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Some American teachers want to drop ‘Huckleberry Finn’ because it contains ‘that word’, despite the scene where Huck seriously decides to go to hell rather than betray his friend back into slavery.

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For those who are wondering, I will not, and have not received any payment for my work or costs. I did not ask for any, nor was any offered. Heartland approached me with a request for permission to print the Handbook, which I was happy to give.

May I recommend a research tool?

http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/about.html

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I notice you conveniently left out Heartland’s record of support from and for the interests of large corporations in your “About” section.

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I found the “Climate Change Literacy brochure” at this address:

http://climate.noaa.gov/education/pdfs/ClimateLiteracyPoster-8.5×11-March09FinalLR.pdf

It is the result of a Bill Clinton presidential initiative with the support of US Congress and their website claims that they have the support of 13 US government departments. More about the initiative here:

http://globalchange.gov/about

When I open page 2 of the “Climate Change Literacy brochure” I read the following:

For at least the last million years, our world has experienced cycles of warming and cooling that take approximately 100,000 years to complete. Over the course of each cycle, global average temperatures have fallen and then risen again by about 9°F (5°C), each time taking Earth into an ice age and then warming it again. This cycle is believed associated with regular changes in Earth’s orbit that alter the intensity of solar energy the planet receives.

The document does not make it easy to track the source of this information, and quite possibly they have multiple sources. However the ice core data shows a peak-to-peak temperature range of closer to 11°C making the above figure seem small by half. Possibly they have evidence of zero temperature swing at the equator so it averages out with the poles, or possibly they measure temperature range in a different manner to the way most people do (the biggest value less the smallest value is the range).

You can see the ice core data here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

(with annoying backwards time axis) or see Joanne’s graph on this blog.

On page 11 of the “Climate Change Literacy brochure”, I see:

Natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere operate slowly when compared to the processes that are now adding it to the atmosphere. Thus, carbon dioxide introduced into the atmosphere today may remain there for a century or more. Other greenhouse gases, including some created by humans, may remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this blog (will search for exact reference if anyone has trouble finding it), the actual measurements of the lifespan of human created CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere tend to be around 10 to 20 years.

Two very suspicious numbers in a relatively short document, and neither of them provides any reference or source (so even Wikipedia would not accept research of this poor calibre).

It took 13 government departments to make this! I shudder at how much money was spent

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