Posted by When I was a kid we would put school plays on for our parents often around religous themes, nativity scenes, Joseph and the technicolour dreamcoat, and, when you were a bit older, Passion plays.
But it would seem that, even at Catholic schools, a different religion is taught today.
Tonight, I went to see my son and his classmates perform “Eddie the penguin saves the world”. Eddie, it would appear, was unlucky enough to have real estate on the 15% of Greenland that has apparently vanished. The polar bears told Eddie that it was the “human beings” that were making it warmer due to their gas-guzzling ways.
So Eddie embarked, with missionary zeal, on a journey to tell the world’s people of their sins and ask them to repent and seek penance. He told the British that they were driving too much. The Americans were guilty of heating their homes, while leaving their windows open (I am not making this up). The Brazilians were chopping down too many trees.
Eddie ended up at the Lodge where he implored our PM to recycle her rubbish.
All of this was set to catchy, rhyming tunes in a cute, juvenile kind of way.
The only thing that was missing was the carbon tax song.
The whole performance was done in a brand, spanking new BER school hall. I hope the tradesmen all used solar-powered drills and the cement was made excusively from wind power.
After the production we all got into our 4wds and drove home to no doubt crank up the central heating on what is a pretty cool spring evening.
My son is 6 years old and the force-feeding of leftist claptrap does get me angry. I am thinking of writing to the school congratulating them on their production and suggesting topics for next year’s propoganda session. Perhaps the moral necessity of a Palestine State and the bitter sweets of Max Brenner.
Still, I think, like all kinds of state indoctrination, it will fail. Both because kids are eventually prone to rebel against lectures from upon high, and because there will be enough parents to offset this rubbish by providing an alternative view.
After the 10 minute ride home, and my lucid explanation of the perils of relying on expensive, intermittent energy sources, while pointing out that both his grandpa and his uncle had jobs in the gas and coal industries, respectively, my son had already picked it up. Getting out of the car he said, “Dad, Eddie didn’t save the world, he just made us all poorer!”
Exactly.
ricardian ambivalence 
We’ll he have to live with it…
un-f#cking-believable and it’s not even my kid. smart kid though!!!
A climate denialism and indeed one who doesn’t know a carbon tax from an ETS.
It is funny how all these so-called free market types believes relative prices have no effect.
Daddy not very well educated.
The final Garnaut report showed beyond doubt that climate change is happening.
Garnaut! What science is he trained in again?
Thanks for 101 on relative prices. They certainly will have an effect. They will make energy more expensive for the billions of people who aren’t us lucky as us.
Notably, Eddie did not visit China, India or Africa. Their likely response would probably not be suitable for a children’s play.
Economics and he provided a lot of material that for example showed the climate is changing in a statistical significant way.
yes increasing energy prices is because the pollution costs will now start to be internalised however given you still have no idea the difference between an ETS and a Carbon tax it will be all lost on you.
How ridiculous. The school needs to understand that policy towards climate change is a live political issue and hence an inappropriate subject for school plays and the like. Thank god I don’t have kids – I would not be able to deal with this. Much better for Catholics to feel guilty about jerking off than using energy.
After reading your piece on Senna, and noting that your kid goes to a Catholic school, surely your son is in far more danger of other forms of indoctrination?
This may be a live political issue, but its certainly not a live scientific issue. In the end, that’s all that matters.
I think you might have mixed me up with the other author of this blog.
https://ricardianambivalence.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/senna/
Don’t think I have written anything about Senna. I was a Mansell fan but still can’t wait to see the movie.
In any case not sure that a Dad who was a Catholic, Senna fan would be all that bad. Could think of a lot of worse.
By the way, don’t agree with you on the science. I think there is still a lot of uncertainty about how much additional warming will come from increased CO2. I might believe in God but I don’t trust models of the climate any more than I trust than I trust models of the economy.
what amazes me about this debate is how many non-scientists have a ‘modern’ view of what science actually is. where by modern i mean ~1900
there’s no trace of Popper in there – and certainly no recognition that there can be debates like this:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/
in fields like physics, where the competing theories actually make accurate predictions!
less can be said for economics and even less for climate models.
as i understand it, the climate models presently come down to your theory about cloud formation – and naturally there is a lot disagreement on this subject.