An interesting point...

... well made in today's Indy letters:

Sir: The Department of Education and Skills, in conjunction with the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, will this week begin distributing the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, to all 3,385 secondary schools in England.

According to the DfES, "influencing the opinions of children is crucial to developing a long-term view on the environment among the public" (press release, February 2007). This is an explicit admission by the Government that its intention in circulating the film is to indoctrinate children politically.

Such deliberate political indoctrination of children is contrary to the Education Act 2002, which at section 78 says the school curriculum for maintained schools is to be "balanced and broadly based", and section 79 requires the Secretary of State, local education authorities, governing bodies and headteachers to exercise their functions "with a view to securing that the curriculum for every maintained school satisfies the requirements of section 78".

Political spin is bad enough, but when we start brainwashing our own children we are finished.

I write as one concerned more than many about where we are headed, but beyond the question of legality have to also wonder if this is a bit of indocrination too far.

Some of us just have more access than others

As I'm pondering democracy, I happened across this from Bad Science: The Price Is Wrong

I was going to post my thoughts, but one thing I have noticed is that these guys are very highbrow and while not rude, rather dismissive of those not within the halls of academe. A shame, as I think a lot more could be achieved by engaging with interested ams like me. So I'll keep it here.

The thread is in fact about academic journals, and the charging policies vs. free access that applies.

I was going to pitch in and add that it can be a similar situation with the environment. Not just with information, but also conferences, etc.

Some of the costs to know and share stuff can be prohibitive if you are not a major commercial or funded GO3, which creates a gap between those who can afford to be 'in', and those who may have a lot to contribute and are priced 'out'. So policy can often go in directions that is not reflected by the views and contribution of a truly representative whole.

This is very likely one of the more important posts you can read here...

..to date.

For a start, I am going to say little, because not only have I not read the ICC report yet (if ever, at least in its entirety), I have not thoroughly read all these reviews. So maybe an even more important post is yet to come.

For now... enjoy (or not, as the case may be - I'm certainly not looking forward to all I have to wade through this weekend):





BBC - Humans blamed for climate change
Guardian CiF - Science forward, Bush backward
Guardian - Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
Indy - What the World needs now is a green fascist
Indy - Alan Johnson: Children must think differently
Indy - Ten years left to avert catastrophe
Indy - All pupils to be given lessons in climate change
Reuters - U.N. panel says global warming man-made
New Scientist - Blame for global warming placed firmly on humankind
DEFRA - Debate on climate change science is over - international political agreement now urgently needed/Climate change film distributed to all secondary schools
Telegraph - Man's guilt for global warming clear

I have chosen as the visual today's Indy cover (I would have liked to have used for its awesome irony the pop-up ad I got of a Land Rover on top the world, but didn't hit page capture before it disappeared). I do so because I note no other has taken this as the lead, and indeed nor has the Indy, which is odd when we have a headline on offer that reads Ten years left to avert catastrophe

Maybe tomorrow we'll avert it. Today we'll get parents heated up about kids getting heated up about heating up.

I have to say that if I was a minister of indeed sub-editor, as a parent as well I'd be more inclined to go the route of 'We must help kids get informed and inspired in the best ways to engage with the challenges of CC/GW'. As it reads what I see smacks of nanny and big brother or, god forbid, another total waste of funds on a 'campaign' by target-hitters whose only knowledge of pushing kids' buttons is by fining 12 year olds for putting the wrong type of paper in the bin.

I'd go for fun, education and re:ward, with such as Junkk.com. What are the chances of that? Or there is support from well-known kids' reads such as broadsheets like the Indy, who still can't bring themselves to mention us (much less get in touch in reply to our outreach) in their campaign on packaging.

You get the picture and [fill in dis-organisational gov, media and biz entities here] ... you deserve.