Don't leave me out in the forest where I might get eaten by a bear.

LYDSEXICS UNTIE!

"Again, if GW is real than teaching children about it is ACTUALLY informing with facts while encouraging rational and critical thought."

Al Gore is the most outspoken person on global warming. Gore told congress: "there is no longer any serious debate over the basic points that make up the consensus on global warming."

Al Gore has also called global warming skeptics "deniers" along the lines of Holocaust Deniers and Grist Magazine's David Roberts has even proposed to have Nuremburg-style hearings for skeptics (whom Roberts calls "bastards"). Other outlets have parroted that the debate is over or otherwise attempt to demonize skeptics:

Rolling Stone

Mother Jones

The Tyee

Boston Globe

Al Gores' words and the sentiments held by David Roberts and other global warmingists discourage debate and rational and critical thought. They are telling us what and how we should think, they give us a wonderful emotional argument, but they don't give us facts and unmanipulated evidence to help us come to their conclusions on our own.

The debate is far from over and almost weekly (or more) we hear of new studies and evidence or another scientist coming forward that debunks global warming claims or articles that honestly discuss the merits of the GW claims:

Washington Post

Senator James Inhofe

Spiked

Financial Post

ESR

Free Stinker's Compilation

Joseph D'Aleo

I do not wish to get into a religious debate/argument, but your assumptions of Christians teaching their children are off the mark and the proper teaching of Christianity is not on par with the the way GW is taught. The basis for teaching Christianity is "By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God" 2 Corinthians 6:6-7. And Christians can also know the truth of what they are taught (althought they can't prove it to someone else): "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." John 15:26 and "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John 14:26 and "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." John 14:16-17. I teach my children about my beliefs through invitation and example and it is their choice whether to adopt those beliefs or not...I encourage my children to ask questions and then to search out the answers for themselves.

Global warming is taught in a much different way. The claims of the GW crowd are based on flawed models, conjecture, and intimidation/shame. It's presented in a thinly veiled fascist manner--basically, if you're not with the program you are essentially labeled a criminal and treated like an enemy. The intellectual dishonesty used in trying to cow people into accepting the GW position is nothing short of fleecing the people that are too lazy or untrained to critically think. Opponents of GW are presented as unenlightened, stupid, ignorant, criminals, and fascists. This is an attempt to coerce even more people to get on board with GW because nobody wants to be thought of as stupid or a criminal. GW is built upon a foundation of exploitation: exploitation of emotions, people's ignorance/laziness (or both), exploitation of arbitrary "facts" and figures, and exploitation of natural occurrences that fit GW criterion.

Did all or even most (> 50%) of the kids at your school "constantly debate politics, volunteer for social awareness programs, etc."? I highly doubt it.

The fact that the concerts were sponsored by Amnesty International means nothing...kids will go to concerts because a band they like is playing or because their friends are going or because it is 'cool'.

The queer student program isn't a surprise, the gay community is a very active and out-spoken albeit very small minority.

Your examples do not address the everyday concerns of most teenagers and do not typify teen activities. I go back to my earlier posit: do kids really care about world issues? Do they know or care about the actions Hugo Chavez has taken in recent months? Do they understand the direction Putin is going and what the implications are? Do they recognize the danger to freedom that Islamofascism poses to the Western World? Do they know why Islamofascists don't mess with China? Kids generally don't care about much beyond their circle of friends and the latest music, videos, fads, and fashions. They are too involved with themselves to give much care to world events.

I give credit where credit is due, as for typical teenagers, they haven't achieved anything to deserve any significant credit or recognition. While there are some extraordinary teenagers that have impressive achievements, they are an exception to the rule. The greatest achievement most teenagers accomplish by the age of 18 is graduating high school. Seeing that most teens accomplish that underwhelming feat with little difficulty (some do it with little to no effort), of what additional credit are they worthy?

You're right, we don't know the circumstances of why the girl cares about global warming as passionately as she does, but from what I've seen and know, her actual knowledge and associated emotion on the subject of GW is highly suspect.

You do have a lot to learn, and so do I. The pursuit of knowledge should be a life-long endeavor. One who thinks their learning is complete is a fool.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

So the big difference then is that the kids are getting more of their entertainment from the confines of their own (or friends' home). When I was young we went to movies, arcades, skateboarded, and cruisin'. How many of today's kids use the internet for anything more than entertainment (excepting for school papers and the like)? Probably less than 10%. Still, not much difference. The kids that use the internet today for news, and other research and info are the types of kids (in my day) that regularly read the newspaper and spent at least some of their free time at the library educating themselves (both of which I did). The majority of kids today only use the internet of their own volition for entertainment (games, music, videos, and sadly, porn). The internet has not changed kids, it has only made their means of being exposed to information and entertainment (most of which is not worthwhile) much, much easier.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." --Thomas Jefferson

Leon

Blonde has friends here so when she tires of your pre-pubescent nonsense she will generally talk to her friends

it really isn't all about Leon

"The more I study science, the more I believe in God."     Einstein