189 'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'

'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'

(1) Black-clad masked militants - Anarchists or Trotskyists?
(2) Copenhagen "Anarchists" launche cobblestones, explosives and homemade weapons
(3) Copenhagen conference cost as much as the GDP of Malawi - Ian Plimer
(4) Gore refuses ClimateGate questions; UN official disconnects microphone
(5) Gore refuses to answer "climategate" questions; UN security stops journalist
(6) Bjorn Lomborg: Climate Change and 'Climategate'
(7) 'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'
(8) "Help finance family planning in developing countries"
(9) Copenhagen: Does China still deserve special treatment as a "developing countrey"?
(10) India demands £120bn climate change fund paid for by the West
(11) Prince Charles campaigns to save historic hutongs (narrow streets & traditional houses) of Beijing
(12) Prince Charles attacks modern teaching: all technique, no substance

(1) Black-clad masked militants - Anarchists or Trotskyists?

From: Charles F Moreira <moreira_charles@yahoo.com.sg> Date: 15.12.2009 04:57 PM

Just because black-clad protestors in Australia are led by Trotskyists, it   does not mean that those elsewhere are Trotskyisys or Trotskyist led.

After all, black is the Anarchist colour or at least one of them.   According to Wikipedia:-

"The black flag, and the color black in general, have been associated with   anarchy since the 1880s. Many anarchist collectives contain the word   "black" in their names. There have been a number of anarchist periodicals   titled Black Flag"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#Black_flag

Anarchists are enemies of Trotskyists or Stalinists in that the Anarchists   don't believe in a state, even a workers' state, whilst the Trotskyists   and Stalinists do.

Anarchists believe in direct action, as is evident by their violent   actions in Copenhagen and elsewhere, whilst Trotskyists and Stalinists   believe in organised, collective violent action when the time is right and   not randomly. So I can hardly imagnine Anarchists wilfully following   Trotskyist or Stalinist leadership.

Anyway, if these protestors demand action on climate change, they, much   like the delegates at the conference and are practically on the same side   and it's not as if the Anarchists here oppose the concept of global   warming,so I why the violence.

Reply (Peter M.):

No, the demonstrators in Australia were not wearing black, or masked. But note the following webpage, which pretty much follows a Trotskyist agenda:

http://flag.blackened.net/blackflag/

Black Flag: For a social system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation - against state control and all forms of government and economic repression. To establish a share in the general prosperity for all - the breaking down of racial, religious, national and sex barriers - and to fight for the life of one world.

(2) Copenhagen "Anarchists" launche cobblestones, explosives and homemade weapons

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/copenhagen-protest-turns_n_389893.html

Copenhagen Protest Turns Violent, Hundreds Arrested (VIDEO)

Updated: 12-12-09 02:28 PM

COPENHAGEN, December 12th--Anarchists launched cobblestones, explosives and homemade weapons during an an otherwise peaceful protest at the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen. The crowd, a reported 50,000 including young children, moved without violence until an unidentified anarchist group of several hundred--most covering their faces with ski masks and hoods--began to converge, shooting explosives at nearby buildings and police. One homemade cannon launched cobblestones over the crowd, breaking the window of a nearby police van.

Environmental reporter Olivia Zaleski and filmmakers Gabriel London and Peter Buntaine were on the scene--watch their footage below:

Immediately following the explosions, peaceful protesters dispersed for a time as riot police moved in to secure the area. So far, Danish police have confirmed 400 arrests related to the incident, but they expect more violence and further arrests throughout the evening and into the night.

Watch continuing reports on COP15 from environmental reporter Olivia Zaleski and filmmakers

(3) Copenhagen conference cost as much as the GDP of Malawi - Ian Plimer

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2771811.htm

15 DECEMBER 2009

The Copenhagen charade

IAN PLIMER

Two Copenhagen climate conferences took place last week. The UN Copenhagen conference was attended by politicians, 16,500 bureaucrats, thousands of journalists, activists and NGOs. Hundreds of limos, over 100 private jets and huge amounts of energy were expended by more than 30,000 attendees. Many of the attendees were ascientific agitators with a political agenda.

Australia's prime minister had a Copenhagen photo opportunity whistle stop in his dedicated jet and expended more fuel on this trip than the Arkaroola Wilderness Resort does in a year. Your taxes payed for 114 Australian bureaucrats to attend this junket yet some 71 UK delegates attended.

The UK Taxpayers' Alliance calculated the conference cost as much as the GDP of Malawi. If such funds were used to provide electricity and drinking water to Malawian families, then land clearing, wood and dung burning and disease would decrease. Now, that would have been true environmentalism!

The carbon footprint of these moralising folk, most of whom are self-appointed, is astronomical. Never fear, their great sacrifices are saving the planet. Saving us from wanton energy expenditure, hypocrisy, blackmail and irrationality at Copenhagen would be a good start.

I attended the Copenhagen Climate Challenge Conference. It was about the science of climate. Speakers were scientists, lawyers and environmentalists.

World sea level expert Professor Nils-Axel Mörner presented data from his 40 years of research on island states. In the Maldives, sea level rose 50cm in the 17th Century, dropped below the present level in the 18th Century, rose 20cm between 1790 and 1970, dropped 20cm in the 1970s and has been stable for the past 30 years.

I showed that there have been six major ice ages in the history of time and each commenced when carbon dioxide was far higher than now. Why was it cold and not warm in past times of high carbon dioxide? Professor Cliff Ollier, from the University of Western Australia, showed that glaciers flow uphill and wax and wane. Adjacent glaciers in Alaska advance and retreat showing that ice sheet changes are complex. Furthermore, the evaporation of steam from ice at African and South American glaciers has resulted in the retreat of glaciers yet temperatures are less than zero. Again, retreat and advance of ice is very complicated and, in some places, may be related to changing land use. Other papers dealt with the Sun, cosmic rays and energy.

The challenge from the Copenhagen scientific conference is: Prove that human emissions of carbon dioxide drive modern climate change. This has never been done. And while you are about it, please explain why there was a 600 year Roman Warming and a 400 year Medieval Warming at times of no major industry and when temperature was much higher than the most sensationalist IPCC future temperature speculations.

Why do records from 89 per cent of the US climate monitoring stations not even meet the US reporting requirements? And why has the keeper of the records, the UN's IPCC scientists at the University of East Anglia, just happened to have "lost" records, amended data, created data ex nihilo and engaged in mafia-type thuggery to avoid contrary science being heard? It is this non-robust science that underpins the Copenhagen climate conference charade.

The conference I attended used science to understand the past, present environments and pollution. This was essentially unreported because journalists are scientific illiterates and this is not sensational news.

The other conference, the UN's political conference, is about the redistribution of your money through sticky fingers.

(4) Gore refuses ClimateGate questions; UN official disconnects microphone

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598333184878524.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Wall St Journal DECEMBER 15, 2009, 3:43 P.M. ET

Gore Refuses ClimateGate Questions

And a UN official disconnects the mic.

By NOEL SHEPPARD

From the Media Research Center

United Nations security officials have once again prevented a journalist from asking attendees at the climate change conference in Copenhagen questions about the growing ClimateGate scandal.

This time, the person on the receiving end of the apparently forbidden queries was Nobel Laureate Al Gore.

Much as when Ireland's Phelim McAleer tried to ask Stanford professor Stephen Schneider questions Thursday about the controversial e-mail messages obtained from the British Climatic Research Unit last month, McAleer was similarly rebuffed by Gore and his entourage Monday.

Not only did the former Vice President completely refuse to answer questions about his blatant misrepresentations of the age of the most recent e-mail message obtained from Britain's CRU, a U.N. security official actually disconnected McAleer's microphone to make sure any answers would be unrecorded.

As reported by Not Evil Just Wrong Monday:

In several recent interviews the former vice president said that the Climategate emails were "sound and fury signifying nothing...the most recent one is more than 10 years old."

However the reality is that the most recent email from Climategate is less than two months old. The emails undermine the science of Climate Alarmism and that is why the alarmists are so reluctant to address them or like Mr Gore they make factually incorrect statements about how relevant they are.

Mr. Gore says he cares a lot about science and scientific accuracy. His whole theory of Climate Alarmism depends on it but today at the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference he refused several opportunities to correct the record when asked about his errors by journalist and film maker Phelim McAleer. Instead his Press Secretary grabbed McAleer's microphone to stop questions being put to the vice-president.

Have U.N. security officials been instructed to prevent journalists from asking climate realists uncomfortable questions?

Consider what happened when McAleer tried to ask Gore confidant Dr. Schneider about ClimateGate days earlier.

This is some scary stuff, folks.

Yet, according to LexisNexis, the only major media outlet to report the Schneider incident was the Washington Times.

Will this episode go similarly ignored?

More importantly, will Gore EVER have to answer questions concerning the falsehoods he continually spreads?

For accompanying videos, visit newsbusters.org.

(5) Gore refuses to answer "climategate" questions; UN security stops journalist

http://www.examiner.com/x-20909-Columbia-Independent-Examiner~y2009m12d15-Gore-refuses-to-answer-climategate-questions-UN-security-stops-journalist-again

VIDEO: Gore refuses to answer "climategate" questions, UN security stops journalist again

December 15, 2:31 PM Columbia Independent Examiner Darren

Last week Phelim McAleer, a journalist and film maker was prevented by armed UN security guards from asking a Stanford University professor questions on climategate. Yesterday it happened again.

This time McAleer was attempting to give former Vice President Al Gore an opportunity to correct the record on the "climategate" emails after he delivered a speech at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. During a recent interview Gore said the emails were ten years old and therefore irrelevant. In fact some of the most incriminating emails were written only about two months ago.

Gore refused to answer McAleer's questions as he was leaving the conference. As Gore's entourage walked along with McAleer in tow, Gore's Press Secretary grabbed McAleer's microphone saying, "We're not doing interviews." A UN security guard then pulled the cord from the mic.

Gore has repeatedly refused to answer questions from reporters about his views on climate change. McAleer had his mic cut at a recent speech Gore gave when McAleer attempted to ask the former VP questions.

During Gore's speech he claimed that the polar ice cap in the Arctic will completely disappear during the summer within 5-7 years.

"These figures are fresh," said Gore. "Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

But Dr. Maslowski quickly distanced himself from Gore's assertion.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

It is clear that Gore has zero credibilty when it come to climate change. Yet he remains the figurehead of the movement. If that's not enough to cast doubt on the entire theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, then I've got a tropical island off the coast of Greenland I'd like to sell you.

(6) Bjorn Lomborg: Climate Change and 'Climategate'

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com>  Date: 15.12.2009 03:49 AM

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/12/137_57240.html

12-14-2009

Climate Change and 'Climategate'

By Bjorn Lomborg

COPENHAGEN - Thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, and environmental activists have gathered in Copenhagen for the COP15 global climate summit with all the bravado - and self-regard - of a group of commandos who are convinced that they are about to save the world.

And, although the political differences between them remain huge, delegates are nonetheless congratulating themselves for having the answers to global warming.

The blustery language and ostentatious self-confidence that fill the Bella Center here remind me of a similar scene: Kyoto, 1997.

There, world leaders actually signed a legally binding deal to cut carbon emissions - something that will elude the Copenhagen summit-goers. But what did the Kyoto Protocol accomplish? So far, at least, virtually nothing.

To be sure, Europe has made some progress toward reducing its carbon-dioxide emissions. But, of the 15 European Union countries represented at the Kyoto summit, 10 have still not meet the targets agreed there. Neither will Japan or Canada.

And the United States never even ratified the agreement. In all, we are likely to achieve barely 5 percent of the promised Kyoto reduction.

To put it another way, let's say we index 1990 global emissions at 100. If there were no Kyoto at all, the 2010 level would have been 142.7.

With full Kyoto implementation, it would have been 133. In fact, the actual outcome of Kyoto is likely to be a 2010 level of 142.2 - virtually the same as if we had done nothing at all. Given 12 years of continuous talks and praise for Kyoto, this is not much of an accomplishment.

The Kyoto Protocol did not fail because any one nation let the rest of the world down. It failed because making quick, drastic cuts in carbon emissions is extremely expensive.

Whether or not Copenhagen is declared a political victory, that inescapable fact of economic life will once again prevail - and grand promises will once again go unfulfilled.

This is why I advocate abandoning the pointless strategy of trying to make governments promise to cut carbon emissions. Instead, the world should be focusing its efforts on making non-polluting energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels.

We should be negotiating an international agreement to increase radically spending on green-energy research and development - to a total of 0.2 percent of global GDP, or $100 billion a year. Without this kind of concerted effort, alternative technologies simply will not be ready to take up the slack from fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, the COP15 delegates seem to have little appetite for such realism. On the first day of the conference, United Nations climate change chief Yvo de Boer declared how optimistic he was about continuing the Kyoto approach: ``Almost every day, countries announce new targets or plans of action to cut emissions," he said.

Such statements ignore the fact that most of these promises are almost entirely empty. Either the targets are unachievable or the numbers are fudged.

For example, Japan's pledge of a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 sounds incredible - because it is. There is no way the Japanese could actually deliver on such an ambitious promise.

China, meanwhile, drew plaudits just before the Copenhagen summit by promising to cut its carbon intensity (the amount of CO2 emitted for each dollar of GDP) over the next 10 years to just 40-45 percent of its level in 2005.

Based on figures from the International Energy Agency, China was already expected to reduce its carbon intensity by 40 percent without any new policies. As its economy develops, China will inevitably shift to less carbon-intensive industries.

In other words, China took what was universally expected to happen and, with some creative spin, dressed it up as a new and ambitious policy initiative.

Then again, spin always trumps substance at gatherings like this. Consider how quick the Copenhagen delegates were to dismiss the scandal now known as ``Climategate" - the outcry over the release of thousands of disturbing emails and other documents hacked from the computers of a prestigious British climate-research center.

It would be a mistake not to learn lessons from this mess. Climategate exposed a side of the scientific community most people never get to see. It was not a pretty picture.

What the stolen emails revealed was a group of the world's most influential climatologists arguing, brainstorming, and plotting together to enforce what amounts to a party line on climate change.

Data that didn't support their assumptions about global warming were fudged. Experts who disagreed with their conclusions were denigrated as ``idiots" and ``garbage."

Peer-reviewed journals that dared to publish contrarian articles were threatened with boycotts. Dissent was stifled, facts were suppressed, scrutiny was blocked, and the free flow of information was choked off.

Predictably, the text of the more than 3,000 purloined emails have been seized on by skeptics of manmade climate change as ``proof" that global warming is nothing more than a hoax cooked up by a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals. And this is the real tragedy of ``Climategate." Global warming is not a hoax, but at a time when opinion polls reveal rising public skepticism about climate change, this unsavory glimpse of scientists trying to cook the data could be just the excuse too many people are waiting for to tune it all out.

What seems to have motivated the scientists involved in Climategate was the arrogant belief that the way to save the world was to conceal or misrepresent ambiguous and contradictory findings about global warming that might ``confuse" the public. But substituting spin for scientific rigor is a terrible strategy.

So, too, is continuing to embrace a response to global warming that has failed for nearly two decades.

Instead of papering over the flaws in the Kyoto approach and pretending that grand promises translate into real action, we need to acknowledge that saving the world requires a smarter strategy than the one being pursued so dogmatically in Copenhagen.

Bjorn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of ``Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming." For more stories, visit Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times

(7) 'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'

Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of Economics.

By Richard Pindar
Published: 12:05PM BST 09 Sep 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6161742/Contraception-cheapest-way-to-combat-climate-change.html

Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.

The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.

If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total.

Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, said: “It’s always been obviously that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions – the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down as we want, while the population keeps shooting up.”

UN data suggests that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 million.

The research is published on the day that the Government’s climate change advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned households and industry that a planned 80 per cent reduction in emissions are likely to prove insufficient.

(8) "Help finance family planning in developing countries"

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/

Optimum Population Trust
Towards environmentally sustainable populations

Concerned about the speed of global warming?
About food, water and energy scarcity - the effects of overpopulation on a plundered planet?
About the UK's failure to stabilise its own population?

Support the Optimum Population Trust
Support research into optimum population sizes
Campaign for a lower population in the UK.

Read the report: Fewer emitters, lower emissions, less cost by Thomas Wire.

World population is projected to rise from today's 6.8 billion to 9.15 billion in 2050.*  The World Population Clock is ticking.  We are rapidly destabilising our climate and destroying the natural world on which we depend for future life.

OPT launches PopOffsets - the world's first carbon offset scheme supporting family planning
Help finance family planning in developing countries - a better way to offset your carbon emissions.

(9) Copenhagen: Does China still deserve special treatment as a "developing countrey"?

Summit Is Seen as U.S. Versus China

By JEFFREY BALL

DECEMBER 14, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126074144005789473.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

COPENHAGEN -- The political script for a big climate-change conference in this Danish city has U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders flying in later this week to christen a new era of global environmental cooperation. In reality, the summit is shaping up as a pivotal economic showdown between the U.S. and China.

He Yafei, Vice foreign minister of China, briefs the media during the the first week of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The International Energy Agency projects that nearly all the growth in global greenhouse-gas emissions over the next two decades will come from developing countries -- and that fully half of that total will come from China alone. A central point of contention here is whether China, amid all its newfound economic might, still deserves billions of dollars in annual aid from the U.S. and Europe to help it shift to a cleaner pattern of growth.

China says the answer is yes. He Yafei, China's vice foreign minister, said on Friday that rich nations, which built their prosperity on fossil fuels, are like people who go out for a fancy dinner and then, when a poor guest arrives late for dessert, demand that he pay the same bill for his meal as everyone else.

"It's not fair," Mr. He said. "Whoever created this problem, they're responsible," he said. Although he said the European Union had largely lived up to its emission-reduction promises, he singled out the U.S. several times by name as a country that hadn't done its share.

Mr. He is arguing that not much has changed since the late 1990s, when the basis for the current United Nations-led international framework designed to combat global warming—a treaty called the Kyoto Protocol—was negotiated. Kyoto called on industrialized countries to cut their own emissions and help developing countries with subsidies to promote cleaner technologies, such as energy-efficient cars and solar panels.

But the U.S. argues China no longer deserves special treatment. Though poorer developing countries still need Western help to nurture clean-energy technologies, China is different, Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate negotiator, told a news conference here last Wednesday. "I don't envision public funds—certainly not from the United States—going to China," he said. "There is no way to solve this problem by giving the major developing countries a pass." ...

Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com

(10) India demands £120bn climate change fund paid for by the West

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5888583/India-leads-demands-for-120bn-climate-change-fund-paid-for-by-the-West.html

India leads demands for £120bn climate change fund paid for by the West

India has demanded that the West pay developing countries £120 billion a year in exchange for their help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor
Published: 6:17PM BST 22 Jul 2009

The Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh: India has demanded that the West pay developing countries £120 billion a year in exchange for their help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Photo: AP

In a proposal that appears to have astonished Western officials, the Indian government suggested that the price of co-operation would be for industrialised countries to pay at least 0.5 per cent of their GDP to help developing nations invest in cleaner renewable sources of energy and reduce their carbon emissions.

While the size of the demand was dismissed by US officials as unrealistic, Gordon Brown has proposed industrialised countries contribute to a £60 billion fund to help the developing world play its role and said Britain would pay "its fair share".

But Indian ministers have been particularly forceful on the issue. They have warned they will not allow international inspections of how the Asian powerhouse is meeting reduction targets unless Western countries pay an even greater 0.8 per cent of the GDP to fund what they call "mitigation and adaptation" – compensation for the West's historic role in contributing to global warming, and the cost of changing over to green technologies.

The Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, accused the West of causing global warming on the eve of the G8 summit earlier this month. "What we are witnessing today is the consequence of over two centuries of industrial activity and high consumption lifestyles in the developed world. They have to bear this historical responsibility," he said.

He believes that added responsibility must be met with cash and a more liberal approach to technology transfers to help the developing world limit its emissions.

India has come under intense pressure in recent days from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama's climate change envoy, Todd Stern, who met ministers in New Delhi.

Mrs Clinton warned that India's economic growth means its emissions will rise by 50 per cent over the next 20 years if it does not take drastic action.

India's hope that countries like the US and Britain will fund that action were dashed when Mr Stern dismissed the sum being demanded as "astronomical" .

(11) Prince Charles campaigns to save historic hutongs (narrow streets & traditional houses) of Beijing

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/2078731/Prince-of-Wales-to-save-historic-buildings-in-China.html

Prince of Wales tries to save historic buildings in China

The Prince of Wales has launched an unlikely campaign to save an historic district of Beijing from demolition.

By Martin Beckford
Published: 10:26AM BST 05 Jun 2008

In what will be seen as another of his many snubs to the Chinese government, he is using his architecture foundation to try to preserve dozens of pre-Communist buildings which face being bulldozed.

The prince has never been to China and once described its leaders as "appalling old waxworks". He is refusing to attend this summer's Olympic Games and just last month hosted a meeting in London with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who is a great enemy of the Chinese government.

In the latest move, the prince is asking China's leaders to think again before going ahead with the redevelopment of Da Shi Lan, an old quarter of the capital city near Tiananmen Square.

He wants them to preserve the remaining hutongs - narrow streets linking low-rise courtyard homes - and build new houses in the same traditional layout instead of high-rise tower blocks.

A spokesman for the prince said: "Through his links with China the prince learned about the hutong housing being lost amid all this rapid development and he has offered his foundation's help."

But he insisted: "It is not about criticising Chinese development per se, just about ensuring vulnerable heritage is not lost."

The prince heard about the threat to the ancient streets, some of which date back hundreds of years, when a group of Chinese businessmen visited him at Clarence House last year.

Designers at his Foundation for Architecture and Urbanism are now working with academics at Beijing's Tsing Hua University to save the remaining parts of of Da Shi Lan and have already met local town planners.

They are looking at ways of reducing overcrowding in the teeming alleyways, and building new environmentally friendly homes which do not require air conditioning.

Hank Dittmar, chief executive of the prince's foundation, added: "China is being sold the hi-tech model of development and we think there is a model with which works with the local character of Chinese planning to achieve sustainability. We want them to consider that too."

(12) Prince Charles attacks modern teaching: all technique, no substance

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/2116733/Prince-of-Wales-in-attack-on-modern-teaching.html

Prince of Wales in attack on modern teaching

The Prince of Wales has launched an attack on trendy teaching methods which promote skills over traditional subject knowledge.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Published: 2:05PM BST 12 Jun 2008

A document published by The Prince's Teaching Institute said pupils may be failing to understand key issues - such as climate change and population growth - as subjects "take second place" in the classroom.

Children's access to a "balanced curriculum" has also been eroded by the influence of tests and league tables, it is claimed.

The comments were made ahead of a week-long course being staged by the Prince to encourage teachers to rediscover their passion for subjects.

The summer school - launched in 2002 - has previously focused on the teaching of English, history and science, although geography has been added for the first time this year.

Writing in a guide being sent to teachers, the Prince says: "Finding solutions to problems like the effects of climate change and population growth, and how to make agriculture sustainable, is essential to our future; but it is also difficult and contentious, requiring sound knowledge, intellectual rigour and wise judgement."

But the charity fear that a preoccupation with teaching skills, such as team-building and problem solving, may be undermining children's understanding of geography. The Prince has previously warned that the "voguish'' drive towards fashionable teaching had "denied youngsters an understanding of their place in history''.

The guide says: "No-one who has spent any time in a classroom will undervalue the importance of knowing how to teach, as well as what should be taught.

"But, as teachers at previous summer schools have discussed, an over-emphasis on methodology and skills can cause difficulty; it can mean losing sight of the fact that good teaching is about communicating with enthusiasm and passion what lies at the heart of our subjects."

He set up the Prince's Teaching Institute to give staff year-round access to help and master-classes. Last year, it was announced his charity would accredit staff who give pupils a firm grounding in literature and history as part of a new reward scheme. Teachers accepted onto the programme can use a logo bearing his feathers on departmental letterheads and websites.

His residential summer schools - staged at Cambridge University - have been seen as a key part of the charity's work, allowing teachers to discuss and share ideas.

A guide welcoming teachers to the event says: "It is not always easy for them to do so. For the centrality of subject knowledge is not universally considered a priority in the drive to raise standards in schools and, it has been argued, it has too often taken second place to a concern with teaching methodology and skills."

Bernice McCabe, course director and headmistress of fee-paying North London Collegiate School, Edgware, said: "The summer schools provide a forum for the exploration of subject issues. We concentrate on academic content rather than teaching skills or methodology. The aim of the summer schools is to return teachers to the classroom with a revitalised passion for their subject which, in turn, will help to inspire pupils."

She said geography had been added to the course to reflect the popularity of television programmes about wildlife and the environment.

"This suggests that there is a thirst for knowledge of geography just as there is curiosity about science, engineering and medical advances," she said.