Rep. John Sarbanes says more environmental education in public schools will promote the agenda of climate change and population growth.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Greenland, glaciers, global warming

Glaciers and icebergs in Greenland, as seen in August 2005. (AP File Photo/John McConnico)

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com at a "Sustainability Education Summit" hosted by the U.S. Education Department on Tuesday that environmental education in schools can "promote the agenda" of climate change and population growth through the influence it has on children.

“Like I keep saying over and over again, if you get young people invested in those ideas early on, that will result in those kinds of positive policy developments," Sarbanes told CNSNews.com. "So, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s population growth, whether it’s all these factors that impact the health of our world, raising that awareness early among young people is only going to promote the agenda.”

CNSNews.com interviewed Sarbanes after he spoke at a U.S. Department of Education event--"Sustainability Education Summit: Citizenship and Pathways for a Green Economy"--hosted by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Sarbanes also said; “If we can provide them with a framework and help promote educational opportunities, in the beginning as I said, at the earliest stages, they’ll just grab hold of it and take it from there. So in a sense it’s a wonderful partnership where the adults can create this policy framework and help support it with grant funding and other kinds of initiatives and then the young people are going to take that, and they’re the ones that are really going to push it to the next level.”

When asked if students should be taught that global warming is a threat, Sarbanes said: “If you’re promoting outdoor education, building that into educational programming, they [students] can’t help but understand about climate change because they’re going to see the effects of it. They’re going to go to a local science center , right, and they’re going to learn about the effect that global warming is having right in their own communities.

“I mean, for example, the National Audubon Society has an initiative now where they are highlighting the fact that state birds all across the county are actually migrating out of the states that they’re the state bird of because the climate is changing," said Sarbanes. "Well, a young person’s going to understand that if they are engaged in environmental education. So, it’s going to raise that awareness of climate change that, in turn, I think, can make them stewards, stakeholders in policy changes we have to make to try to address climate change going forward and so, another wonderful result that you can yield if you do this environmental education.”

John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology co-authored an essay for the World Bank on "The Meaning of Sustainability" that said that human race must face up to a “world of zero net physical growth,” reduce material consumption and limit population growth. CNSNews.com asked Rep. Sarbanes if he thinks those ideas would help the U.S. economy.

“I think the more you focus on the environment, the need to preserve the environment, protect the environment, the more it’s going to lead to sensible policies going forward,” he responded.

Rep. Sarbanes continued, “Sure, there’s so much we can do in terms of reducing our consumption of natural resources and that’s the lowest hanging fruit right? To implement conservative measures and so forth and again young people are in a position to help drive that new way of thinking.”


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he of Sarbanes-Oxley fame. Keep it up, this kind of rhetoric should help fuel the retirement of even more Democrat lawmakers. What they need to be schooled in dear congress person is the three R's. Our public school system compares poorly on a global scale. Most college freshman are now routinely given remedial math and grammar courses because they do not learn it in high school. and they learn nothing of our country's history and the free enterprise system.

Chinese COMMUNISM, advocated by TRAITORS.

HITLER had a similar goal, to wipe out POPULATIONS and purify the Aryian NAtion

Agreed, itll just go to show how insane and dangerous these people are, and fuel their demise. One way or the other.

Try telling this to the people that they intend to take children away from!

Sarbanes wants to indoctrinate our children similar to how the Soviet Communists tried to indoctrinate their children to believe in atheism.

Sarbanes is just fishing for an appointment to the Department of Propaganda.

I had no idea that state birds weren't honoring their formal commitment to live only in the state they are assigned to. How dare they defy the state's decrees. Perhaps we should force them to carry an ID card declaring their assigned state. But wait, it would probably be illegal to ask them to show their card...what to do, what to do...

When you pay attention to nuts you get nuts. I am old but long ago we used to put people like that in the insane asylum.

This observation of state birds defying their government decrees, reminds me of the claims back in 2007 that global warming caused the first two hurricanes to form one week before the start of the 'official' hurricane season (May 1). How dare those hurricanes to violate the man-made hurricane season schedule. Someone needs teach the hurricanes how to read the calendar.

AGENDA. Yes, thats EXACTLY what it is, it has nothing to do with SCIENCE.

Gotta watch for these Liberal code words and phrases.

I thought it was changed (again) to Climate Disruption or some nonsense like that. Will the Left ever get their story straight?

As crazy as he sounds, there are plenty of tree-hugging liberals that echo his sentiments.

It is scary to realize that there is a segment of the American public that wants to indoctrinate our children, curtail population growth through government regulation, and use our tax dollars to subsidize alternative energy sources that aren't viable.

We, as conservatives and as Americans, must continue to argue against these loons and their agendas, educate our kids to recognize liberal BS, and urge like-minded people to get out and vote.

I love it! Dems see the need to limit population but exsrcise a double standard to make illegals voters. Mexico won't do a thing about their exploding population as long as they can export the excess to us.

If they have to discuss "climate change", it'd be good if they also discussed HAARP, the secret operation that might be responsible for some of that change.

Fair is fair!

YES ! THE EARTH GOES THROUGH TEMPERATURE CYCLES ! She is female !
NO IT IS NOT SOMETHING AL GORE OR OBUMBLES CAN CONTROL !
In the mid 19th century, James Croll, a self-taught British amateur scientist, published calculations of how the gravitational pulls of the Sun, Moon, and planets subtly affect the Earth's motion and orientation. The inclination of the Earth's axis and the shape of its orbit around the Sun oscillate gently in cycles lasting tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. During some periods the Northern Hemisphere would get slightly less sunlight during the winter than it would get during other centuries. Snow would accumulate. Croll argued that this would change the pattern of trade winds, leading to the deflection of warming currents like the Gulf Stream, and finally a self-sustaining ice age. The timing of such changes could be calculated exactly using classical mechanics (at least in principle, for the mathematics were thorny). Croll believed that the timing of the astronomical cycles, tens to hundreds of thousands of years long, roughly matched the timing of ice ages

Aren't schools already teaching enough rank falsehoods in the name of "science"?

Home School.

If the new Congress doesn't start filing treason & sedition charges against Obama and his complicit Congress, then we need to remove the current crop of Republicans and replace them with new representatives in the next election. These Democrats are not Democrats. They are socialists and communists. Some are nationalist socialists (nazis). They took an oath to uphold, support & defend the US Constitution. That oath is a contract between the public official and the people to make sure that the public official will uphold, defend and support our fundamental constitutional rights. Since the Democrats lied in taking the oath, this is felony fraud, official misconduct, treason & sedition.

That's right, congressman. Let's not have our anglo population or our black population increase at all. In fact It's already approaching the critical 2.8% growth rate which will make the culture and the economy unsustainable. Let's let the Muslim population keep growing like rats (at 6.8%) like they are in europe, and soon we'll all be controlled by muslim fanatics and the kourhan. Is the congressman really nuts, or just stupid enough not to be informed prior to opening his mouth. I wonder who paid him for this great endorsement.

THIS ASSHOLE IS JUST ANOTHER PUNK TRYING TO BRAINWASH KIDS, USING HIS FAMILY'S BUSINESS. "POLITICS"
NEITHER HE OR HIS PREDECESSOR IN GOVERNMENT HAS AN HONEST SINCERE BONE IN HIS HEAD. LET'S THROW THIS BUM OUT WITH THE REST OF THE OBAMAGARBAGE

Right on!
The nuts are out of the asylum!

Give me a damned break-- who does he think he is, attempting to push a political (NOT scientific) agenda in "government" schools? That's literally the same thing as pushing a specific religion over all others-- discriminatory, inappropriate, etc ad nauseam (insert your favorite politically correct adjective here)-- the constituents in his district should be outraged at this violation of sacred trust that he was sent to Washington DC to uphold on the authority of the consent of those he represents!

This is always a bad idea . Schools should teach the truth in a unbiased way with as much honesty as is possible. Right ?

There is the problem ! There in not an honest politician out there and if they ever told the truth it would most likely kill them .

Global Warming is 90% bullshit and anyone who thinks about it should see this.

1) Are we still in an ice age ?
2) Why not ?
3) How many ice ages have there been ? I think it is more than 4 but I have been out of school a long time.
4) Since we are not still in an ICE AGE that must mean that it got warmer after the last one . People DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT.
5) It should be pointed out that once you are elected to congress ,before you take the oath of office you must check your brain at the door and it will never be Sena again.

Congressmen cause more trouble just doing what they do in DC. Our children have troubles enough in school dealing with stupid teachers they don't need the extra problems dealing with a congressman.

One of the most important items on all our agendas has to be to raise the next generation to be well educated adults, ready to participate in our democracy in an informed way. If you have the time and money to do that at home, then go right ahead. Wherever you do the educating, they all need to get a good grounding in science and math - enough so they can tell the difference between real scientific information and propaganda or advertising. It is unfortunate that none of the commenters on this blog have gotten that far in their education.

All of the national science organizations of all the developed world agree on the basics of climate change - the earth's average temperature is increasing at an abnormal rate
- all the possible causes have been reviewed and the only factor left that can be identified is an excess of greenhouse gases (CO2 among them). The same periodic change in earth's tilt that causes ice ages is not the cause - the timing is way off.
- human activity is the source of the CO2 and other gases.
Now - if your science experiment suggests that 150 years of research done by thousands of scientists is wrong, then you're welcome to publish it in the scientific journals and see what comments you get.
This isn't liberal or conservative - it's real and it will affect you, your kids and their kids, so pick up a book or go on line and read enough about it to understand what is being talked about. Start with "realclimate.com" and go from there. Good luck.

Don;t make me laugh.
This is but one more reason for the federal to have NOTHING whatsoever to do with educating our children.
Let local districts decide how best to educate the young in thier areas.
Better yet, get ALL government out of education and have private schools do the educating.
But then, ALL parents would have ot take an active role in their child's education.
Competition will improve the education of our kids, and give a variety of schools for parents and kids to choose from. Not everyone needs college prep courses. Many would enjoy a trade school. Have you seen how much plumbers and HVAC techs make?

It has been proven that increases oin CO2 concentration FOLLOW (not precede) an rise in global temperatures.
Thios was done with studying ice core samplea with ages in excess of 100.000 years.
Plus, wouldn't a warmer planet give longer growing seasons and more arable land? Sounds good to me.

Too bad his Parents didn't practice it. By the way Sarbanes/Oxley was one of the worst Bills ever written for Business.

You got my vote!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely correct..thanks to government intervention, our kids can't add 2+2=4, and all they teach them now is how to pass the stupid test that the government requires...they spend all their time on that...if government got out of the education system, the teachers could actually teach math, english, reading, writing, science...and they could see how well they do with a one year exam...you know they used to call it "A FINAL". This guy is crazy and someone needs to run over him with a bus. He essentially wants to brainwash our kids... have you people had enough of these nutwads? THROW OUT THIS KIND OF TRASH ON NOVEMBER 2.

When this public servant can give me his interpretation of the data gathered from the two ice core samples (one from Greenland, one from Antarctica), then I will believe that he is qualified to make this kind of decision.

Too many people for you, Cong. Sarbanes? Being such a sterling example to children everywhere in every way, you might demonstrate the "final exit".

Isn't this what Hitler did over in Germany
so many years ago?

Once we get into the schools and teach your
children there is no reason to worry about
you...you'll be gone.

Also, this sounds like something from the
Gay-Lesbian-Transgender,etc. playbook.

Also, this sounds like something from the keep
GOD and prayer out of school playbook.

Sarbanes is an azzhole and he shouldn't even have the courtesy of a microphone or camera for this crap.