Tuesday, July 26, 2016



UK: The NUS turns its back on Jewish students. Again

The governing body of the National Union of Students (NUS), the National Executive Committee (NEC), met this week to discuss matters that have arisen since the national conference in April and the election of controversial president Malia Bouattia.

Her election sparked a national debate about the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism on the left and gave rise to several disaffiliation referenda in universities nationwide. Since her election, four universities have disaffiliated from the NUS. One of the disaffiliators’ key concerns was Bouattia’s views, especially on Jewish issues. She once described the University of Birmingham (a campus with a large Jewish community) as a ‘Zionist outpost’ and has complained about ‘mainstream Zionist-led media outlets’. She was also involved in the scrapping of an NUS motion to condemn ISIS. At NUS national conference this year, there was applause for speeches against a motion to commemorate the Holocaust.

On the agenda at Monday’s NEC meeting was a motion saying that ‘Anti-Semitism on campus is rising’. Unfortunately, however, the NUS apportions blame for this anti-Semitism, not to those on the student left who use ‘Zio’ as an insult and speak of Zionist-led conspiracies, but to the EU referendum. After specifically identifying anti-Semitism as a problem on campus, the motion goes on to say that ‘in the wake of the EU referendum, racism in all its forms is rising and it is vital that NUS provides leadership in tackling racism’. ‘It is a top priority for the NUS to unite all students to root out [the] evils of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism’, it says.

Even worse, in its final form the motion removed the ability of Jewish students to choose a representative on the Anti-Racism and Anti-Fascism committee (ARAF). The resolution passed, with a deciding vote from Bouattia herself, creating a situation where the ARAF committee is now appointed by the NEC of the NUS, rather than being chosen by students from the groups it is meant to represent. The Union of Jewish Students responded with a statement pointing out that it is now ‘down to NEC to elect the ARAF committee and therefore to decide on behalf of Jewish students who represents them. This decision is undemocratic and excludes the 8,500 Jewish students we represent. It was no surprise that the NUS president, Malia Bouattia, who had the deciding vote, once again showed that she has absolutely no interest in defending Jewish students’ interests by voting to remove the ability of Jewish students to shape for themselves the student movements’ fight against racism and fascism.’

The NUS’s chequered history with Jewish students was brought to the fore when Bouattia became president. But it stretches far back, most notably in the NUS’s preoccupation with Israel, which has led to some bizarre decisions. From the No Platforming of Zionist speakers to the shutting down of pro-Israel meetings to the NEC’s motion last year to boycott Coca-Cola over its apparent ties to Zionism, student leaders have had a strange and worrying take on Jewish issues for a long time.

The latest developments will lead many to wonder why the NUS, which so often paints itself as progressive, has a blind spot when it comes to Jewish students. In other areas of their liberation programme, the NUS has a dedicated Black Students’ Officer, Disabled Students’ Officer, two LGBTQ+ Officers, and a Women’s Officer, each heading up sizeable teams. And yet even as the NUS officially recognises that anti-Semitism is a growing problem on campus, it decides to take away Jewish students’ ability to choose their one representative on the ARAF committee.

After her election, Bouattia responded to her critics by saying: ‘One of the most important steps is to meet with everyone, to talk about these concerns, to heal the divisions.’ This week suggests that students are still right to lack confidence in her leadership and in the idea that the NUS is an institution capable of representing all of its members.

SOURCE 






Calling the cops on kids: the hunt for playground racism hits a new low

The hunt for hate is getting out of hand. This week police figures revealed that 138 incidents of racial or religious abuse, committed by children under the age of 10, were reported in England and Wales last year. One case, in Manchester, involved a three-year-old, who was said to have caused ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ to his ‘victim’.

Let’s get one thing straight: children cannot really be accused of racism. By investigating children for racial abuse, the police are granting children a level of political agency that they simply do not possess. If they sometimes utter racist speech, it’s most likely because they’ve regurgitated it from films, TV, song lyrics, or perhaps their parents. Children do not see the world through the racially tinted lenses that some adults do.

The focus on rooting out racist, homophobic or sexist kids has been a feature of education for more than a decade. And it is completely detached from reality. Playgrounds are not ridden with prejudice. Young children often use language that adults finds offensive or problematic. Often because they don’t know any better. It’s adults’ job to guide them in their development, not criminalise them.

This obsession with policing children’s speech is extremely damaging. Before they have learned freely to consider the world and express themselves, children are being taught to watch their words and see those of a different skin colour as different to them. The increased involvement of the police is even more worrying. We commit a great disservice to children if we allow them to be branded racists and harassers before they’re even out of primary school.

There is also a clear risk of children being used as a political weapon. It is a shameless practice, but it is all too common. A panic is created by a shock statistic, a policy or initiative is launched, and said statistic is used to bat away any criticism of it. After Brexit, we have already seen many politicians and commentators exploiting the alleged spike in post-Brexit hate to serve their own political ends. If we’re not careful, they will do the same with schools, too.

In the end, the obsession with racist kids speaks to the desperation of anti-racism campaigners. Now struggling to find explicit racism in society, they look for ‘unthinking’ racism, ‘hidden’ racism – and racism among children. They claim they want to root out future hatemongers, but in reality this only benefits anti-racist charities in desperate need of things to do. Having slain the big dragons, they turn their attention to small, irrelevant issues – like children using slurs in the playground. We can’t let the police get in on the act, too.

SOURCE 





Science or advocacy?

Students are learning energy and climate change advocacy, not climate science

David R. Legates

For almost thirty years, I have taught climate science at three different universities. What I have observed is that students are increasingly being fed climate change advocacy as a surrogate for becoming climate science literate. This makes them easy targets for the climate alarmism that pervades America today.

Earth’s climate probably is the most complicated non-living system one can study, because it naturally integrates astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and cryology, and also includes human behavior by both responding to and affecting human activities. Current concerns over climate change have further pushed climate science to the forefront of scientific inquiry.

What should we be teaching college students?

At the very least, a student should be able to identify and describe the basic processes that cause Earth’s climate to vary from poles to equator, from coasts to the center of continents, from the Dead Sea or Death Valley depression to the top of Mount Everest or Denali. A still more literate student would understand how the oceans, biosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere – driven by energy from the sun – all work in constantly changing combinations to produce our very complicated climate.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s definition of climate science literacy raises the question of whether climatology is even a science. It defines climate science literacy as “an understanding of your influence on climate and climate’s influence on you and society.”

How can students understand and put into perspective their influence on the Earth’s climate if they don’t understand the myriad of processes that affect our climate? If they don’t understand the complexity of climate itself? If they are told only human aspects matter? And if they don’t understand these processes, how can they possibly comprehend how climate influences them and society in general?

Worse still, many of our colleges are working against scientific literacy for students.

At the University of Delaware, the Maryland and Delaware Climate Change Education Assessment and Research (MADE CLEAR) defines the distinction between weather and climate by stating that “climate is measured over hundreds or thousands of years,” and defining climate as “average weather.” That presupposes that climate is static, or should be, and that climate change is unordinary in our lifetime and, by implication, undesirable.

Climate, however, is not static. It is highly variable, on timescales from years to millennia – for reasons that include, but certainly are not limited to, human activity.

This Delaware-Maryland program identifies rising concentrations of greenhouse gases – most notably carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – as the only reason why temperatures have risen about 0.6°C (1.1º F) over the last century and will supposedly continue to rise over the next century. Students are then instructed to save energy, calculate their carbon footprint, and reduce, reuse, recycle. Mastering these concepts, they are told, leads to “climate science literacy.” It does not.

In the past, I have been invited to speak at three different universities during their semester-long and college-wide focus on climate science literacy. At all three, two movies were required viewing by all students, to assist them in becoming climate science literate: Al Gore’s biased version of climate science, An Inconvenient Truth, and the 2004 climate science fiction disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow.

This past spring, the University of Delaware sponsored an Environmental Film Festival featuring six films. Among them only An Inconvenient Truth touched at all on the science behind climate change, albeit in such a highly flawed way that in Britain, students must be warned about its bias. The other films were activist-oriented and included movies that are admittedly science fiction or focus on “climate change solutions.”

For these films, university faculty members were selected to moderate discussions. We have a large College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment, from which agreeable, scientifically knowledgeable faculty could have been chosen. Instead, discussion of An Inconvenient Truth was led by a professor of philosophy, and one movie – a documentary on climate change “solutions” that argues solutions are pertinent irrespective of the science – was moderated by a civil engineer.

Discussion of the remaining four films was led by faculty from history, English and journalism. Clearly, there was little interest in the substance of the science.

Many fundamentals of climate science are absent from university efforts to promote climate science literacy. For example, students seldom learn that the most important chemical compound with respect to the Earth’s climate is not carbon dioxide, but water. Water influences almost every aspect of the Earth’s energy balance, because it is so prevalent, because it appears in solid, liquid and gas form in substantial quantities, and because energy is transferred by the water’s mobility and when it changes its physical state. Since precipitation varies considerably from year to year, changes in water availability substantially affect our climate every year.

Hearing about water, however, doesn’t set off alarms like carbon dioxide does.

Contributing to the increased focus on climate change advocacy is the pressure placed on faculty members who do not sign on to the advocacy bandwagon. The University of Delaware has played the role of activist and used FOIA requests to attempt to intimidate me because I have spoken out about climate change alarmism. In my article published in Academic Questions, “The University vs. Academic Freedom,” I discuss the university’s willingness to go along with Greenpeace in its quest for my documents and emails pertaining to my research.

Much grant money and fame, power and influence, are to be had for those who follow the advocates’ game plan. By contrast, the penalties for not going along with alarmist positions are quite severe.

For example, one of the films shown at the University of Delaware’s film festival presents those who disagree with climate change extremism as pundits for hire who misrepresent themselves as a scientific authority. Young faculty members are sent a very pointed message: adopt the advocacy position – or else.

Making matters worse, consider Senate Bill 3074. Introduced into the U.S. Senate on June 16 of this year, it authorizes the establishment of a national climate change education program. Once again, the emphasis is on teaching energy and climate advocacy, rather than teaching science and increasing scientific knowledge and comprehension.

The director of the National Center for Science Education commented that the bill was designed to “[equip] students with the knowledge and knowhow required for them to flourish in a warming world.” Unfortunately, it will do little to educate them regarding climate science.

I fear that our climate science curriculum has been co-opted, to satisfy the climate change fear-mongering agenda that pervades our society today. Instead of teaching the science behind Earth’s climate, advocates have taken the initiative to convert it to a social agenda of environmental activism.

Climatology, unfortunately, has been transformed into a social and political science. There is nothing wrong with either of those “sciences,” of course. But the flaws underpinning climate science advocacy are masked by “concern for the environment,” when climate is no longer treated as a physical science.

Climate science must return to being a real science and not simply a vehicle to promote advocacy talking points. When that happens, students will find that scientific facts are the real “inconvenient truths.”

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