*sniff* I'm so proud..."
Posted on 04/05/2010 9:57:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Few adults may know it, but kids across the country are about to celebrate a holiday: Earth Day, which is April 22. Schools will take a break from normal instruction to discuss the importance of preserving the environment. That may sound like a harmless activity, but too often Earth Day becomes a platform for pushing an ideological brand of environmentalism. Parents need to pay attention and ask their children's teachers what's their plans are for Earth Day.
Unlike most holidays, Earth Day expressly focuses on youth. No gifts will be exchanged and no Easter Bunny will deliver jelly beans in biodegradable packages (undoubtedly the process of refining all that sugar alone offends true Earth Day enthusiasts), but galvanizing young people to become involved in protecting the environment is the day's express purpose.
The first Earth Day was held in 1970. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day's founder, endeavored to bring national attention to the cause of improving the environment. He saw the success of anti-war activists in raising awareness about their cause through demonstration and “teach-ins.” He wanted to enlist the same spirit in the cause of the environment. Today, schools across the country—and even around the world—participate in Earth Day events.
This sounds like a smashing success. And not just for Senator Nelson and environmentalists, but for all of us who benefit from a healthy, clean environment. After all, we all want to protect the planet and have the next generation grow up appreciating nature and the importance of maintaining our natural habitat.
Yet Earth Day organizers too often go beyond promoting that simple message and use the occasion as a platform for advancing a political ideology. Global warming, for example, is a frequent topic on Earth Day. Schools tend to echo the message of global warming alarmists, claiming that man is causing temperatures to rise with potentially catastrophic consequences for our planet and mankind. Many schools even show Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. That film may have won an Academy Award, but it is widely recognized as propaganda, with a judge in the United Kingdom finding that it grossly exaggerates even the most dire predictions about global warming's potential harm.
Schools shouldn't be frightening our children with misleading information about environmental threats. Research shows that children already have a disproportionate fear of global warming. One study reported that: “Nearly 4 in 5 kids saw global warming as “a very serious problem,” 3 in 4 saw it as “a threat to all life on the planet” and about 2 in 3 felt global warming is “a threat to my future well-being and safety,” and “feel afraid of what might happen.”
Instead of adding to this alarmism, schools should provide students with some balance by presenting evidence from scientists who don't believe we are experiencing unprecedented warming or that warming is caused by man's activities.
One parent in Indiana, a PhD scientist, decided he'd had enough of his children being given a one-sided perspective on global warming. On the last Earth Day, his children's school was set for a school-wide showing of An Inconvenient Truth—that would have been the third time his kids had to watch the movie as a part of their school day. He began talking to teachers. He then went to the principal, and then the school board. He urged them to at least provide the other side of the story, informing them of another film they could show: Not Evil, Just Wrong, which analyzes some of the misleading information presented in An Inconvenient Truth. Not Evil, Just Wrong also highlights alternative theories about what might cause changes in temperatures and the potential consequence in terms of job loss and poverty of the policies that are being advanced in the name of combating climate change.
That parent in Indiana has been rebuffed by school administrators. So he is taking his case to the public. Unlike the opposition, he isn't trying to silence global warming alarmists. He just wants both perspectives to be presented to students. After all, just because it is Earth Day, schools aren't supposed to abandon their mission to educate students, provide facts, and encourage them to draw conclusions on their own.
Other parents need to find out about their schools' plans for Earth Day, and encourage teachers to give their students the balanced education they need and deserve. Schools aren't supposed to engage in indoctrination, no matter what day it is on the calendar.
Save a tree Eat a Beaver
Keep your kids home from school on E-day.
He had 365 days to pick from.
He chose Lenin's birthday.
Sounds like a good day to keep your kids out of school for some sort of other educational activity.
Earth Day is Lenin’s birthday.
Coincidence or Communism?
The very first “Earth Day” on Lenin’s 100th birthday? —yeah, it’s a “coincidence”.
.
Good day to take your kid on a field trip to dump an old sofa up some dirt road.
Not mine. The town's having a community clean-up and beautification on the 24th, though, and my kids can put on waders and clean trash out of the woods and stream in our subdivision.
Why would they be in Public Schools to begin with?
We are to be good stewards of the earth and it’s resources.
But sitting in the dark and living in third world or 12th century conditions is not the answer to man’s problems.
Man needs abundant cheap energy. Only through abundant energy has technology progressed. And only through advancing technology will we find the solutions to preserve the environment even as we make life ever more comfortable.
What's the excuse for subjecting them to liberal indoctrination the rest of the calendar year?
Last year my g/kid’s school had some kind of after school thing about “environmental concerns” and they brought home a note saying that attendance was mandatory. They did not attend and nothing was ever said about it. I also found out that they were not alone in “opting out”, it wasn’t very well attended at all.
Not Evil, Just Wrong
http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/premiere/
Buy it and show it to kids and adults.
Last week end I sentenced my 10 year old grand son to “community service” as a punishment for a misdeed. There’s a park across the street from my house and under my watchful eye and while wearing rubber gloves, he policed the park.
We homeschool but like every group, there are a few wackos. You know, the kind of moms that will tell you how THEIR children eat only organic food and never touch meat, as they wag their leather gloved fingers at you.
Last year for Earth Day, I wrote a thread on our Homeschool Board called, “Happy Lenin’s Birthday!!!” then gave a (FReeper researched) history of Earth Day.
On the board, I was not very popular.
In the Private Mails, I was cheered and applauded.
Excellent grandfather-hood! I have no tolerance for Environmentalism, but cleaning up trash in your own community is just being a good citizen.
Try this link
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/19/not-evil-just-wrong-the-film-al-gore-doesnt-want-you-to-see/
I’d like to still purchase this but can’t find it.
What I highlighted is just a trailer clip.
YES!
You are corrct.
Earth Day is Lenin’s birthday.
I wonder ... could it be MORE than a coincidence?
The agenda that follows environmentalism fits his MARXIST agenda to a “t”.
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