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Last updated on May 20th, 2017 at 06:37 am
The New York Times continues its recent series of childhood trauma reports (a trend also observed in the Washington Post and Sydney Morning Herald):
Danny Weingart said he recently spent a week standing outside his middle school with a sign encouraging classmates to ride the bus because of his concerns about global warming. If the more dire predictions come true, he worries that his favorite cities could flood.
His favourite cities presumably include Atlantis.
“Personally, I don’t enjoy swimming everywhere,” Danny, who is 11, said jokingly as he and more than 20 other sixth graders at Seven Bridges Middle School met in a technology classroom at lunchtime to discuss a weekend trash cleanup project.
Fewer than a couple of dozen sixth-graders meet in a classroom. This is sufficient to draw the attention of the New York Times.
Danny belongs to a school club called Kids Against Pollution … For five days, club members car-pooled to the school by 6:45 a.m. and counted the number of cars entering and leaving the parking lot. They held up signs with slogans like “Hop on the Bus, Gus” and “Make a New Plan, Stan.”
Sixth-graders are referencing a Paul Simon tune released 33 years ago? And nobody put them up to this? Give me a break, Jake. By the way, here’s the massive sixth-grade uprising that led to the NYT’s coverage:
A staff of 1,332 sure comes in handy when big news breaks. Sadly, the pre-teen protest didn’t work:
The club fell short of its goal of reducing the number of cars driving to school each day by 50 percent, said Andrew Lafortezza, 11, president of the fifth- and sixth-grade classes. But he said that at a sports practice during the week of the protests, several parents said they had to drive their children to school because the bus did not reach them.
“That really shows that parents are aware of the problem,” Andrew said. “And awareness was another one of our goals.”
Awareness is always the goal when enviro targets aren’t met. Awareness is the participation medal of goals.
The club’s adviser, Mike Debellis, 34, a technology teacher at Seven Bridges for six years, raised the idea of a club to Andrew last October. Andrew responded enthusiastically.
Don’t blame Andrew. His teacher’s message was unbelievably compelling:
Who could resist? An environmentalist frenzy followed:
With a club core consisting of Andrew’s friends, word quickly spread, and pupils were so enthusiastic that Mr. Debellis had to cap membership at around 20 because his classroom was not big enough for all of them to meet during lunch periods.
Why, it’s an apocalyptic vision of catastrophic overpopulation!
Most members said they were worried about global warming. Aaron Kohn, 11, said that he had watched the movie “Waterworld,” about a future in which the polar ice caps have melted and most of the planet is underwater, and then researched on the Internet reasons the earth could flood.
When he read about global warming, Aaron said, he got scared.
He’s not the only one:
Sarah Jane Weil, 11, said she is an animal lover and was upset by predictions that in her lifetime polar bears might become extinct as a result of global warming.
Olivia Sacker, 11, said she used to want to be a veterinarian when she grows up but now wants to be an environmentalist because she is worried about the health of the planet.
Olivia is a future member of the shower police. Happily, not all students are buying into warmtherism:
“A lot of kids blew us off, some even flipped us off,” said Zac Gelfand, 11, the club’s president.
Get used to it, Zac.
These kids are citing one of Costner’s worse movies as a reason for worrying about global warming? Lord, these kids need a new BS meter issued to them, one that works. Or maybe they think that this is a real life documentary?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 05 04 at 02:31 PM • permalink
They held up signs with slogans like “Hop on the Bus, Gus” and “Make a New Plan, Stan.”
Kiss my ass, wuss.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 05 04 at 02:53 PM • permalink
The public schools are racing to see which can create the most new reasons for parents to home school.
Posted by rightwingprof on 2008 05 04 at 03:47 PM • permalink
What leaps to mind are the kids with the plastic baggies in “The Killing Fields.”
Posted by bugscuffle on 2008 05 04 at 04:17 PM • permalink
Typically one sided hit piece by the NYT. Notice who didn’t get any coverage at all?
That’s right, they totally blew off Kid For Pollution.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 05 04 at 04:22 PM • permalink
“Olivia Sacker, 11, said she used to want to be a veterinarian when she grows up but now wants to be an environmentalist because she is worried about the health of the planet.”
Smart girl.
Becoming a veterinarian would actually require years of study in the core “hard sciences.”
Why do that when you can just “become” an environmentalist simply by watching An Inconvenient Truth and caring more about Mother Gaia than callous SUV-driving, polar bear murdering rightwingers like us?
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2008 05 04 at 04:25 PM • permalink
The scariest thing about “Waterworld” is that Kevin Costner still has as career!!!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2008 05 04 at 05:20 PM • permalink
Make these kids walk to school, rain or shine, snow or sleet, one mile or five.
That will put them on a first-name basis with Gaia.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 05 04 at 05:25 PM • permalink
What leaps to my eye is that weird figure in this:
“Mr. Debellis had to cap membership at around 20 because his classroom was not big enough for all of them to meet during lunch periods.”
Teachers are always bitching that budget cuts have led to larger classes, but when I was in school in the 70’s we had AT LEAST 30 kids per class – this was Staten Island, New York, somewhat south of Chappaqua in geography and ready cash. And now they can’t even FIT more than 20 kids in a classroom?
Is this the result of childhood obesity?
#17 That’s right Harry; this project needs a bit of consistency; next nyt’s headline in 30 years time:
Tiny AGW cult lives without power under a rock; unemployed guru, daniel and his 17 children forage for nuts and toilet paper to line their gums. Daniel said through throstbitten lips; “that if mankind doesn’t change its ways, the ice will get even thicker.”
Chuckle we may but the brainwashing and propaganda these kiddies are ruthlessly subjected to has repercussions.
We (at least in Australia) are suffering the repercussions now of enviro-fads and fallacies pumped into primary schools kids in the 50s and 60s. Why haven’t we got one single nuclear power plant in Australia? Because in the 50s and 60s today’s decision-makers were told the world was doomed to a nuclear holocaust.
Why haven’t we got sufficient dam capacity and chronic water shortages? Because in the 60s and 70s today’s decision-makers were taught that dams are bad and only silt up anyway. I can pinpoint when that started: The Aswan High Dam in Egypt.
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 05 04 at 05:55 PM • permalink
- “in the 50s and 60s today’s decision-makers were told the world was doomed to a nuclear holocaust.”
Try the 1980s, when the doomsayer was none other than our Minister for Salvation, the uncoordinated rocker Peter Garrett, then on the outer edge of political extremism.
Hysteria pays in the ALP.As for the terrified little kid’s sign, you sure it wasn’t “Make a New Plan, Satan.”
Did Aaron say flipper the bird???
Posted by andycanuck on 2008 05 04 at 07:39 PM • permalink
- Posted by Margos Maid on 2008 05 04 at 07:42 PM • permalink
One day Danny will realise he was lied to about global warming. He will realise that all the ridicule he copped for standing in the middle of the road with a stupid sign can’t be swept aside just because he was fighting the good fight. Not only did he look like a dork, he was proved to be a dork. The nasty kids who he thought would get their just deserts in the great flood will be living in beachfront mansions abandoned by those suckered into buying a Prius and heading for the hills.
At that point Mr Debellis should be afraid, very afraid.
at some point these kids will figure out that they’ve been had. Carbon dioxide isn’t pollution, it’s a natural byproduct of life. Global warming is not going to wipe out humanity, and the oceans are not rising. Antarctica ice cover is at a record high.
Maybe then they will rise up against their idiotic teachers who set them up for this pointless exercise. Maybe they’ll picket the local school…
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 05 04 at 07:58 PM • permalink
Not only did he look like a dork, he was proved to be a dork.
Embarrassment is part and parcel of being a teenager. If it wasn’t this it would be something else.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 05 04 at 08:01 PM • permalink
Aaron Kohn, 11, said that he had watched the movie “Waterworld,” about a future in which the polar ice caps have melted and most of the planet is underwater…
Well, when I was 15, I saw “Escape from New York”, about a future in which Manhattan has been turned into a maximum-security prison. Instead, Times Square turned into Disneyland.
When he read about global warming, Aaron said, he got scared.
When I saw Adrienne Barbeau’s rack, I got wood. I suggest young Aaron concentrate on tits, like a normal boy.
Give me a break, Jake.
Tim you cynic.People wonder how Lenin/Stalin/Hitler/Mao/Fidel… were able to gain and hold power. The youth were corrupted. Goebbels would be proud that his theories are still been followed.
“The continent of Atlantis was an island which lay before the great flood in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean. So great an area of land, that from her western shores those beautiful sailors journeyed to the South and the North Americas with ease, in their ships with painted sails.”
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 05 04 at 08:41 PM • permalink
How delightful. It’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays for fuckheads.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 05 04 at 09:55 PM • permalink
I will say “I suspect” to simply avoid the libel law suit that the New York Times is not lying, fabricating and inventing a “story”. Of course, maybe I should just go outright and call the NTYT fabricators. Why not. We all know they are.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 05 04 at 09:56 PM • permalink
#31 – I endured 2 and a half hours of that garbage just to catch a glimpse of her chesticles. It was worth it.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 05 04 at 09:57 PM • permalink
Re: The photo. Wouldn’t that be “Kid against whatever..”?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 05 04 at 09:57 PM • permalink
#35 I’d love to pull a Flashman on the little bugger, Infidel Tiger. (Hughes’s or Fraser’s version!)
Posted by andycanuck on 2008 05 04 at 09:59 PM • permalink
The other advantage of capping membership at 20, is to avoid the embarassing fact that no more than twenty silly kids were interested.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 05 04 at 10:00 PM • permalink
Olivia Sacker, 11, said she used to want to be a veterinarian when she grows up but now wants to be an environmentalist because she is worried about the health of the planet.
Somweone should inform this little missy that there is no money to be made as “an enviromentalist”. Unless you can continue heaping B.S upon B.S,
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 05 04 at 10:04 PM • permalink
#31 – I endured 2 and a half hours of that garbage just to catch a glimpse of her chesticles. It was worth it.
Wasn’t there more of them on display in Swamp Thing?
=^D
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 05 04 at 10:44 PM • permalink
- Where’s your head-tilt, Milt?
Mind your own biz, Liz.
Go freeze in the dark, Clark.Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2008 05 04 at 11:50 PM • permalink
#41 Wimpy Canadian: “Someone should inform this little missy that there is no money to be made as “an enviromentalist”.”
I think there’s always a handsome quid to be made out of terrifying idiots and children, and apocalyptic environmentalism is a prime example.
Posted by s.r.intulom on 2008 05 05 at 12:46 AM • permalink
About the age that Danny is in now, boys are bad with hazing. Anything odd is focused upon and ridiculed terribly. I once was subjected to such hazing when I wore a pair of argyle socks.
And poor Danny stood outside meeting cars with a sign telling kids to take the bus? Oh, it’s going to be bad.
(gym class)
Hold him down boys while I give him a whiff of some greenhouse gasses.
pfffffffffffffffffff
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!
Posted by wronwright on 2008 05 05 at 04:50 AM • permalink
When I was a kid, I saw Battlestar Gallactica.
I’ve been waiting for the Cylon onslaught for two decades now, and it still hasn’t appeared.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 05 05 at 06:22 AM • permalink
I asked my 10 year old what he thought about Polar Bears disappearing.
His reply? More seal for me!
*sniff* brought brought a tear to my eye
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2008 05 05 at 08:19 AM • permalink
- #30
“Not only did he look like a dork, he was proved to be a dork.
Embarrassment is part and parcel of being a teenager. If it wasn’t this it would be something else.”Daddy Dave, at least when we were kids the only witnesses to our stupidity were our classmates, family and friends. The internet now makes it possible for millions to stare and laugh.
Olivia Sacker, age 11, wanted to be a vet. Yes, well, so did my daughter when she was aged 11. Now aged 22 she manages a business, has much more sense and no longer wishes to save the world (except for the the 3-legged cat and the blind ring-tail possum that lives in our lilly-pilly tree) I wish I was kidding.
…Mr. Debellis had to cap membership at around 20…
It wasn’t so much that all the kids were worried about the poor polar bears or penguins, but being left out of the newest trend. Everyone wants to
fit in
. Yesterday, I encountered a couple teen girls who were wearing clothing with peace symbols. When asked what their definition of peace was, they were clueless.
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 05 05 at 05:24 PM • permalink
Note to self. Always preview posts.
Andrea, could you, please, get a techie (no doubt from Paco Industries) to look into this. Thank you.
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 05 05 at 05:33 PM • permalink
Don’t these lefties and greenies understand the evil of using schools to inculcate political propaganda and religious beliefs?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 05 05 at 07:23 PM • permalink
Or as they like to be called… Teenage KAPo.