Reality deserves a look in when teaching children the science of global warming
The catastrophism and clickbaits of climate change hysteria is calculated, community child abuse.
Fatherhood is a much undervalued vocation in public discourse. Which is rather odd, in my view, because for those of us who are, being a father is how we define and carry ourselves. We embrace all of its joy, and its pain; all of its rewards, whimsy, and crushing responsibility.
And at the risk of starting an outbreak of the gender wars, we might dare to consider that, biology aside, fatherhood is driven by slightly different instincts compared with motherhood.
To be sure, there is plenty of overlap, but perhaps where the mother’s greatest instinct might be to nurture, the father’s might be to protect.
It probably betrays wrangling with my own fatherly imperfections to reveal that my favourite contemporary novel is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. To me it is a traumatic ode to fathering; capturing the desperate desire to protect your child and, even against all despair, provide them with a path.
“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden,” the father says to his son, as they face the most dystopian and bleak reality. Hope, there must always be hope; take that away and there is nothing.
Australian novelist Peter Goldsworthy also captured this visceral devotion in his novella Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam. In this story we envy the father’s selfless love even as we shudder at the tragedy when his desire to comfort his child overwhelms all mortal considerations.
In both these stories by brilliant writers who are fathers, we are given an insight into how seemingly irredeemable realities must be tackled in a way that does not panic the child or see them sink to despair. This is stoic love, driven by a desire to protect; there is no denial of trauma but there is a determination to preserve hope – “carry the fire”.
I have pondered this more than usual lately given on-air discussions and media reporting about rising levels of anxiety and depression in our children. A recent Sydney Morning Herald report focused on record levels of mental health disorders, with many children refusing to go to school.
We unnecessarily frightened our kids for three years over Covid-19, keeping them from school for extended periods. Now we wonder why they are too anxious or despondent to return. Half their parents have not returned to the workplace either, so they are not getting an ideal lead.
Then there is climate change. For years the climate alarmists have been instilling the fear of Gaia into our children, from pre-school to the classroom, from the nightly news to the kids programming.
The ABC’s flagship kids television current affairs program, Behind the News, kicked off an episode this month by declaring: “scientists say that last month was officially the hottest month Earth has ever recorded. And the UN says we’re no longer facing global warming, but something worse.”
And on they went with vision of extreme weather events and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres telling us global warming was over and “the era of global boiling has arrived”.
The reporter then said: “Global boiling, it sounds pretty intense, but the UN says the threat the world’s facing is intense.” Neither the UN nor the media are interested in context or reassurance; their currency is hysteria.
Guterres is a former Portuguese Socialist Party prime minister – a green-left politician, no more and no less – and scaring people into realigning the global economic order is his life’s work.
But our children, do we really want to be doing this to our children? After reading about the record anxiety and mental health problems for our young people in the SMH, it occurred to me that they might be part of the problem. When you click through to their climate-change coverage, there is plenty of climate fear porn to be found.
“Global boiling, Sydney hasn’t done enough to prepare for lethal heat,” screams one headline. “Record July heat prompts dire warning; Act now or we all scorch and fry,” shouts another. “Crucial global climatic system could face tipping point in two years,” we read, surely not another tipping point? Then: “The hottest July in 120,000 years. What’s in store for Australia this summer?”
Not a hint of context, subtlety, or scepticism. Imagine the absurdity of claiming a day or month is the hottest in 120,000 years.
The more you research these matters, the more you doubt even records claimed over the past century, given so many early readings have been revised downwards.
The Bureau of Meteorology claimed Adelaide recorded the hottest ever maximum for a capital city on January 24, 2019, when the temperature hit 46.6C. Yet the record it broke from 1939 was actually recorded as the equivalent of 47.6C before, in recent years, it was “homogenised” downwards. There are endless other examples.
Media reporting shows a similar propensity to ignore the inconvenience of the past. Last year’s Murray flood was talked up as some sort of climate event even though it roughly equated to the 1974 flood and produced flows still more than a third short of the 1956 floods.
The bushfires of 2019-20 too, horrific as they were, have repeatedly been referred to as the worst and “unprecedented” even though, as I have detailed in these pages, the nation has weathered worse bushfires with higher fatalities, more properties lost, and greater areas burned.
This is important. Instead of children being told we have never faced these trials before, and that they are evidence of climate Armageddon, they need to know that our forebears have faced at least as bad, with less technology, and survived.
On the ABC’s Q+A program this week, Adam Spencer cited Sydney’s smoke haze during those fires as some ominous new phenomenon. Again, in these pages, I have recounted contemporaneous accounts of all the airports in the Sydney basin being closed because of thick smoke in 1951; a smoke haze in 1936 made it impossible for a ship to find Sydney heads; and reports from Captain Cook’s voyages referred to constant fires and smoke haze along the coast.
Obviously, children should learn about the science of global warming and consider natural variability and human impacts, as well as possible responses including mitigation and adaption. But reality deserves a look in so that children have some understanding of what we have faced, and what we always will face. Claims that our actions will turn earth into an unliveable inferno or a thermostatically controlled utopia are equally absurd.
Politicians, media, activists and even many in the science community ought to show more caution and responsibility, instead of constantly trying to out-hype each other.
Our kids deserve better than a modern doomsday cult. When I played the Behind The News clip on air to child and adolescent psychologist Clare Rowe and psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed this week, Rowe was astonished. “That is outrageous,” she reacted to the alarmist spiel.
“I certainly think the rise of genuine clinical anxiety with kids is through the roof,” said Rowe.
Ahmed pointed out that much of it is driven by parents. “You will find often that kids who already have some level of anxiety, their mothers or fathers also have a higher level of anxiety,” he said.
Rowe has spoken before about children who are “equipped with information that I don’t believe is necessary for a seven or eight-year-old to have”, and warned some parents seem proud of the “eco-warrior” attitude of their offspring. She has seen children become “disengaged from friendships, from school, from pleasurable activities, it’s on their minds constantly, and there are classic generalised anxiety symptoms – they are completely immobilised by fear and mental health difficulties”.
What a terrible thing, collectively, we are doing to our children. If we really thought the world was about to end, would we encourage them to be hysterical about it?
Media outlets fuel the fear with clickbait coverage, then get more clicks reporting the psychological damage. On the BTN website they published a disclaimer of sorts under their “global boiling” coverage: “Now if you’re feeling worried or upset about anything you’ve seen in the news, make sure you talk to someone about it. Kids Helpline is always there, and you can visit our website for more information about dealing with upsetting news.”
I have clear memories as a kid of a towering, ominous dust storm sweeping across Adelaide from the north. We watched it coming, our parents helped us pack away our toys, and we sheltered inside as the day turned dark.
Through the wonder of the internet, I found pictures of that storm this week. It was February 1968, so I was five years old. No wonder my brothers and sisters and I felt like the world was ending, even as mum and dad comforted us.
If that same storm hit today, children would be told this is evidence of the world being destroyed, that this represents the new normal. Just as they are told every other natural disaster is worse or more frequent than in the past – even though the records prove otherwise. This catastrophism is calculated, community child abuse.
We could all do with a reminder from the fictional but wise and loving father McCarthy gave us in The Road: “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever.”
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