We Lied To Our Children! Now What?

The lack of WMDs brought about cries of "Bush Lied!" from the American Left.  With Climategate and now the admission by Professor Phil Jones that the earth has not gotten any warmer over the past 11 years, it seems that the Consensus about man-made global warming I mean climate change is evaporating.

Too many creators and guardians of the "consensus" desperately wanted to believe in it. As self-proclaimed defenders of science, they should have brushed up on their Enlightenment. "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state," said Voltaire, "but certainty is a ridiculous one."

It would seem, at least to those of us with a little common sense, that this whole global warming nonsense is just that - complete & utter nonsense.  More than that, it is pretty transparent that the drive to "save the world" has more to do with politics than it does with actually living some lifestyle that will benefit our world.  When those telling us to be green fly around on their private jets and attend huge impressive meetings, I can't believe it's taken as long as it has for ordinary Americans to let out a collective, sarcastic, "Wait a minute..." In fact, if we take the approach to this issue that liberals took toward the war in Iraq, we might as well say we've been lied to.  And worse than that, we have lied to our children.  I just had a high school senior tell me today that polar bears are going extinct.  They aren't.  The source? His textbook.

Now there are a few questions we have to take a look at.

1. Do we tell our children their teachers & politicians lied or do we tell them they were duped?
2. Do we have to spend money on new textbooks or should we give the kids Sharpies and help them draw big Xs across the pages that have all that junk in it?

Seriously, though, I do have some questions I think we need to honestly look at in an educational setting.

1. How can we make sure something like this doesn't happen again?
2. What does this mean for our children's & their parents' relationships with teachers?  How trustworthy are teachers to present all sides of an argument or issue fairly?
3. Will teachers be honest & humble enough to use this as a teachable moment about not just trusting one source and not calling deniers, lunatics?
4. Will we use the fallacy of global warming to serve as an example for our approach to other scientific theories, like evolution?
5. What the heck are we going to say to people who still think there is man made climate change?  Should we be nice or just laugh?

I'm proud to be one who never bought into the hysteria, not so much because it wasn't believable, but because of the messenger.  I always had an issue with people (Al Gore, primarily) who thought so highly of human beings' ability to control something like the climate, and even more of an issue with the fact that they thought they were the ones who could formulate a plan to stop it.  It's really silly.  I mean, think about that for a minute.  Thousands of years of human history and they honestly decided they were the ones who could save the world.  It's even more silly when we find out our world doesn't need to be saved, at least not the earth itself.  It's the people who need to be saved, but that's not politically correct.

You know, there used to be a day when people acknowledged God's complete control of the weather.  Actually, there are still a bunch of us.  My family in Indiana still prays that God would water their crops, or make the rains stop.  It would serve our children well if we as adults provide an example of reliance upon God, not reliance upon our own lofty plans.


As educators & parents, what do you think we should do about this hoax?