Public School Propoganda

I run a computer lab after shool most days. Yesterday I had the arctic sea ice site up and a couple of students noticed it on my screen. They asked what it was so I explained that during the summer I heard a report that the arctic ice would be gone in a few years so I was keeping an eye on it. When they asked how it was doing I told them it was much better than last year and didn't look like there was a problem. They were surprised, but no wonder. They never hear anything other than the planet is in trouble, us humans are to blame, and we need to fix it.

A teacher friend was in the lab at that time and overheard the conversation. He looked at the screen but then said that the glaciers were still in retreat so the information about the arctic must be inconsequential. I mentioned that the glacial retreat has been going on for the past few centuries and was occurring before there was a United States. That apparently was inconsequential too. He then went on about, of all things, Fox News and political agendas as though bringing up inconvenient truths was somehow sinister.

Another Democrat. Is there some kind of talking point that anything that calls into question the modern orthodoxy must have come from Fox? I didn't get into a further conversation since I was talking to a true believer and no amount of evidence would matter. This is who we have teaching our kids.

UPDATE: The science teacher I spoke with in a previous entry has looked at some of the evidence and was surprised to see that it has some validity. I think it shook him that the conventional view may be wrong. He liked Michael Crichton's speech about aliens causing global warming.