Just give us facts, not indoctrination

betrays the sophistry that goes to the heart of not just this booklet, but a large part of the environmental movement.

But then we come to the real purpose of the publication.

There is advice on how children can challenge those who ‘‘oppose climate science’’, including role-playing debates with sceptics and advice such as ‘‘How do you speak to someone in a way that makes them more likely to listen?’’

A reasonable person, of which there are none when it comes to the politics of climate change, might find this disturbing. Should our schools be teaching children how to think or telling them what to think? Is it really the role of the education sector to be breeding a fresh cohort of climate cadres?

The intellectual dishonesty is best illustrated by what the publication omits, rather than what it includes.

Sensible people can debate the merits of using nuclear energy – and its challenges and risks – given the greenhouse effect of carbon, and an objective environmental critique of climate change would include such a discussion. But if you produce a booklet on climate change that references Ma¯ ori science and not a single word on nuclear energy then you are engaged in propaganda, not education.

And this is the heart of the problem. The environmental and the social justice movements have merged.

The solutions we are being asked to adopt often have little to do with reducing carbon and are more focused on political objectives. Anyone who questions the approved narrative is labelled a denier and outcast from civil society.

Like many readers, I find myself increasingly concerned at the possibility that the climate alarmists are correct.

I’ll confess I don’t understand how a microscopic increase in carbon can affect climate, but I don’t understand how a microwave works either.

Sometimes you just have to trust that people who do understand this stuff are not engaged in a decades-long global conspiracy.

The recent failure of the Madrid conference, the disintegration of the Paris Accord and the aggressive development of coal in China and India are areas of legitimate concern.

These are all things that we should be discussing with our children, but the document under discussion does none of this.

The Ministry of Education should be teaching children, not indoctrinating them.