Rick Whitbeck: A neighbor weaponizes climate change to drive wedge between parent, child

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By RICK WHITBECK

My son is only eight years old, and already it is time for the talk. 

No, not that talk; a talk that shouldn’t be happening, let alone at this age.

The talk is going to be on how, regardless of the hysteria around its “existential threat,” climate change isn’t anything to be worried about. The world isn’t going to end anytime soon, nor should my son change his happy, helpful, and high-emotional-intelligence-driven demeanor.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time my young son brought up this topic of climate change. First, he saw the character Molly grapple with her clubhouse sinking in the tundra during the animated PBS Kids show, Molly of Denali, which is set here in Alaska. Molly’s grandfather blamed climate change, and my son wanted to know what that was. I told him it was a naturally occurring situation that has happened numerous times throughout history. That appeased him.

Then, over Christmas break, his friends were discussing the tremendous snowfall levels in Anchorage this year, which led to contrasts with this winter versus the extreme heat in 2021. One of his friends’ older siblings told the group his parents blamed climate change for both, and how it wasn’t going to be good for Alaska going forward. We had a brief chat about seasons, and how weather isn’t always the same year after year. Some years have more rain, some have more sun, some are warmer and some are colder. All are beautiful here in our home state.

Don’t get me wrong: kids are naturally curious beings. They should be allowed to debate the issues, especially with each other. But there’s a difference between debate and indoctrination, and that is frustrating as a parent. They’ve led my impressionable son to wonder if his home state is in peril, just as if he’d ask if our pet throwing up means she is seriously sick. To him, without a basis to measure insignificant weather events against real-life catastrophes, questions arise.

Things took a turn last week when his friend’s father told my son that his dad (i.e. me) was helping “ruin” Alaska and “hurtling it toward a climate cliff.” His argument was based on my support for energy workers and advocating for Alaska’s resource-based economy. I verified this with the parent in a tense conversation later that night.

The other parent let me know he takes issue with my job as the Alaska state director for Power The Future. Our organization champions energy workers and fights for more jobs and opportunities, pushing back against the (false) narrative that traditional energy has no place in today’s society. We challenge the idea that there is a binary choice between the environment and responsible resource extraction. 

It was clear that this had not been an in-passing comment by the parent. It was a calculated assault on my son’s innocence, full of hysteria and hyperbole. With the exception of the most ardent green extremists, most well-rounded people know that alarmism doesn’t work, isn’t accurate, and that those preaching their “climate cult” message are actually pushing people away with continuous, Chicken Little-esque fear.  Yet, here was this parent, with an obvious agenda, attempting to both push his belief system on my son, and inflict damage on my trustworthiness as his provider and father.

My son’s questions were accusatory and direct: Why did I hate Alaska? Why was I making money hurting the Earth? Don’t I know Alaska is burning? Why don’t I sell my diesel pickup and buy an electric vehicle, since it is better for the planet?  

The questions haven’t stopped coming. Lots of queries, and so, we’ll have “the talk” about climate, about weather, about how inventions over the past 175 years have made our lives comfortable, compared to Alaskans in past generations. How Alaska is blessed with extraordinary deposits of oil, gas, minerals, precious metals, timber, fish and God-given geography. How Alaskans work every day to safely and responsibly harvest and extract those resources, without ruining the beauty or staying power of our lands, or doing harm to our people.  How those preaching doom and gloom have been doing so for decades, using worst case scenarios to describe situations that invariably do not come to pass. The same people telling us with certainty that Miami will be underwater next decade were saying the same thing about the Maldives in the 1980s.

We’ll talk about how my job isn’t liked by a small-but-vocal group of Alaskans, and how that’s OK. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions in this great country of ours, even those devoid from reality. We’ll talk about my wife and my unconditional love for him and each other, and how we, as a family, don’t need anyone else’s approval to live a happy and robust life.  

We’ll talk about all of that and more, and I will let him know he should never be afraid of a bogeyman called “climate change”, nor of how others’ hysteria around the subject should cause him to stop living his life to the fullest, in the beauty surrounding him daily.  

He’s eight. He’s innocent. He’s happy. He’s the most important person in my life. He’s not going to exist in a state of fear because of something as trivial as a changing cycle of heat, cold, wind and water; regardless of how his friends and their families choose to live. I owe him that, after all.

Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @PTFAlaska.

84 COMMENTS

  1. Bravo!
    When I was in high school many, many, many moons ago, my geography teacher regaled the class with nightmare scenarios of “global cooling”. She announce to all that Europe would be under 20 feet of ice by the year 2000! Well, it was cool that fall, but only a few of our class bought into that story. Then low and behold instead of dying under the ice, global warming made the rounds with the earth burning up (remember Al Gore?) and then there was the ozone layer and the hole in it. Now they got smart and call it simply a change…… Hubris all of it and designed to make all live by the radical ideas of the few. Since most of us have been around before the latest iteration of this nonsense started, fanatics now have to turn to a younger and younger audience to steer them to their not proof-able religion. Children have no basis in experience to gauge the stories they are told, making them easy targets.

        • Wayne, this clown makes up his mind because some no-named geography teacher made a blunder perhaps 50 years ago and then goes on to ridicule her. Since when would a public school geography teacher be considered enough of an expert to do such? I know that you would just laugh this off as some leftist teacher, right? Heheh!

          • But Bill isn’t a teacher a credentialed individual charged with imparting truth and knowledge to the next generation? Sadly she was not the only one, as the “global cooling” scenarios where talked about in the highest circles of government at that time. You just don’t appreciate the fact that not one of those dooms day prediction has held ANY kind of truth and even lowly persons like myself can see that the BS meter is way up there.

          • Taxpayer, teachers are credentialed in their area of study and to think that somehow a geography teacher would be considered as someone who held the truth on “climate change” is very suspect. And the fact that this took place so many years ago, when climate change was not even in its infancy is even more suspect. The burden here is on the school principal and school board to see that these things are not common.
            That said, nothing wrong with parents getting involved if their student comes home with such crap. You thinking this climate change information is “doomsday?”

          • Question for you billy what was the temperature one million years ago ? No guessing tell me what the recorded temp was. We have only recently kept weather records on this rock that is over 4.6 billion years old. By the way scientists recently discovered the earths molten core is changing maybe co got down there.

          • Mark, the topic on here is “climate-change” and temperature at any given time is “weather.” Two entirely different subjects, by the way.
            I’m surprised you know the scientific view on the age of the earth-I would have thought you would be guessing about 6000 years. Heheh!

        • I won’t bother with the troll, but a point to ponder. I’m old enough to remember when and why Earth Day came to be. It was in response to two things.

          -the perceived cooling of the Earth and the impending Ice Age. Magazines, papers, TV shows, commercials touting it were everywhere.

          -the hippie movement was breaking up and they needed something to do. The Soviets were happy to help guide them.

          The Holy Church of Man Made Climate Change has been provably wrong on every single claim they’ve made.

          -We didn’t have an ice age.
          -We didn’t have massive warming.
          -The 4 different “10 years to save the world” have come and gone repeatedly.
          -The planet has recovered from every major oil spill we were told would take generations, if ever, to recover from.
          -The polar bears didn’t die out.
          -The ice caps didn’t melt.
          -The glaciers didn’t disappear.
          -Several species of animals are recovering they said would die off.

          And on and on and on.

          The Holy Church of Man Made Climate Change is a con that has become a doomsday cult. Cults attract weak minds and unstable people. They can’t be reasonable, so don’t bother trying.

          Ignore them or (as in the case of the Karen the article is about) tell them in no uncertain terms to piss off. Or else.

          • “The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, when a United States senator from Wisconsin organized a national demonstration to raise awareness about environmental issues.” This is the beginning of the modern environmental movement.
            Note that nothing is said about any ice age. Like I said earlier total crock MA.

          • LOL, Bill, just because YOU weren’t there doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I was and apparently I am not alone in my experience. Finally the exposure to continuous “sky is falling” predictions that never pan out, drives my skepticism.
            I mean AOC (certainly a stalwart of scientific knowledge and serious research) declared that the earth will end and collapse in 12 oh wait now 10 years…..

  2. “I told him it was a naturally occurring situation that has happened numerous times throughout history.”

    This quote tells you everything you need to know about this article. When scientists refer to climate change, they don’t mean changes to climate over thousands or tens of thousands of years that DID occur naturally. They are referring to the change brought about by anthropogenic sources that have changed climatic processes at a higher RATE than any time prior to modern humans being on the planet.

    If you can’t even grasp the most basic theory behind the issue, how can you better inform your children? It’s like the people that claim that evolution has never happened because they don’t believe we descended from monkey’s. You have to be aware of what the theory states first before having any type of informed rebuttal or critique.

    • cman, you imply you have the ability to “grasp the most basic theory behind issues.” Then you refer to the theory of evolution. Given that theory, kindly explain to us how life itself first came to exist.

      • Why do you think there is a connection between evolution and “how life itself came to exist?” There are theories on how life started but “The Theory of Evolution is one of the best-substantiated theories in the history of science.”

      • At this point science can’t state with certainty how life started on the planet, though there are a number of different hypotheses that I’ve heard about. However, the fact that science hasn’t suitably answered that question isn’t too much of a concern to me, especially given the leaps and bounds of knowledge science has provided in just the last 100 or 200 years. We are much more ignorant now than we were back then because we are at least aware of how much we DON’T know. Evolution doesn’t answer the question how life began, but it has definitively answered how we came to have the diversity of life we now see. Not sure how you got to the question of how life came to exist, but that’s OK. I’m sure science will provide us with excellent theories as to how that could have happened in the coming decades. Thanks for the question!

    • You have your opinion (even though it is wrong) and the father has his opinion!
      Cows burping and farting, volcanos erupting, forest fires, meteors exploding on earth, etc…
      Get a grip are you an Anchorage assembly member?

    • What proof do you have of the “antropogenic source” changes? Observation does not indicate causation. Nice try to ignore prior climate events in earth’s history, because they have inconvenient similarities and do not support your claims.
      Furthermore each parent is entitled to raise their children the way they see the world. Isn’t that what his neighbor does? What gives neighbor dad the right to usurp that right?
      I bet his neighbor would be pretty steamed if his little kid came home and announced that his friend’s dad told him that natural gas is a cleaner more efficient burning fuel compared to what we used to burn and dad needed to get with the facts and stop hurting people, who are cold and freezing…..

    • Perhaps it is you who are being deceived. No one has ever proved that “anthropogenic sources” have “changed climatic process” one iota. The “basic theory” you espouse is easily disproven with the empirical data and facts that seem to escape most who buy into “climate change,” which used to be “global warming,” but when that didn’t pan out, it morphed. The entire belief that we as humans are some sort of blight upon the earth or that we have any control over the weather (and yes, climate is weather), is hubris. And pride goeth before a fall. Before you lecture us all on your superior understanding of the issues, perhaps you could take a peek at actual, you know, data.

  3. A few children’s stories come to mind – “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, The Emperor has No Clothes”, and the afore mentioned “Chicken Little”. The climate cult is just more of the same – history repeating itself as human nature seems to love a good ‘crisis’, real or not. Then the left have learned well how to capitalize on this. It does seem worse than ever these days, bordering even on mental illness in the almost rabid, frantic obsession and delusion. Mr. Whitbeck is far more patient, and articulate, than I. We sure could use a good truthful overview climate resource for common sense parents to have for countering the lies.

  4. “My son is only eight years old, and already it is time for the talk……..”
    Yeah, tough talk, and it covers a whole lot more than Chicken Little and the sky falling down. It is essentially about Propaganda. The Age of the Lie. Trying to explain the reality that every bit of information he comes across for his entire life must be sifted for truth, because the vast majority is either a lie or salted with lies.
    Good luck.

  5. Here are a few tips to deal with the pseudo science climate change liars. 1. Discuss the geo-engineering through chem trails, not contrails and who is doing it and behind it. 2. Carbon dioxide is needed for life, plants take in the co2 and give us oxygen to breathe, a cycle. You reduce co2 you reduce all life. 3. Ask a simple question, have you been physically, not mentally due to propaganda, been anyway affected by our human life styles? Life and lifestyles have improved. 4. Look at the agenda behind the fake aspect of climate change, it is more mind control and control of the worlds resources over humanity, then any real threat to the world. Need more proof of the mind control? The scamdenic, who led the way and pushed it down our throats? Who have died more in two years from the scamdemic then any natural cause? Those who blinly followed. If you do not buy into the scams/control, you are not the problem but the solution to their scams.

    All fearmongering, scaring everyone into submission, compliance is all part of the control that others have or attempt to have over others from cradle to grave. Remember the movie 1984? This time it is worse then the movie because it is all happening to the human race now and is worse then the movies. It is an agenda and nothing more. We are all individuals, not part of the collective. Stay strong in your own knowledge and not by the indoctrinations of the globalists. Globalists are local, just as much as they are around the world.

  6. I remember there was half a dozen of us at a table in art class that were supposed to draw the effects of global cooling. I believe I was nine or ten. Three or four of us decided it would be really cool to hunt woolly mammoth and sabertooth tigers.
    Probably not the pictures she was hoping for but at least we got graded fairly on it I believe.

  7. Al Gore’s “A Convenient Lie” looped in a lot of brainwashable adults, who have tried passing this BS down to the children. It’s in the public schools, the universities, and even in corporate America. The financial cost of this crap is in the $$trillions. Objective science does not support this unnecessary hysteria.

    • When Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” came out, there were only (about) 130,000 glaciers left. Now, 16 years later, that number has dwindled to only (about) 130,000.

  8. Your neighbor is part of the Climate Cult. They seek something to give them purpose and to virtue signal, similar to any other fringe group. It’s their religion; it gets them up in the morning. Regardless of how they try to regulate and indoctrinate, the fat cats who want to throw money at “their” problem will never solve it but they will get richer. Their evasive solution isn’t possible as there is NOTHING a human can do to alter weather patterns (no, I’m not including seeding clouds). One would think that the Farmer’s Almanac would enter into these discussions by such intelligent, self-impressed naysayers but, that would be too convenient. Alaskans need not look further than the Fifties to see similar weather anomalies. In scanning my grandfather’s 35mm slides, I ran into his collection of Fur Rondy race day images from either 1954 or 55. Nothing but gray-ish sludge in the middle of the street and kids on and off the curb wearing red top water boots. I looked up the temps online and this, in part, is what I found: “Women’s race on February 16, 1953, temperature listed as “38°”; January 1, 1953 Preliminary race, temperature: 38°; January 9, 1955 Prelim race, temperature: 40°.” Then, in 1955, we had the record snowfall of 171.6 inches and, on March 17, 2002… 22 inches. In short, we’ve been there and done that. Your neighbor is Chicken Little.

  9. Man made climate change is a scam. Water vapor H20 absolutely dominates CO2 as a green house gas. And we have oceans of water. If we want to end this scam, simply outlaw private jets and make the ELITE leftist fly commercial economy class. Man made global warming will disappear over night.

      • Climate change is a scam. When Al Gore started his crusade he had a net worth of $1.7M. Decades of preaching and he is now worth a rumored $300M. Lots of money in the climate change scare.

      • Billy you have still not answered my question and it’s so easy. Do you use fossil fuels? If so you need to sit out the climate change as according to you you’re directly responsible. We all know you do use them so until you quit and live as a hermit shut up.

  10. Do none of you see the absolute violation described in the story?! The subject of ‘global warming’ has nothing to do with it. An adult decided that Mr. Whitbeck was not teaching his own son ‘correctly! Forget the subject and forget kids talking smak to each other. An ADULT stepped between Mr. Whitbeck and his son! This is something that should be handled above the police/legal system. This needs to be handled between this adult and the child’s parents.

    I do not care what your skin color is, religion, social status, financial status, or who you sleep with, YOU and ONLY YOU are in charge of raising your child. For another adult to even contemplate stepping between you and your child, something at least as bad as abuse needs to be occurring (or about to). Americans seem to be getting soft and not taking care of our families, as in our parents generation thinking that you have any right to dare to speak like that to someone else’s child would most likely result in the fathers ‘steppin’ out back’ where the offender would take his medicine and learn.

    I am an unapologetic, hard core Constitutionalist, and I never hide that fact. But I would NEVER think that I had ANY right to step between the most communist of left wingers and their children. It is up to the parents to raise that child.

    So don’t get hung up on the global warming points (hey, I don’t agree with them either) but concentrate on the greater harm pointed out in the story; interfering in parental responsibilities.

    • Paul, good points. However, every day that elapses after the birth of our children we lose more and more control over their upbringing. We must prepare them for exposure to a broken world. If they are easily led astray that is a poor reflection upon our work as parents. We send our children away for re-programming and brainwashing in kindergarten at the tender age of 5-yrs old.

    • Definitely agree, this is the big thing that jumped out for me as well. Who cares where you come down on issues, it’s an insane thing to do to berate an EIGHT YEAR OLD about what his father does for work and insist that he’s ultimately evil. That is an INSANE thing to do! I am happy to debate my views with anyone, but I would be absolutely LIVID if someone approached my son that way. Totally out of bounds and a violation of the most basic respect of other parents, points of views, and neighbors with whom you may disagree.

  11. Everyone has a right to their opinion nad burn as much carbon as they can afford, the simple truth is the Earth is getting warmer and carbonin the atmosphere is contributing to the warming.Hence if you use less carbon, or sequester carbon you burn, the warming and extreme changes will diminish.

  12. When I was a teen, my homeschool group had to write speeches on a topic we were interested in, then read it on the radio. I chose to talk about the global warming scam and the scientists who proved it wrong. A few days later, I got cornered at the library by the angry liberal neighbor, who then lectured me on open-mindedness.

  13. Might be simpler to figure out how a neighbor is allowed to drive a wedge between parent and child over anything…

    • Its easy. It happens every day in public schools at the hands of leftist teachers and administrators. We are too weak to combine our power and insist upon vouchers. We must live with the consequences.

        • For all practical purposes today, yes, exactly Bill.
          .
          Because for you radical leftists, your political (control) agenda is a religion, or has taken the place of an actual religion. You are cultists and proselytizers, and fanatics who cannot bear to hear opposing opinions or viewpoints, because in your quasi-religious outlook, they are simply heresies that must be attacked.
          .
          The arrogant, intolerant, self-righteous manner in which every one of you radical leftists try to debate and argue here proves my point. You do not in fact argue or debate in any sort of logical manner, you simply hurl insults and ad hominem attacks. That is because you are incapable of logically or ethically defending the absurd mish-mash of self-contradictory, repugnant and authoritarian positions that constitute the typical radical leftist’s political beliefs.

      • Respectfully disagree, Wayne.
        .
        For example, what’s allowed to drive a wedge between mama grizzly and her cub, why is the trait seemingly recessive among modern urban parents?
        .
        No right or wrong answers… are repulsively woke neighbors and school vouchers not two sides of the same problem which is outside the home? If the problem is outside the home, why, in America, is that problem allowed inside the home?
        .
        Do you suppose cultural wedge-driving is tolerated to the same degree among ethnocentric families, among parents who value their children more than their stuff?
        .
        Does the problem seem widespread because modern urban parents are more afraid of losing their stuff than they are of losing their children?
        .
        If, as it seems, Mr. Whitbeck addressed the problem head-on, and taught his child how to think critically -every time- True Believers test their anti-family wedges against his family, then he’s imparted wisdom likely to be around long after he’s gone. Damned fine way of paying it forward, no?

  14. Non of these climate cult fear mongers has no standing until they quit using fossil fuels for their fault life’s. They are hypocrites and fear mongers. Why don’t they tell the government to stop all military fuel use along with sporting events and political rally’s that are wasting fossil fuels. What about the millions coming across the boarder and their carbon footprint. These climate fools have been brainwashed and only want to ban their favorite ideas like gas stoves. The government waste more fossil fuels than most country’s. Where’s the protests ? Hello we are not going to change the climate and that’s ok because we will survive just like are ancestors did . Unless you don’t use fossil fuels then don’t lecture me or my kids on the constant climate change. Yes the climate changes daily.

    • Great points Mark. Notwithstanding nitwits like Bill Yankee, I’m always impressed with the intelligence and logic of commenters at this site. Mr. Yankee, like many climate alarmist Juneauite hypocrites, was opposed to building a road for environmentalist reasons while favoring mainline ferry transportation. One mainline ferry trip from Juneau to Haines burns the same amount of fuel that 4,000 gas-powered cars would have burned on the same journey via road. The ferries only hold several dozen vehicles and don’t have the same type of clean emission systems that cars have, but the climate hypocrites just love them. Juneau’s Patagonia-clad greenie gang got their wish when Bill Walker unilaterally cancelled the road project. Long-range electric vehicles would have further improved the emissions reductions if there was a Juneau access road, but due to the climate activist crowd and Walker, we are stuck with carbon spewing ferries with astronomical maintenance and operation costs. But, people like Yankee feel like they are saving the planet every time they ride the ferry. You just can’t fix stupid…

  15. Rick take your kids out of the public disinformation school system. It is a well know fact the schools are terrible and do not teach the basics. Instead they are focused on woke teaching and more money because the schools are all broke.

  16. Do you have grounds to bring a case against said parent for “Infliction of Emotional Distress” upon your child? It is my understanding that under Alaska law regarding Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress the following needs to be met:

    [Plaintiff] claims that she/he suffered severe emotional distress as a result of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
    In order to find in favor of [plaintiff] on this claim, you must find that it is more likely true than not true that:
    1. [Defendant]’s conduct was extreme and outrageous;
    2. [Defendant] intended to cause [plaintiff] to suffer emotional distress, or acted with reckless disregard of the probability of causing [plaintiff] to suffer emotional distress;
    3. [Defendant]’s conduct caused [plaintiff] to experience severe emotional distress.
    I am not a practicing attorney, so this is for information only; perhaps the burden(s) required by the three above are easier to prove in the case of a child- I do not know. It also sounds that based upon your discussion with the father that he has animosity towards you and used your child as a tool of said animosity.

    • The US Constitution not state constitutions follow and comply with the US Constitution or are void. Since 1871 Ulysses Grant sold us out again to Great Britain and subjugated us to things. A corporation is not a living man. It is a fantasy, a mist, a thing and does not have rights of a living man. A child’s rights follow his father’s rights if any and are otherwise known as a birthright. If his father has civil rights the child’s rights follow his. Is his father a resident, qualified to vote, marry, contract? That is why tending to securing US Constitutional rights and processes due is so paramount. Guess what? Americans have actual enemies in this world who meet regularly and systemically scheme to take our God-given rights and our liberties and assets by subterfuge. These enemies are real and effective and are exactly the same ones as at US’s inception. Typically they are arrogant monarchs and hierarchies who send their privileged offspring here to be educated and Americans are taught what the enemies want American pre-slaves to know. Not much. Alaska’s students are currently scientifically measured as the 47th stupidest and underachieving “students” worldwide.

  17. I will put a dollar on the proposition that the neighbor listens to NPR every day. I would urge that you take steps to deny to this person the privilege of interacting with your child That seems unfortunate but he has crossed the line of civility and respect.

  18. Overdue time he stop viewing molly of denali and t.v altogether. The boy takes molly’s film crew’s idology too seriously, t.v shows are not real. Has this daddy told his boy molly’s not real and Her character doesn’t fully explain why earth is erratic. Unplug your t.v and read more to your kids reading books that reflect your family values. It’ll draw you two closer so next time a condemning adult acts speaks stupid, the son will dismiss the attack against his dad. What the evil one meant for evil. God turns it for good drawing a dad and son closer together. Now unplug that dummy screen. If that critic is “friend” might be overdue unplugging them out of the family.

  19. Keep up the good work, Skippy. The more you expose your son to the truth and to the lies of environmentalists and socialists, the stronger he will become.

  20. When my children were that age, their teacher told them I was a drug addict because I smoked cigars. At the time I was in the military and held a top secret security clearance. I requested my child be removed from that class. Guess that now, you have to remove them from ASD. Not a bad option either. The real reason that ASD is forced to downsize is because more parents are choosing private schools or home schooling, not so much less children. Public schools have become a place for children whose parents cannot afford any options. Indoctrinate the poor. Math and reading secondary objectives. Its about social engineering taught by people that are products of their utopia, and have never worked for a living, and obviously never traveled to anywhere that wasn’t a garden spot. Parents are responsible for the education of their children, a responsibility not to be entrusted to wackos who don’t even acknowledge their gender and think that it is their right to kill a baby if it not convenient for them. And would like to encourage your children to seek out sexual deviances that go against nature. If you can’t afford to send your child to a real school, then don’t be surprised when your child doesn’t turn out the way you expected. Do you send them to school to learn basic skills or because you must work. Or because you trust the institution. Look at how we rank for basic skills, then look at how much we pay for this “education”. Can’t do math, read or write, but knows cars and gas stoves are evil. And gender is elective and we should be proud to be unreceptive to nature. Just don’t take away our electronic devices that support all this.

  21. It seems as if every grifter & low brow is jumping onto the Climate Change bandwagon! I just heard that NOAA, the National Marine Fisheries Service & North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is blaming trawler bycatch on Global warming! Dragging football field sized nets across the crab & salmon grounds can’t possibly be harmful to the marine ecosystem according to their logic. It is much easier to blame the weather!

  22. The climate trolls are out in force. The irony is many of them decry my religion as a fable, while embracing something they know they can’t prove but desperately believe.

    Man made climate change is the religion of the left. Many are zealots who can’t be convinced of anything outside of their divinity and righteousness.

    The holy church of Man Made Climate Change has its tenets, its rituals, and its holy saints. Hell, they even sell indulgences. Currently they are holding their version of a Papal Conclave in Davos.

    Since they lack the ability to think for themselves it’s pointless to talk to them. I’ve literally seen on in Juneau break down into hysterical sobbing because I asked questions she could’ve answer.

    I recommend don’t bother trying.

  23. The climate will really heat up after this vicious administration gets us in a world war and the nukes start flying. I predict a 2000 degree temperature change, that will get things melting. Probably lower the population by 8 billion too.

    The globalist lunatics pushing this climate change bs are using this as a distraction tactic for their financial gain. Wake up people.

  24. At the latest climate change summit by the WEF, over 100 private jets were flown in (the nearest harbor relatively scarce of sailboats). Obama has 2 seaside mega mansions. John Kerry flies all over the world and owns a charger jet business. The hypocrisy knows no bounds with these folks. Do as I say but not as I do…we’re being scammed.

  25. 1977 to 1984 Jonathan Shanklin found a hole in the Ozone layer. Shanklin’s departmental boss, eminent physicist, Joe Farman published it in the science journal Nature in May 1985. In 1995 Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland of the University of California at Irvine, Dr. Mario Molina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dr. Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry yesterday for their pioneering work in explaining the chemical processes that deplete the earth’s ozone shield. They had to go back and revise some numbers because a volcano in the Antarctic seasonaly spewed some chemicals that interrupt the dynamics of the Ozone layer. The research led directly to the 1987 Montreal protocol. This was an agreement to freeze production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances at then current rates. Now the protocol is widely recognised as among the most successful international environmental agreements of all time. The Antarctic ozone hole is slowly healing, although as CFCs have atmospheric lifetimes of 50 years or more, the atmosphere will not fully recover until after 2070, even in the absence of further emissions. But the hysteria continues. Instead of celebrating a international effort that lead to changing a global disaster people decided to use scare tactics to advance personal agendas. The whole thing that started this is healing.

  26. This is life. Everyone understands the importance of teaching children important principles and facts, because that’s when they are the most malleable. This is a scenario very similar to that within our own home, we are having more and more talks with our young son about all the hype around climate change. As scientific professionals, both my spouse and I do our best to relay the basics, and encourage our son to do the critical thinking necessary to evaluate what he sees and hears through coursework and mainstream media. He wants to believe us because we are his parents, so for now, we are winning the battle. He’s a bit older than your son, so we are in a better place. Still, this is a solid reminder for all of us, when speaking with children, especially others’ children, be respectful, keep it real, remember that the best thing we can do for our children is to stick to the facts. Yes I know, now-a-days there seem to be different versions of “facts” floating around through the media and online. It’s certainly a different world than the Webster Dictionary days. All of us must do our due diligence on climate change. There are certainly facts per warming temperatures in portions of our state, and there are also facts pertaining to long-term historical cycles. However, under no uncertain terms can we discount the reality that energy and the availability of the limited new technologies on this front play in our every day lives, especially here in Alaska. I remember the “sky is falling” ozone depletion story, and I know we’ll have more of these in the future. The world is changing. People are part of it. What role we play in wild annual weather fluctuations… eh, the jury is still out. Look back to the deep snow winters and massive moose and caribou population crashes of the early 1970s. Looks pretty similar to our current situation some 50 years later. Just behave folks, give our kids the best tools possible to be critical thinkers going forward.

  27. Simple truth: YOU CAN’T CLAIM TO KNOW MORE THAN THE EXPERTS UNTIL YOU FIRST KNOW EVERYTHING THE EXPERTS KNOW! Study the issues before you misinform you son, friends, and colleagues.

    • You missed the point, the so-called experts are politicized. They don’t know anything anyway, it’s just theory. After all, we missed our deadline when we were to become submerged.

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