years, by 2 million square kilometers. In addition, the thickness of the ice is increasing in some areas, by about 10 to 20 centimeters, over last year.

I'm all for energy conservation and being responsible stewards of the environment, but I also know there is much we don't know about "climate change". I'm not ready to buy into anthropogenic global warming alarmism. These reports just go to show that the so-called "experts" don't know everything. With pretty much any field of scientific endeavor, there are three groups of facts: (1) what we know we know, (2) what we know we don't know and (3) what we don't know we don't know. So, all those man-made global warming pushers out there are being disingenious when they speak of sure things. And, as I posted yesterday, we don't need government to get clean alternative energy sources: the market will do that on its own. And the economy will be all the better for the government staying out of the way.

H/T: Weekly Standard: January Was Wicked Cold

It will happen without government interference...

if people think they can make money doing it.

T.J. Rodgers isn't invested in solar power because he's part of the green movement or a global warming alarmist - he's not either of those things. He's in it because he views it as a good investment which will make lots of money.

A decade later, one of the scientists who worked with Noyce and Hoerni, Gordon Moore, by then co-founder of Intel, realized that this miniaturization/mass-production technique was advancing at a rate never seen before in human endeavor. This formulation was the famous Moore's Law, which defines the modern world.

Most of us now understand, and appreciate, Moore's Law, but in the semiconductor industry they live it every day. And T.J. is one of the best of them. And what he saw in SunPower was the impending arrival of Moore's Law to the alternative power world … and more than anyone, he knew what that meant.

As he has admitted, what he saw wasn't Green, as in environmentalism, but "green," as in money. That's why he made such an unlikely move — and why he is now an even richer tycoon.

This takes a singular combination of vision, guts and the kind of strategic thinking that is only found in real, business-oriented entrepreneurs – not in government bureaucrats, or, for that matter, reporters.

The husband of a woman I grew up with has worked for T.J. for many years in international sales. It's been a good job, so when I heard a few years ago he was being transferred to SunPower, I felt sorry for him, figuring it was a demotion. These days he's adding new wings to his house.

You may not like their politics, or their attitude, or their style. But if we really do have an energy revolution in this country and free ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels, it will be because of hard-charging, take-no-prisoners entrepreneurs like T.J. Rodgers — not UN committees, environmental groups, or government officials.

I recommend you read the entire article by Michael S. Malone:
Silicon Insider: Solar Companies Glow Despite Economic Slump.

H/T: Instapundit