Tuesday 9 October 2012

Teaching home educated children about climate change

I absolutely adore the whole global warming/manmade climate change thing. The story has a mythic grandeur about it which is wholly lacking from most of the nonsense which one sees in the newspapers. This is essentially the tale of how Man’s wickedness and greed brings down a worldwide catastrophe upon the entire race. It is the story of the Biblical deluge, which was precipitated by the same sins, with much the same consequences; i. e. rising sea levels!


Those of us with long memories might perhaps recall the days forty years ago when the scientific journals were full of the danger of manmade global cooling. This was being caused by pollution from power stations and factories. Particles of smoke and dirt were filling the upper atmosphere and preventing the light from the sun reaching us. The evidence was compelling; global temperatures falling since the end of World War II, cold water fish moving south into temperate waters and many other things. Then we had the population explosion which would cause the end of civilisation, the exhaustion of oil and other natural resources by the year 2000, the threat of nuclear war and, best of all, the Nuclear Winter. Remember that one? It was great; a combination of nuclear war and Ice Age.  Also to be brought about by our wicked and sinful nature!

Still and all, this is nothing to the purpose. Any child taking science GCSEs needs to know a little about this subject, even if it is a pack of fairy stories for credulous and gullible fools who are unable to think for themselves. Here are a few practical ways of demonstrating to children how the mechanisms of the climate work.

The easiest way to show the practical effects of the Greenhouse Effect is just to set a transparent plastic cup on a sunny lawn, trapping some air beneath it. Leave it for an hour of so and then get your child to check the temperature. It will be as hot as an oven. Explain that without this Greenhouse Effect, life on earth would be impossible. The planet would alternately bake and freeze. If not for the water vapour and carbon dioxide in the air which traps the heat, we would be in a sorry state indeed! You sometimes hear foolish people talking about the Greenhouse Effect as though it were a bad thing. Without it, life on Earth could not survive.

Now fill one transparent plastic cup with earth and another with water and set them side by side on a sunny window sill. You will find that the earth heats up very fast, but cannot retain the heat. As soon as you remove it from the sun, it cools very quickly. The water, on the other hand, heats up slowly, but retains the heat for a long time. This  keeps the temperature of the planet fairly level. You could talk about heat-sinks and the Gulf Stream which keeps this country warmer than other European countries on the same latitude.

As every schoolchild knows, the Arctic ice is melting and this will not only drown a load of cute baby polar bears, it will also flood low-lying cities anywhere else in the world. Disaster! Easy enough to prove to your child that this is a lot of nonsense. There is no dispute that the ice in the Arctic might be at risk from record levels of melting. There is also little doubt that except in one or two atypical places, the Antarctic ice is growing thicker, so it’s only that pesky Arctic ice that we need to worry about. What would happen if all the ice in the Arctic melted tomorrow? It would surely have some effect upon sea levels; after all there is an awful lot of ice near the North Pole, isn’t there? Well, that’s right. There is loads of ice and no land at all; it is all floating in the water. To see what would happen if it all melted, let’s make our own Arctic Ice cap!

Take the largest clear glass bowl that you can find; the bigger the better. Fill it half full of water and then dump in as much floating ice as you can. Lots and lots of ice cubes, chunks of ice from elsewhere; just make sure that it is all floating, like the real Arctic ice. Now mark the level of the water and let the ice melt. You might expect that the water level would rise, but you would be dead wrong. Even when all the ice has melted, the water level is exactly the same as it was before. This is because ice expands when it freezes. Which is of course why it floats in water. You have now shown that if all the ice in the Arctic were to melt, it would make no difference at all to the world’s sea levels.

What might make a difference though, if the planet were to heat up, is thermal expansion. You can demonstrate this on the kitchen window-sill as well. Boil some water and then let it cool for a few seconds. Fill a clear glass jug with the very hot water and mark the level on the side. Now cover the top of the jug with tin foil or clingfilm, to prevent evaporation. You will find that as the water cools, the level goes down. In other words, hot water takes up more room than cold. If the oceans were to warm up, then sea levels would indeed rise. Not by very much of course, you can easily do the sums for this, but warming would cause a slight rise in sea levels.

The great advantage of home education is that you are free both to spend the day in experiments of this sort and also to avoid the majority views of society if you should wish to do so. This is very valuable, because it means that you and your child can learn to think for yourselves, without being browbeaten by the prevailing ideologies of the day. No wonder some people don’t like home education and feel that it is liable to produce dangerous mavericks and freethinkers! Not really all that good for society in general, perhaps.

46 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, because it's the sort of stuff my children love doing. Now all I need is a sunny day...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I need a lovely day too. Really Simon, you must write a book about your experiences of home educating. I want more than dribs and drabs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 'Really Simon, you must write a book about your experiences of home educating. I want more than dribs and drabs.'

    It's very kind of you to say so and I am immensely flattered! However, what publishers want and what I would like to write are two entirely different things; otherwise, I would not be writing westerns to pay the mortgage.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You make a good point....Ӏ ωаs able to find gooԁ infο frоm your content great to know about the experiences of home educating!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Simon said:
    "As every schoolchild knows, the Arctic ice is melting and this will not only drown a load of cute baby polar bears, it will also flood low-lying cities anywhere else in the world. Disaster! Easy enough to prove to your child that this is a lot of nonsense."

    Who has made this claim that melting Arctic ice will cause such flooding? References please.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd heard that it was land ice, such at the ice on Greenland and glaciers, that they are concerned about in this respect. Whilst the amount of melting and whether it's anthropomorphic or natural is debatable, I didn't think there was any doubt that land ice is melting and causing rises in sea level.

      Delete
    2. I know about the land ice; I'm trying to identify the origin of Simon's remarks about the impact of melting sea ice. I don't know of any proponent of anthropogenic climate suggesting that melting sea ice would cause flooding.

      There might be second order effects due to albedo change - the loss of highly-reflective ice on the sea might accelerate warming of the ocean - but this is not what Simon was talking about.

      It looks like Simon was setting-up another spurious argument to knock down; of course it's nonsense to suggest that the volume of melt water from Arctic sea ice would cause a major rise in sea level, but I'd like to know who - according to Simon - is supposed to be making such a claim in the first place.


      Delete
    3. Yes, I realised what you meant ;-) I just wanted to point out that I had heard that it was land ice melt that was responsible for sea level rises and that I've not heard people making the same claims about sea ice, as Simon seems to suggest. Which is not to say that some people, somewhere, do not become confused enough to believe this to be the case. But like you, I doubt that anyone has attempted to fool anyone purposely, which is the (apparently mistaken) impression I also gained from the blog post. As to polar bears, I suspect that even more people make mistakes about which pole they can be found at than are confused about land and sea ice!

      Delete
  6. Worn out Webb says-No wonder some people don’t like home education and feel that it is liable to produce dangerous mavericks and freethinkers
    like crazy old Badman dont like home education? who you and your daughter did everything possible to help shape his mad ideas on home education! what did you 2 say to him when you meet him?
    the only use for any book you may write is to help start a nice coal fire!

    ReplyDelete
  7. 'I know about the land ice; I'm trying to identify the origin of Simon's remarks about the impact of melting sea ice. I don't know of any proponent of anthropogenic climate suggesting that melting sea ice would cause flooding.

    There might be second order effects due to albedo change - the loss of highly-reflective ice on the sea might accelerate warming of the ocean - but this is not what Simon was talking about.

    It looks like Simon was setting-up another spurious argument to knock down; of course it's nonsense to suggest that the volume of melt water from Arctic sea ice would cause a major rise in sea level, but I'd like to know who - according to Simon - is supposed to be making such a claim in the first place.'

    One can only assume that you never talk to anybody and do not know what children are picking up at school. I am not going to get into a long debate about this, but here is a fairly typical scare story. You will observe that the piece talks of 'polar ice caps'. Since there is no question of Antarctica melting any time soon, it is clear that the Arctic ice cap is meant; in other words, the ice at the North Pole. This is confirmed by the picture of polar bears. This idea, that the melting of the ice at the North Pole will cause rising sea levels is embedded in the public consciouness. It is certainly incorrect, but still firmly believed. That you are unaware of this and ask for references, suggest to me that you might be a little out of touch with ordinary people!


    http://www.savemyoceans.com/global_warming.php

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon> "One can only assume that you never talk to anybody and do not know what children are picking up at school."

      I asked for references, not myth and urban legend.

      Simon> "I am not going to get into a long debate about this"

      Yes, I'll bet you don't want to. Now answer the question: who is responsible for these "fairy stories for credulous and gullible fools"? You clearly tried to imply that someone initiated them with a view to deceive.

      Delete
  8. Here is a bit about Michael Mann, one of the big players in the Arctic ice game:

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/michael-mann-strikes-out-with-breathtaking-stupidity/


    The reason why I said in my post, 'as every schoolchild knows' is that practically any child to whom one speaks has got hold of this muddled idea; that the melting of the ice at the North Pole would cause sea levels to rise. This is why I suggested a way to demonstrate that this is not the case, to destroy a popular myth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But Mann was not suggesting that melting sea ice would cause floods; selective quoting can be used to make it appear that he was talking about sea ice when he was talking about a symptom of warming, and that warming would also melt land ice.

      Delete
  9. 'I asked for references, not myth and urban legend'

    There are no references because of course it is myth and urban legend. That was the very point that I was making; this is something which is widely believed by both children and adults and is not the case. Myth and legend sums up the matter well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course there are no references; I knew that when I asked the question!

      But "fairy stories for credulous and gullible fools" implies an intent to deceive. You clearly implied an intent to deceive rather than the development of rumour.

      Do you agree that proponents of anthropogenic climate change have not claimed that flooding will result from rising sea levels due to the volume of melting sea ice?

      Delete
  10. There is something quite mad about this. I pointed out in my original post that many children get confused about global wamring and think that the melting of the ice at the North Pole, which is regularly reported on the news, will somehow lead to rising sea levels. This is not of course so, but the idea is current. As a matter of fact, many adults are a bit muddled about this as well. I was giving an idea for a practical demonstration which would show children that this was not and could not be the case. I am then accused of spreading myths and urban legends! This is the last word that I shall say on this subject, because I simply don't have the energy to engage in such foolishness this evening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The idea that the volume of melting sea ice would cause a rise in sea levels is, of course, crazy - and I'm not complaining about your demonstration - however, you clearly implied an intent to deceive on the part of someone, as is clear in your use of the phrase:

      "fairy stories for credulous and gullible fools".

      But from your anxious protests, perhaps we can conclude that you do not wish to imply that proponents of anthropogenic climate change are responsible for any trickery.

      Delete
  11. For once, a helpful post from you! :-D Seriously, this is interesting, as a geographer and a skeptic I enjoy reading this sort of post. I think it's ridiculous to assume that pumping our atmosphere full of pollutants has no effect. But the earth is remarkably resilient as well as having gone through numerous periods of cooling and warming naturally over time.

    So I'm somewhat between a skeptic and a believer and it's nice to see a post which demonstrates a way we can approach this skepticism with our children.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But this has nothing to do with skepticism about climate change - or at least, that's what Simon seemed to be saying in his final comment.

      The proponents of anthropogenic climate change have not suggested that water from the melting of the Arctic ice cap will cause major sea-level rise. I suspect that Simon was trying to sneak-in an argument along the lines of "Climate change believers think that 2+2=5; see how silly that is - we can prove them wrong."

      Like the school sneak, he howls in anguish when his trickery is uncovered.

      Delete
  12. Very pleased to have stumbled upon this thanks to it appearing in a Google search I made for something else. I like your robust approach to the various alarums of recent decades, and I wish that were more widespread than it seems to be amongst conventional school teachers.

    Your glass cup on the lawn though only illustrates how greenhouses work and that phenomenon is based on the suppression of mixing with cooler air, and not on the infra-red properties of the glass as is sometimes claimed when it is used as a very misleading analogy for the climate system.

    I hope you may find posts and pages of interest on my blog about climate education materials aimed at children: http://climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/

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