The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY 
on 09. 5.07
With kids across America heading back to school, The Down-to-Earth Guide To Global Warming is hot off the presses and ready to roll into classrooms and school libraries everywhere. But how do you take a relatively difficult subject area and make it so kids can understand it without being overwhelmed? Easy… Just make it fun, factual, irreverent, and even a bit entertaining to read. Then pack it with boatloads of great photos and diagrams, ideas on how kids can actually get involved in the fight, and even a few inspiring examples of people who’ve already taken steps to make a difference…
Of course you may encounter a student or two who’s been reading the likes of “The Sky’s Not Falling!” to ease their way into sleepy wonderland, but I doubt there will be many. Most kids I’ve met are very much aware of the problem and really would prefer to stop talking about it and actually do something.
How about having them create Shoes of Hope once they’ve gone home and done some of the simple things like changed their lightbulbs?
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Great idea!
Wonderful idea - indoctrinate children before they can think for themselves. And sell the book before the silly pseudo-science behind it is finally disproved.
Do you know why books like these come out for Elementary school aged children? 1. They can't think rationally for themselves. 2. Most elementary teachers aren't science majors, so they believe what the media reports as "science" and do not have the background to think about it independently.
It seems to me that "thinking for oneself" these days translates into thinking only about oneself and refusing to consider the effect one's actions have on other living things and the planet. Sadly, people like "Uncus" continue to stick their heads in the sand and refuse to accept that the vast scientific community is in consensus on this issue. We need more adults who are willing to set a good example for the future generations, giving them hope and showing them how they can take action, rather than staying in denial, thus ensuring destruction.
This book has a major error on page 18. The left and right y-axes are mislabeled, causing it to appear that rising C02 levels have generally preceded rising temperatures over the past 650,000 years.
The converse is true: Ice core samples show that rising C02 levels generally lag rising temperatures by several hundred years. That fact is inconvenient to the authors' premise, but they have pledged to correct the graph in subsequent editions.