Congressman Calls For Schools To ‘Promote The Agenda’ Of Climate Change, Population Limitation

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com at a "Sustainability Education Summit" hosted by the U.S. Education Department on Tuesday that environmental education in schools can "promote the agenda" of climate change and population growth through the influence it has on children.

“Like I keep saying over and over again, if you get young people invested in those ideas early on, that will result in those kinds of positive policy developments," Sarbanes told CNSNews.com. "So, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s population growth, whether it’s all these factors that impact the health of our world, raising that awareness early among young people is only going to promote the agenda.”

CNSNews.com interviewed Sarbanes after he spoke at a U.S. Department of Education event--"Sustainability Education Summit: Citizenship and Pathways for a Green Economy"--hosted by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Sarbanes also said; “If we can provide them with a framework and help promote educational opportunities, in the beginning as I said, at the earliest stages, they’ll just grab hold of it and take it from there. So in a sense it’s a wonderful partnership where the adults can create this policy framework and help support it with grant funding and other kinds of initiatives and then the young people are going to take that, and they’re the ones that are really going to push it to the next level.”

When asked if students should be taught that global warming is a threat, Sarbanes said: “If you’re promoting outdoor education, building that into educational programming, they [students] can’t help but understand about climate change because they’re going to see the effects of it. They’re going to go to a local science center , right, and they’re going to learn about the effect that global warming is having right in their own communities.

“I mean, for example, the National Audubon Society has an initiative now where they are highlighting the fact that state birds all across the county are actually migrating out of the states that they’re the state bird of because the climate is changing," said Sarbanes.

"Well, a young person’s going to understand that if they are engaged in environmental education. So, it’s going to raise that awareness of climate change that, in turn, I think, can make them stewards, stakeholders in policy changes we have to make to try to address climate change going forward and so, another wonderful result that you can yield if you do this environmental education.”

John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology co-authored an essay for the World Bank on "The Meaning of Sustainability" that said that human race must face up to a “world of zero net physical growth,” reduce material consumption and limit population growth. CNSNews.com asked Rep. Sarbanes if he thinks those ideas would help the U.S. economy.

“I think the more you focus on the environment, the need to preserve the environment, protect the environment, the more it’s going to lead to sensible policies going forward,” he responded.

Rep. Sarbanes continued, “Sure, there’s so much we can do in terms of reducing our consumption of natural resources and that’s the lowest hanging fruit right? To implement conservative measures and so forth and again young people are in a position to help drive that new way of thinking.”

Actually, liberals have been expressing what they believe for quite a while. Unfortunately most have not been listening.

Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, TRANSFORMATION, CONTROL, and DIRECTION of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life IS THE PURPOSE and program of humanism. (Humanist Manifesto 1933)

The conditions of work, EDUCATION, devotion, and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified or ERADICATED...(Humanist Manifesto 2 1973)

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. (Pedagogic Creed, by John Dewey, 1897)...He signed the Humanist Manifesto of 1933

The American people is conscious that its schools serve best the cause of religion in serving the cause of social unification; and that under certain conditions schools are more religious...(Religion and Our Schools, by John Dewey, 1908)

Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and EVERY American public school is a school of Humanism. (Humanism A New Religion, by Charles Francis Potter, 1930)...he also signed the Humanist Manifesto 1933.

So very humanistic is modern education that no religion has a future unless it be Humanism. (Humanism A New Religion, by Charles Francis Potter, 1930)

...it has been said “No God, no religion.” But Humanism thinks of religion as something very different and far deeper than any belief in God...Therefore, progress in this direction will naturally, be slow...Although thought moves faster today, it will take many years to work out the REVOLUTION in religious thought which Humanism involves (Humanism, by John H. Dietrich, 1933)...also signed Humanist Manifesto 1933

The large proportion of university professors among the signers of the manifesto reveals that there exists among the educated classes of this country a widespread attitude of protest amounting practically to rebellion against organized Christianity...(Humanizing Religion, by Charles Francis Potter, 1933)

Destroy the family and society will collapse...Vladimir Lenin

Give me you four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state...Vladimir Lenin

“Fundamentalist parents have no right to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing their children for the year 2000 and life in a global one-world society and those children will not fit in.” Senator Paul Hoagland as reported by Everette Siliven’s attorney, 1984.

The warnings have been there for a long time and helps explain the fight against home schooling even when home schoolers have been shown to do very well as compared to public school students. The goal of education today is not to educate but to produce “citizens” that will listen to their masters. This also helps explain why we have seen in the last couple of generations the decline of the family and the decline of what used to be good churches. Humanism has been chipping away at our culture for a while and most did not see it.

I believe that this is also part of the surprise of the “Tea Party Movement”. The liberals thought they had “educated” the masses long enough to be able to control them but did not expect this much resistance...but remember from the Humanist Manifesto 2...”Alienating forces should be modified or ERADICATED” there will be a battle...hopefully at the ballet box.

How this has been manifested in the academic professions is the elevation of the title of “professor” to academic sainthood and with that elevation those in the positions of “teachers” now aspire to BE professors, in practice if not in title.

But, a “professor” is NOT a teacher and a teacher is not a professor.

A professor has something to profess; they already have some conclusions, values and opinions within a special area of study; conclusions, values and opinions they seek to “profess”.

They are unable to TEACH; they can only profess. When they pretend to teach they omit, short-change or denigrate material, conclusions, values and opinions not their own.

A true teacher does not pretend to deliver the answers to the most fundamental questions - conclusions, values and opinions - of a subject they are attempting to teach.

A true teacher seeks out the most robust proponents of any major academic specialty, without concern for the teacher’s own opinions. A true teacher seeks to represent, on equal and unbiased terms, the academic work from many others, from a diverse set of many others. A true teachers job is not to persuade the student which of the many works he has presented is “right”, but only to assist the student in how the student navigates the process of making their own conclusions and opinions about them.

The higher up in academia you go, the more you see the absence of teachers - everyone is a professor and as a professor they already know the answers and conclusions they believe it is their obligation to be sure their student obtains.

It is no longer the object of American education to teach the student how to think; it is 100$ about indoctrinating them as to WHAT to think.

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ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL