The kids are NOT alright!? ‘Climate Kids’ debuts: ‘A five-video portfolio launched to let small fry know – in the kindest possible way – that the climate emergency is upon them’
All at Sea in the Parkville Asylum
All at Sea in the Parkville Asylum
By TONY THOMAS
Excerpt: It is quite wrong, apparently, to believe Melbourne University academics patrol the far frontiers of cloud cuckoo land. After all, according to the official reckonings, the institution ranks top among Australian universities and about 40th globally for scholarly excellence.[1]
The university has a team, Melbourne Climate Futures, brimming with excellence and pushing innovative stuff like converting bulk and container ships to sailing vessels. Upholding tradition at what sneering detractors know as the Parkville Asylum, the think tank is a fine successor to the university’s Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI), of which I have often written here at Quadrant Online. Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell (pay package $1.5m), brutishly axed the Sustainable Society four years ago, insisting it was unsustainable.
Today’s “Climate Futures” has spawned Climate Kids. It’s a five-video portfolio launched in February to let small fry know – in the kindest possible way – that the climate emergency is upon them. Unless they do school strikes, reject consumerism, avoid plastic, and nag their parents into electric cars, the planet will see hot-house Armageddon in next to no time.
The videos are presented by Dr Lily O’Neill, Senior Research Fellow at Climate Futures, and Dr Linden Ashcroft[2], Senior Lecturer in Climate Science and Science Communication. They promise, Netflix-style, that Series 2 is in the works. How old is the target audience? Primary schoolers, they say, but with mentions of Playschool’s Bluey and shouts of “Boo! Fossil fuels!”, the focus seems to be at the 6-year-old end.
The videos, which excoriate “yucky” fossil fuels, have been welcomed by top climate scientists. Indeed, climate guru Dr David Karoly, even though he’s a grown-up[3] and helped fact-check the videos, begged to be admitted to the audience at Lily and Linden’s August 11 showing for Science Week. “Absolutely, David, we’d love to have you,” Linden enthused. The videos for teachers are all here:
Ep 1: What is climate change?
Ep 2: Can technology save us?
Ep 3: Why are we still digging up fossil fuels?
Ep 4: The oceans
Ep 5: Snow and ice
I tally the views at 80,000, of which Video One got 69,000, prompting me to theorise that most teachers gave Video One a try and never came back for more. Wisely, Climate Kids turned off comments, otherwise there would be be some fruity ones. In Video 1, Linden and Lily channel Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and tell kids (6mins20):
We have to stop using fossil fuels in everything that we do and transition into alternative energy sources… Australia is currently not doing its fair share to stop climate change. Why don’t you write a letter or make a video for the Prime Minister and ask them [sic] to do more? Tell them that it’s your planet, not theirs.
Or there are loads of other good ways you can have your voice be heard. Join a school strike for climate, for example, on a Friday. You can even get a sick certificate signed by a climate doctor to get out of school. But make sure you ask your parents first.
Thanks for joining us for this first episode of Climate Kids. Don’t forget to tune in for more exciting questions about climate change.
I don’t think the pair should be telling kids to short-change their education by ducking classes. The latest NAPLAN shows a third of students lagging on literacy and numeracy and with 10% needing special support. University tutors tear their hair out over incompetent, semi-literate essays.
Sure, it’s normal these days for pre-school and primary kids to be harangued by warmists from inside and outside the classroom. The Climate Kids video is still (just) within the envelope of sanity. Things all go pear-shaped by Video 4, where Lily and Linden espouse a return to sailing ships for the world’s trade. Why? To lower emissions, of course. How? Build new sailing ships and summon billowing sails to propel today’s bulk-carriers and 24,000 unit container ships.
Lily and Linden have imbibed this sensible plan from their colleague, Senior Lecturer Dr Christiaan De Beukelaer, the Southern Hemisphere’s top exponent (not that there’s many) of sail power for cargo ships.
I have a soft spot for barques and clippers. In 1968 as a fresh-faced Perth reporter, I interviewed old sea-dog Mr J.L. Rycroft, then 74, of Mt Lawley. He’d rounded Cape Horn seven times under sail, and was shipwrecked off San Salvador. He survived on tinned herring and turtle eggs.[4] Good on you, Lily and Linden, for guiding us back to the romance of the sailship.
In their video (1min), a kid, Theo, asks Dr Lily, rather weirdly, “Are boats bad for the ocean?” She explains that “kayaks canoes, rafts, rowboats and sailing ships” are fine, but
it’s when you add an engine to these boats that they start to become bad for the ocean. And we have a lot of big boats or ships in the world with a lot of really large engines. These ships are really noisy and for animals like whales that noise can be horrible.
Her main issue might not be maintaining peace of mind in the seagoing Cetacea community because offshore wind farms are also said by some to be bad for whales’ ears. Dr Lily throws the conundrum to Dr Linden, who the video posits is living 30 years in the future and appears alongside solar panels and a sign, “You did it! Planet saved.” Linden replies,
The biggest problem with the way that you use ships in the past [ie now] is the fuel. They run on oil or gas, both fossil fuels, which if you will remember from our previous episodes are the key villains of climate change.. Fossil fuels! Boooo!
To get the little ones’ attention the above comes with graphics depicting snarling oil and infernal gas critters.
And boats that travel the world contribute a huge amount to carbon emissions. In fact, back in your time [2025], if international shipping was a country, it would be among the top 10 carbon dioxide emitters in the whole world.
It’s because people are shipping 11 billion tonnes worth of stuff around the world each year. That’s like 22 billion large male elephants [clouds of them fall from the sky], which is a heck of a lot of elephants. [Eh? Check her arithmetic].[5] And all of that shipping burns a whole lot of yucky, toxic oil and gas.
Linden gilds the lily –I intend no pun, Dr Lily — by claiming emissions turn the sea more acidic and dissolve the shells of little sea critters. Cute hermit crabs are shown begging kids for mercy. “Imagine that,” she exclaims, as if the oceans are fuming like battery acid.[6] And now for reversion to sail:
Dr Lily: “But there are lots of exciting things happening because engineers and other sailing experts are trying to increase the amount of sailing ships in the world. This is my friend, Dr Christiaan [De Beukelaer]. He is one of those experts who is really excited about the future of sailing ships.
Sailing ships are pushed through the water by wind in their sails. Wind is a renewable resource and so is great for the ocean. Here are some of the sailing ships being used in the world with wind power right now.
Cut to pics of three latter-day cargo sailing ships. The largest might carry about the same tonnage as a mere 15 semi-trailers.
Enough said, Climate Kids’ case is now established for sail over those “yucky” ships’ engines. But our lecturers aren’t through with the kids yet. Dr Linden proposes they “need less stuff” and ought to take the pressure off the world’s shipping by frequenting op shops, buying local, and re-gifting their presents. And here’s her kicker:
Another cool thing you could do is maybe learn to sail. It’s not only super fun but it’s going to become a very useful skill as you come into my future [around 2050, when three kids are shown steering a sailing ship].
She adds, “You want to avoid buying things that have any disposable plastic [Remind me, what are mobile phones made of?] If you see someone littering, dob them in.”
Keep in mind this is Labor’s Melbourne, Stasiland of the 2020s. During our world-record Covid lockdown, grannies really were ‘dobbed in’ for illegal sitting on park benches, so Dr Linden espouses a grand tradition of informing.[7]