The Inconvenient Truths About “An Inconvenient Truth”

Hearty congratulations and support from Clameur de Haro to Deputy Phil Rondel, who in the States last Tuesday warned the increasingly supine Minister for Education Sport & Culture, James Reed, that “An Inconvenient Truth”, that provenly inaccurate, meretricious farrago of cod science produced by that execrable peddler of false green eco-wackery propaganda Al Gore, should not be shown in Jersey schools.

Mr Rondel’s reported comment about the judicial objections to its showing in UK schools, while correct, doesn’t go halfway towards describing the full extent of the criticism heaped on it from the Bench.

In 2007, Mr Justice Burton, sitting in the Administrative Division of the High Court, ruled that showing the film, without both correction of its errors and presentation of the alternative hypothesis, breached the 1996 Education Act and constituted political indoctrination. Not only did nine inaccuracies specifically have to be drawn to the attention of school audiences, but more importantly, not all of the film’s inaccuracies were considered, as Burton J requested only a sample for the purposes of considering the case.

Clameur de Haro’s readers can see here the summary of the judgement, and the links to the ancillary submissions. They really should be read, in full, to derive a complete picture of the extent of the errors and fallacies peddled as incontrovertible truth.

Since that time, even more, and serious, flaws, both scientific and in biased selectivity of data, have come to light. To recount just a few -

Mann’s infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph, on which Gore relied so much, was confirmed and subsequently accepted even by the IPCC as being a fraud: firstly omitting, then dramatically under-representing the Mediaeval Warming Period, and secondly being based on a computer algorithm which generated the desired headline-grabbing hockey stick result no matter what data was fed into the algorithm.

In claiming far more frequent use of the Thames Flood Barrier and increased flooding on the East Coast of England (due, naturally, to global warming [sic]), Gore presented flood instance statistics going back to 1930. Highly selective, and suspiciously so – had he gone back just two years earlier, to 1928, he would have had to include the worst Thames flood on record, which occurred during a period of cooling temperatures, and he neglected to mention that the East Coast of England has been geologically sinking at the rate of several inches a year, both from general slow subsidence and the extraction of water from naturally-formed underground reservoirs.

His apocalyptic predictions for the melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet turned out to have been predicated only on data for the c.7% of the entire Antarctic land mass constituted by the Antarctic Peninsula, but which Gore then extrapolated to apply to the whole. The Antarctic Peninsula is now considered to merit a different climate classification from the rest of the continent under the Köppen climate classification system, due to the influence which the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has on it, while the main ice sheet of the entire Antarctic Continent, accounting for something in excess of 80% of all the world’s ice, is both thickening and cooling.

The best summary of all the main scientific errors and all the flawed conclusions can be found in this paper, entitled “35 Inconvenient Truths – The Errors in Al Gore’s Movie” prepared for the Science and Public Policy Institute. It too should also be read, in full, by anyone with even the remotest connection to the possibility that Gore’s discredited fallacy-fest should be foisted on to impressionable young minds as though it was established and undisputed fact, and without any qualification.

According to the Jersey Evening [sic] Post’s report, Mr Reed responded with nothing more than a typically weasel-worded reply to the effect that he would pass on Mr Rondel’s concerns to his department.

That is just not good enough. Mr Reed is, whether he likes it or not, the repository of both a statutory duty and a moral responsibility to deliver an education system to the Island’s children free from the blatantly biased and inaccurate propaganda of the type of which Gore’s film is such a baleful example. And with the scandal of Climategate and the revelations of data manipulation and concealment in the Climate Research Unit currently breaking all around us (has he not heard of this?), for him not to undertake to give it his urgent personal attention and ensure that the film is not shown in schools without further reference back, is little short of a grave dereliction of duty.

At one time Clameur de Haro was disposed to think quite favourably of Mr Reed, but no more. Recent events, in particular his reactions to the suspensions/discipline issue, his denial of falling primary school standards, and his falling in with the majority criminality-excusing view on the withdrawal of anonymity from young violent offenders, give the distinct impression of a minister who has gone native and become house-trained, and a minister who has quite visibly been captured by the triumvirate of producer interests which dominate the education industry – his department’s civil servants, the teaching unions, and the fashionable educational theorists - so his reaction is, regrettably, not surprising. He is beginning to look ineffective, and out of his depth.

So – once again – plaudits to Deputy Rondel for raising this issue: Clameur de Haro pleads with him not to let the matter rest.

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Stuart Syvret - Lost In Translation

In a comment a week or so ago to one of Clameur de Haro’s blogposts, Nick Palmer asks -

What do you think of this below? Borrowed from SSS's blog

Allen Knechschaffenen

An alle Himmel schreib ich's an,

die diesen Ball umspannen:

Nicht der Tyrann ist ein schimpflciher Mann,

aber der Knecht des Tyrannen.

TO ALL THE ENSLAVED

I WRITE IT ALL OVER THE HEAVENS,

THAT ENCOMPASS OUR EARTHLY SPHERE:

IT'S NOT THE TYRANT WE SHOULD ABUSE,

BUT THE SERF WHO WORKS FOR THE TYRANT.

Christian Morgenstern

Other things have mitigated against a response before now (for which apologies, Nick), but CdeH thinks that it mostly points up just how advisable it is to take the precaution of doing a bit of checking before going for a straight copy’n’paste job on anything at all from the tortuous mental meanderings of Fugitivus Laxativus Diminutivus.

The quote was no doubt meant to impress readers – at which it might have succeeded more had it and the purported translation both been accurate.

First of all, the German for a slave/servant/labourer is “der Knecht”, and for slavery or servitude “die Knechtschaft”, so there are at the very least one or two “t”s missing from the first line (although in fairness, not from the fifth). And though it’s admittedly been a while since Clameur de Haro studied German to the level he once did, he’s dubious that even “Knechtschaftenen” would be the correct plural form for slaves or servitors.

The reference to “we should abuse” in the fourth line of the translation is a bit tenuous. The original’s tense is the present tense, rather than the conditional tense, for a start, and the adjective “schimpflich” (even without the transposition of letters) does mean “insulting”, but more in the context of humiliation or disgrace rather than abuse, for which the more usual verb is “mißbrauchen”. The fourth/fifth line is therefore probably more accurately rendered as “It is not the tyrant who is disgraced? / humiliated?, but the slave of the tyrants…”.

So overall, in (eventual) answer to your question, Nick, ich befürchte daß, wie gewöhnlich, der Zwerg mit die abartige Fantasie sich geirrt hat. Er soll vielleicht ein bißchen mehr vorsicht sein.

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How Much Is Big Brother Watching The Class?

Did anyone else, wonders Clameur de Haro, catch a TV news snippet in the past couple of days about the extent to which the deployment of CCTV systems in schools is increasing dramatically?

The item featured the UK organisation Classwatch, which openly markets itself as “the answer to effective classroom management”.

What was shown was not just a passive function, i.e. creating a record to be available in the event of either a crime or serious misbehaviour occurring, but an active, virtually real-time, management of the tuition delivery, from a remote control centre. So that the remote controller was actually monitoring and correcting the teacher in her teaching technique, and directing what aspects of the subject material for that lesson she should be according greater or lesser emphasis.

Classwatch, moreover does not come cheap – a system for one single classroom costs about £50 per month on lease, and about £3000 to buy.

The whole item raised in CdeH’s mind some uncomfortable questions about invasion of privacy through excessive, pervasive surveillance, which all too often seems to be imposed on a unwilling, or even unaware population, whether students in school or shoppers in the precinct, either on spurious security grounds, or in an exaggerated response to a perceived threat. So perhaps Jersey’s Education Minister might be moved to answer the following -

To what extent, and in what areas, is CCTV used in Island schools? And if so -

Has its precise use been cleared by Data Protection? Have parents had all the intended uses explained to them, and been specifically to give consent to their children being under surveillance?

Is it used purely in a passive role, or actively to monitor and correct teacher and pupil behaviour / performance?

If so, for how long, and under what conditions of security, are the records retained?

Have the teaching unions been consulted and acquiesced in the remote monitoring of their performance?

And of course, what costs have been, and continue to be, incurred?

No-one, not least Clameur de Haro, would quarrel with the advisability of using CCTV to keep school perimeters secure. Too often, however, meeting a basic need like that provides a convenient cover for a grossly excessive and invasive extension of surveillance, to the ultimate detriment of all our freedoms.

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Scum. Scum. Scum.

Two illuminating examples of the effects of 40 years of the cultural left’s capture, then domination, of Britain’s education system, and the ethical degradation which both have worked so assiduously to propagate, have been available in the last couple of days.

Opposite is a picture of Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, who in June this year lost both legs and an arm after stepping on a concealed land mine while serving with the Royal Engineers on his first operational tour in Afghanistan. A few weeks ago, in brief interlude from his recovery in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, he was taken out shopping in the surrounding streets, in his wheelchair, by his mother – only to be abused and mocked on account of his injuries and disability by a group of “boisterous” youths.

Well, Clameur de Haro, unreservedly and humbly, salutes Matthew Weston as a shining example of what used to be commonplace in this nation before the cultural left succeeded in fastening its malignant fingers on to the levers of opinion-forming and values-creating – and thanks him for his service, his bravery and his fortitude.

As for the excrescences who mocked him, Clameur de Haro fervently hopes, and will nightly pray, that abject misfortune and misery blight their entire lives, for they are sub-moronic scum beneath contempt.

Also opposite is a photograph of one Philip Laing, 19, who, a couple of nights ago in Sheffield, was rendered so tired and emotional by the prospect of having to endure the hardships of his next term at university that he was compelled to seek solace in relieving the pressure on his bladder over a war memorial.

Mr Laing, clearly as strong a candidate for the contemptible scum epithet as his contemporaries and soulmates in Birmingham, is shortly to be up before the magistrate. Clameur de Haro hopes that the Beak throws the proverbial book at him. Perhaps a substantial fine to be donated to Help For Heroes, plus a 2-year spell of community service helping Matthew Weston and his similarly wounded comrades with their rehabilitation, might provide the modicum of education so conspicuously lacking from either his upbringing or his time at university so far.

Just where did the worldview and value system of these two examples of scum emanate from?

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Maybe The Kids Are Not Quite So All Right……

Is there a cultural left bias in Jersey’s Health and Social Services towards subverting parental authority and undermining the role of the family by condoning under-age sex?

Tracking at random through a few recent back editions of the Jersey Evening [sic] Post, Clameur de Haro’s eye was caught by one of the facts given by Brook Jersey executive director Bronia Lever on the numbers of teenagers and young adults said to be seeking contraception advice and emergency contraception, “…some as young as 12….”.

For the record, and in case anyone should allege otherwise, CdeH thinks that Brook generally, and its Jersey clinic in particular, fulfils a vital function in the community, and that the advice and contraception sensitively dispensed by the Brook counsellors contribute significantly to reduced incidences of, particularly, early to mid-teen pregnancy – and also that it obviously discharges its functions in a very caring and empathetic way, the very numbers seeking Brook Jersey’s services being, apart from any other implications, a visible testament to its success.

But what we were not told by Ms Lever, however, is how many of those recipients or requestors of contraception advice or emergency contraception were under 16.

Now CdeH is no prude, and recalls with a contradictory mixture of wistful fondness and acute embarrassment his own adolescent fumblings, undertaken, on one or two occasions, while hoping to heaven that his co-fumbler’s assurances that she was 16, yes really, might just be truthful. But at the risk of appearing antediluvian, let’s not forget that 16 remains (until it’s changed by the legislature) the legal age of consent: so it follows, surely, that in the case of a sub-16 female client requesting post-coital emergency contraception, there is prima facie evidence before the clinic and its counsellors of the statutory offence of unlawful sex with a minor having been committed.

CdeH’s original intention, when the idea for this post was taking shape, was to pose the question – “Given that the law of the land has clearly been broken in such a case, to what extent is any judicial process invoked?” – because the idea of a public authority turning a blind eye to a serious breach of law isn’t an easy one to feel comfortable with. But recalling that Jersey seems to be considering the creation of a Sexual Offenders’ Register (of which subject more on another occasion), and then reading in this special briefing in the current issue of The Economist the often appalling consequences for people who can be placed on such a register for comparatively minor “technical” misdemeanours, it strikes CdeH that our local Brook counsellors are probably better using their discretion in mostly declining to get PC Plod involved.

But possibly even more importantly, when and to what extent, in the case of the very sub-16 clients, are the parents brought into the process?

CdeH of course acknowledges the confidentiality argument, and the reality that many of Brook’s clients would probably not consult it at all – with adverse consequences in some cases - if they thought their parents would be informed. But on the other hand, and writing as an erstwhile parent of daughters, it’s also not easy to feel entirely comfortable with the idea of a public authority concealing from loving, concerned, and would-be responsible parents its condoning, to the point of even facilitating, their offspring’s under-age sex.

What also disturbs Clameur de Haro here is the danger that all this isn’t just about sexual health advice and preventing unwanted teenage pregnancy – that it’s also, more insidiously, about furthering, even unwittingly, the cultural left’s agenda for the state to undermine parental authority and the position of the family as the principal societal unit, and to eventually supplant it as the prime nurturer of future generations.

Cultural marxism frequently seeks, whether via economic or social policy means, to weaken the position and authority of the unitary family as a discrete social unit, and to undermine parental rights and responsibilities to this end: it does this because the strong individual family unit, secure against the depredations of the state, is one of the bedrocks of a free society and therefore an inherent threat to the belief that only state activism can guarantee desired social outcomes.

Given the prevalence of cultural left attitudes in the UK social services, and the extent of recruitment and secondment from the UK that Jersey practises, it would be surprising if some of those attitudes had not found their way, either openly or covertly, into our social services locally. Indeed, there have been grounds in recent years for believing that this is so.

Should we therefore be worried that our justified focus on the numbers and youthfulness of some of Brook Jersey’s clients may in fact be masking the less apparent, the less immediate, but the no less significant danger that the role of parents is surreptitiously being diminished?

Clameur de Haro recalls Ms Lever’s, and Brook’s, endorsement a couple of years ago for the initiative launched by the Jersey Police to encourage parents to take greater responsibility for their children. Would it not be unfortunate, to say the least, if a misplaced sociological view of a vulnerable minor’s absolute right to confidentiality contributed to putting obstacles in the way of parents who want to do exactly that?

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Pikeys, Tessa and Toby

A fine example of uptight bien–pensant political correctness’ continuing assault on legitimate freedom of expression in this righteous indignation offering from Guardianista Jodie Matthews last week.

Ms Matthews, it seems, found the epithet “pikey” (in this case by Richard Hammond on Top Gear) deeply offensive and inappropriate (ah, that wonderful catch-all adjective of the thought police), and professed it to have been used (naturally) solely as a racist slur.

For the record, Clameur de Haro has no truck with racism, and neither commits it nor condones it: certain people, or certain ideas, or certain values, may be offensive, but whole races and religions are not offensive per se (although that does not mean they should be exempt from legitimate criticism).

Ms Matthews however seems to have deliberately ignored the overwhelmingly modern usage of the term “pikey” not as an epithet of racist abuse or presumed ethic origin, but as a convenient shorthand for a disparaging value judgment on the target’s lifestyle, ethics and behaviour. In this modern usage it’s equivalent to “chav” – the connotations it conveys are those of disapproval, not of race or even socio-economic group, but of coarseness and vulgarity, cavalier law-breaking, aggression and inconsiderateness toward others, and cynical manipulation of the welfare system.

But that, of course, is precisely the point of Ms Matthews’ article. Like any right-thinking social commentator on the Grauniad, she presumably recoils in horror at anyone making a value judgement about anyone or anything (unless of course it’s a value judgment she agrees with) as being an infringement of enlightened and progressive non-judgmental attitudes.

No doubt then, she will be suitably castigating the producers of the latest UK DCSF storybook for children for making a value judgment of their own that Tess and Toby the Pikeys Travellers are really just nice, misunderstood, and fun people.

Or possibly, bearing in mind they should tick quite a few of her boxes, she won’t be.........

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