By Judi McLeod
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Having declared the science of climate change "well and truly over", the Tides Foundation ( www.tidescanada.org), in partnership with the Ontario government, is sending thousands of public high school students home for summer break with a DVD copy of Al Gore's Academy Award-winning An Inconvenient Truth.
Three hundred and two high schools, 140 eco-schools, and 72 school boards in Premier Dalton McGuinty's Ontario were recipients of the DVDs, which are a gift from donors to Tides Canada's Climate Change Solutions Fund, which funds strategic solutions to climate change.
In April, Tides Canada donated DVDs of the film to all 477 public high schools and 60 school boards in British Columbia, making BC the first jurisdiction in North America to have the film distributed to all public high schools.
The BC exercise reached a potential of some 278,000 students.
According to Tides Canada, "the BC distribution stirred up national attention and debate on climate change and the film".
"The debate over the science of climate change is over", said Tim Draimin, Executive Director of Tides Canada Foundation. "We need to focus on innovative ways to respond to the global warming challenge. An Inconvenient Truth helps all viewers--students, teachers, and parents (emphasis CFP's) --think about the long-term implications of our lifestyle and what we need to do to build a sustainable Canada."
Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten shares her support; "We are pleased to partner with Tides Canada Foundation to distribute An Inconvenient Truth to Ontario schools. Today's announcement is moving Ontario forward in the battle against climate change by inspiring students to reduce their environment (sic) impact. We are growing a new generation of environmental leaders in our schools who will help us build a strong Ontario for many generations to come."
Following the Tides Canada announcement of its gift to students, Michael Chernoff, Director of EnCana Corporation, one of the largest independently owned oil and gas companies in the world--offered schools copies of The Great Global Warming Swindle that purports to challenge current climate change dogma.
On its homepage, the Tides Canada Foundation includes a critique in its "An Inconvenient Truth on the Great Global Warming Swindle" section.
"Some of the leading publications in the United Kingdom have reported on the highly questionable credibility of the film," said Tides Canada.
Listed as the first report among "leading publications" panning The Great Global Warming Swindle was David Adam, identified only as "Environment correspondent".
"Dozens of climate scientists are trying to block the DVD release of a controversial Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming is nothing to do with human greenhouse gas emissions. Sir John Houghton, former head of the Met Office, and Bob May, former president of the Royal Society, are among 37 experts who have called for the DVD to be heavily edited or removed from sale. The film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was first shown on March 8, and was criticized by scientists as distorted and misleading."
"I should never have trusted Channel 4", lamented Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Carl Wunsch, one of the scientists who appeared on the film but later said his comments were "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two."
Propaganda in the non-global warming debate seems to be whoever defines it.
Meanwhile, Tides Canada Foundation, Canadian sister to the Tides Foundation a "charity" established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, may have wasted a wad of its donor's money on DVD student distribution.
The graduating class of 2007 is no different than the graduating students of other generations. It's summer, school's out and the film they likely prefer to watch is the real-life one called, "The Great Canadian Outdoors".
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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