Posted on 03/22/2007 9:48:42 PM PDT by CaptainMorgantown
I've been a member for awhile but this is the first time I've ever started a thread. This is a vanity, so one of the mods can move it if I've put it in the wrong classification.
My son is a student a Cheat Lake Middle School in Morgantown, West Virginia. For the last several weeks, he has come home saying that his teacher frequently takes time out of class to discuss his personal views on global warming. Today, he said they took two hours out of class to watch Al Gore's pseudoscience documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". I was absolutely stunned.
I have heard of several controversies where they've shown in in public high schools, but I cannot believe that they would show this to 5th graders. There wasn't even a word of advance notice to parents.
I've tried to contact the school's Principal and the the local newspaper. I'm at a loss as to how proceed from here to draw some attention and outrage, and would welcome advice from fellow freepers.
A University town. There's problem #1.
Perhaps a wicked suggestion here...but if a smart video guy...were to take Al's film...and take 98 percent of the content out and add alot of fake bogus accusations (like cows contribute 80 percent of the methane to the world, with horses contributing 22 percent and finally people contributing 12 percent...someone might actually sit there and realize that you can't have 114 percent). Then you remarket the video as Inconvent Truth Number Two. You have a Al impersonator, who goes around and just says..."ACCEPT the truth!"
I'll bet we can sell 500k copies within two months and clear $1.5 million easily as personal profit.
I doubt any of the kids can grasp, equipartition of energy, conservation of energy, response surfaces, and the gas law. W/o that, they couldn't grasp the watermellon show. I doubt very much the science teach explained that the temp increase is insignificant, and the effect on the weather is also. It amounts to a 0.35% increase in energy available to all weather systems at the most, in the year 2060. That's nothing.
It was like watching a Freshman lecture hall presentation, but w/o the opportunity to scope out the room for potential, IYKWIM.
No cuties on that whole plane? But of course the law of averages would place a lot more Grandpas and kids on the flight than in your lecture hall. LOL.
My 20-something son talked me into seeing it with him recently. It was interesting. The only part that I felt was really over the top was the polar bear scene. Before I watched the movie I felt that there is data suggesting that global warming could be a real phenomenon, but that it hasn't yet been proven that it is a terrible crisis and that proponents are making predictions that have not been supported scientifically. That is the same way I felt after the movie.
The central points made by Gore in the film centered on a graph showing the temperature and CO2 for the last 650,000 years. The fact that these two variables have risen and fallen together over this whole period is very suggestive, but as I recall the film does not answer the question of whether it has been shown that the temperature depends on the CO2 and not the other way around.
Also Gore makes a big point to show how much higher the CO2 is now than it has been at any time over the last 650,000 years. This is true but after watching the film I wondered if Gore had not exaggerated the amount of increase somewhat by not having the bottom of the graph correspond to zero CO2. I would have to see this part of the film again check if he did this.
Basically I would have no problem with older students watching the film as long as there was some classroom discussion of how the data might be interpreted in other ways. There is nothing wrong with provoking thought and discussion. I would be concerned about younger students being shown the film, or if it was not presented with discussion of alternative interpretations and the reasons why some people are skeptical.
To my thinking it would obviously be wrong to somehow prevent young people from seeing the graph presently by Gore as I don't think the actual measurements are in question. Of course the graph could be presented without the movie.
One thing I did like about the movie was that the graphics were presented in an attractive way that might get young people more interested in a discussion of scientific data.
You say you've "tried to contact" but you word it as though you were unsuccessful. My goodness, you sound so helpless. My heart goes out to you in your hour of sorrow. My deepest sympathies.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
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