BBC Points West - teaching children lies
Discussion
Local BBC news 6.30pm just showed one of the most awful pieces of brain washing I've ever seen.
The cameras were sent to a primary school in Bath, where children were filmed walking around classrooms making sure all the lights were switched off, and then interviewed making comments such as...
"If we don't save electricity the world will get hotter and the plants will die". Another said "the ice caps will melt and the animals will die". Another said "flick a switch and save the world".
I just find it so wrong that kids are being lied to like that, and then the whole charade is filmed and presented to prime time viewers.
If any of you agree, please take 1 minute to email Pointswest@bbc.co.uk stating your disgust, just one line will do if you don't have much time. I've copied mine below for the gist of the piece.
Dear Pointswest,
I found the piece about Bath schools on tonights show stomach churningly disgusting!
Those young children should not be subjected to unproven global warming theories presented as facts - it is simply wrong on every level, and your reporting of it appeared to support and propagate that lie.
As adults we can make our own minds up where we stand on the man made global warming issue, but to propagandise children in to believing CO2 is harmful is not only immoral, it is 100% scientifically inaccurate.
One of the children was taught to say "If we don't save electricity the world will get hotter and the plants will die". Another said "the ice caps will melt and the animals will die". Another said "flick a switch and save the world".
That is simply wrong on all counts! There is no correlation between anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and global temperature, that is simply a fact. Not only that, carbon dioxide is a trace gas that is essential to life and is currently diminished in our atmosphere at only 0.039%.
Higher levels of CO2 (as we have had in the past) is beneficial to all life, indeed farmers currently pump CO2 in to their commercial green houses because plants and crops grow quicker and require less water. Imagine the benefits to third world farmers, plants don't die they flourish, the opposite of your reporting!
Yet children in schools are being taught that CO2 is an evil pollutant! Nothing could be further from the truth. CO2 doesn't even warm the planet, anyone who checks the facts for themselves will know that CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around.
Children being taught lies, and your reporting of that on tonights show as if it's a good thing, is simply wrong, and I would ask that tomorrow nights show contains an apology for the infactual errors.
Yours sincerely
The cameras were sent to a primary school in Bath, where children were filmed walking around classrooms making sure all the lights were switched off, and then interviewed making comments such as...
"If we don't save electricity the world will get hotter and the plants will die". Another said "the ice caps will melt and the animals will die". Another said "flick a switch and save the world".
I just find it so wrong that kids are being lied to like that, and then the whole charade is filmed and presented to prime time viewers.
If any of you agree, please take 1 minute to email Pointswest@bbc.co.uk stating your disgust, just one line will do if you don't have much time. I've copied mine below for the gist of the piece.
Dear Pointswest,
I found the piece about Bath schools on tonights show stomach churningly disgusting!
Those young children should not be subjected to unproven global warming theories presented as facts - it is simply wrong on every level, and your reporting of it appeared to support and propagate that lie.
As adults we can make our own minds up where we stand on the man made global warming issue, but to propagandise children in to believing CO2 is harmful is not only immoral, it is 100% scientifically inaccurate.
One of the children was taught to say "If we don't save electricity the world will get hotter and the plants will die". Another said "the ice caps will melt and the animals will die". Another said "flick a switch and save the world".
That is simply wrong on all counts! There is no correlation between anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and global temperature, that is simply a fact. Not only that, carbon dioxide is a trace gas that is essential to life and is currently diminished in our atmosphere at only 0.039%.
Higher levels of CO2 (as we have had in the past) is beneficial to all life, indeed farmers currently pump CO2 in to their commercial green houses because plants and crops grow quicker and require less water. Imagine the benefits to third world farmers, plants don't die they flourish, the opposite of your reporting!
Yet children in schools are being taught that CO2 is an evil pollutant! Nothing could be further from the truth. CO2 doesn't even warm the planet, anyone who checks the facts for themselves will know that CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around.
Children being taught lies, and your reporting of that on tonights show as if it's a good thing, is simply wrong, and I would ask that tomorrow nights show contains an apology for the infactual errors.
Yours sincerely
chris watton said:
I too seen and heard this, and posted a comment on another thread regarding the school propaganda. Truly unbelievable!
I was also watching the show when it came on, and I went and found something else to do until they moved on to something else.The problem in truth is, kids have been brainwashed since time immemorial.
In the old old days, it was the church doing it. There were kids in my primary school who were excluded by their parents from the Christmas party because it was linked to the local Methodist church.
Also when I was a kid, it was all about how bad the Russians were and how plucky the Jews were in building their own brand new little country.
When my eldest lad started school (late 1970s) he was coming home virtually every night telling me why I should stop smoking because of what he had heard. Now the bugger smokes more than me.
The very short section of the piece I watched pissed me off because the kids were repeating what they had clearly been told to say by somebody (probably the teachers in cahoots with the BBC) like a bleedin' mantra. These kids will grow up and learn better in time, only to be replaced by a new generation of nippers being brainwashed with whatever is "flavour of the month" when they are in primary school.
Why not look on the bright side? Finally, somebody has discovered how to get children to reliably do their bidding. I will in the future be pointing out that it is not just overuse of electricity that kills polar bears and whales and contributes to global warming, but also not doing your homework, hanging around with undesirables, smoking marijuana, and having unprotected sex.
When I was at school in the early 90's I did some work in Humanities about the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. It was around the time of the Earth summit in Rio so it was in the news a lot. No doubt I believed all I was told at the time, but as an independently minded adult I've drawn my own conclusions, and I'm sure those kids will too 
AJLintern said:
When I was at school in the early 90's I did some work in Humanities about the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. It was around the time of the Earth summit in Rio so it was in the news a lot. No doubt I believed all I was told at the time, but as an independently minded adult I've drawn my own conclusions, and I'm sure those kids will too
They tried brainwashing us with that in Religous Studies..... sorrry, Geography during the 90s too. I think that we started with the ozone layer in 94 whilst touching on the greenhouse effect, and then moved onto Global Warming in 97. I kind of guessed that taxes would go up on 'CO2' back then due to the indoctrination.....in fact I think that I might start monitoring future Geography courses to see where the next tax-cow is going to come from 
Nice link Bandit, I'm just about to watch the full 12 minute version.
BBC reply said:
Thank you for contacting us here at Points West, it is always useful to hear the opinions and thoughts of our viewers.
I am sorry you felt the report on the global warming awards organised for schools in Bath was disgusting. I understand that there is an argument over global warming but as I understand it, it is whether it is caused naturally or whether it is man made.
"The physics of the "greenhouse effect" has been a matter of scientific fact for a century. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the Sun's radiation within the tropospere, the lower atmosphere." {New Scientist Sept 2006}
So I have to disagree with you in your statement that "to propagandise children in to believing CO2 is harmful is not only immoral, it is 100% scientifically inaccurate"
I have also looked into the statements you mention below and again this is something that can easily be argued the other way.
"Higher levels of CO2 (as we have had in the past) is beneficial to all life, indeed farmers currently pump CO2 in to their commercial green houses because plants and crops grow quicker and require less water. Imagine the benefits to third world farmers, plants don't die they flourish, the opposite of your reporting!
Yet children in schools are being taught that CO2 is an evil pollutant! Nothing could be further from the truth. CO2 doesn't even warm the planet, anyone who checks the facts for themselves will know that CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around."
But putting that to one side, I don't want to get into a lengthy argument over the truths or falsehoods surrounding global warming, I would say in these days of rising energy prices, surely there is no harm in encouraging people to turn off the lights.
Furthermore, I hope it was clear in the piece that it was not the BBC that taught the arguments that you disagree with and it was not the BBC that decided to hold the awards ceremonies for schools. If you still feel strongly about this then I would suggest you approach Bath and North East Somerset Council who were behind the awards for schools in their region.
Thank you once again for contacting Points West and I hope this goes someway to answering your email.
Yours
A B
Assistant Editor
The same old lines, but at least he had the decency to reply.I am sorry you felt the report on the global warming awards organised for schools in Bath was disgusting. I understand that there is an argument over global warming but as I understand it, it is whether it is caused naturally or whether it is man made.
"The physics of the "greenhouse effect" has been a matter of scientific fact for a century. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the Sun's radiation within the tropospere, the lower atmosphere." {New Scientist Sept 2006}
So I have to disagree with you in your statement that "to propagandise children in to believing CO2 is harmful is not only immoral, it is 100% scientifically inaccurate"
I have also looked into the statements you mention below and again this is something that can easily be argued the other way.
"Higher levels of CO2 (as we have had in the past) is beneficial to all life, indeed farmers currently pump CO2 in to their commercial green houses because plants and crops grow quicker and require less water. Imagine the benefits to third world farmers, plants don't die they flourish, the opposite of your reporting!
Yet children in schools are being taught that CO2 is an evil pollutant! Nothing could be further from the truth. CO2 doesn't even warm the planet, anyone who checks the facts for themselves will know that CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around."
But putting that to one side, I don't want to get into a lengthy argument over the truths or falsehoods surrounding global warming, I would say in these days of rising energy prices, surely there is no harm in encouraging people to turn off the lights.
Furthermore, I hope it was clear in the piece that it was not the BBC that taught the arguments that you disagree with and it was not the BBC that decided to hold the awards ceremonies for schools. If you still feel strongly about this then I would suggest you approach Bath and North East Somerset Council who were behind the awards for schools in their region.
Thank you once again for contacting Points West and I hope this goes someway to answering your email.
Yours
A B
Assistant Editor
JungleJim said:
your stomach churned?
Well my sphincter twitched just thinking about it!Seriously though, this is typical of the endemic lefty bias (and scientific 'illiteracy') in eduction and the feeling that they have to push 'world issues' (researched or not, understood or not) into the agenda.
If only some of the primary teachers could concentrate as much on educating themselves to a level that allows them to teach essential skills and knowledge in several subjects so thoroughly - rather than a formulaic and trite 'sound bite' approach to bits-and-bobs from different areas, usually unlinked - we'd be in a better position. Most primary teachers are ill equipped to teach science at all effectively.
Edited by Lost_BMW on Tuesday 18th January 22:24
Thanks to anyone who also complained, for anyone interested my response to the editor is below.
Dear Mr A B,
Thank you for your reply to my email about yesterdays show. It was nice to receive a human response and not just a standard reply - thanks.
I won't waste your time by starting a debate on the issues of MMGWT, but it is simply a fact that there is no visible signal in global climate data with established causality to humans. As you mentioned the Greenhouse Effect and CO2's contribution to it, did you know that the IPCC actually ignore the effect of the greatest greenhouse gas in order to promote and vastly exaggerate the effect of CO2?
If you have a moment, the link here will explain in greater detail...
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data....
Also, with regard to CO2 and it's essential effect on plants and crops, I'm afraid that can't be "argued the other way". Photosynthesis can not be denied - higher levels of CO2 must always result in greater crop production, never less.
http://www.iloveco2.org/p/about-co2.html
I absolutely agree that encouraging people to turn off the lights is sensible, but when the reason for doing so is distorted from the simple truth of 'waste not want not' to fairytales of 'saving the world, the plants and the animals' then it becomes a lie. That's not how I want my children brought up.
I take your point about the Council propagating the lies rather than the BBC in this case. However, the BBC does have a track record, I have added another link if you have time to view it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbWjJFgnqU&fea...
Kind regards,
deeps
Dear Mr A B,
Thank you for your reply to my email about yesterdays show. It was nice to receive a human response and not just a standard reply - thanks.
I won't waste your time by starting a debate on the issues of MMGWT, but it is simply a fact that there is no visible signal in global climate data with established causality to humans. As you mentioned the Greenhouse Effect and CO2's contribution to it, did you know that the IPCC actually ignore the effect of the greatest greenhouse gas in order to promote and vastly exaggerate the effect of CO2?
If you have a moment, the link here will explain in greater detail...
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data....
Also, with regard to CO2 and it's essential effect on plants and crops, I'm afraid that can't be "argued the other way". Photosynthesis can not be denied - higher levels of CO2 must always result in greater crop production, never less.
http://www.iloveco2.org/p/about-co2.html
I absolutely agree that encouraging people to turn off the lights is sensible, but when the reason for doing so is distorted from the simple truth of 'waste not want not' to fairytales of 'saving the world, the plants and the animals' then it becomes a lie. That's not how I want my children brought up.
I take your point about the Council propagating the lies rather than the BBC in this case. However, the BBC does have a track record, I have added another link if you have time to view it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbWjJFgnqU&fea...
Kind regards,
deeps
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