It cannot have been easy – getting Exeter and Plymouth universities to cooperate in a venture with University College Falmouth, and Cornwall and Truro further education colleges But they have. It is the most impressive university collaboration in the UK and should make a real difference to the South-west.. What do you normally associate with Cornwall? Cream teas, the sea, palm trees and Daphne du Maurier. I find it difficult to see why they have these extreme views when the earth has survived much more extreme conditions than this. When chalk was forming carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were 10 times as high as they are now.Were any human beings alive? No, but we went through a glacial period before.

The temperature dropped by 4-5 degrees and going colder is more of an extreme climate change But it made us evolve into the species we are. There are schools of thought in different subjects but as far as possible they should be given free rein to reach their own conclusions.
I tend to teach in a different style from a different viewpoint from my colleagues I have a very different background. I worked in the oil business for eight years and for six years on a government project in Saskatchewan.George Monbiot has said that the lobby being paid for by the oil industry has dominated climate science That’s the exact opposite of the truth. Look at An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s climate change documentary; somebody’s paid for that.

Where’s the equivalent on the other side?I think that climate change is occurring but I don’t think the majority cause is the rise of carbon dioxide There are other much more major causes. There is quite a bit of evidence that it is due to changes in the sun’s output.People say that if we continue to increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere then that will mean global warming is far worse off. But suppose they’re wrong and in fact we’re heading for a new glacial period, as some Russian scientists believe That would be much more devastating. Perhaps we should be pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.People are running scare stories about doubling carbon dioxide values. He has vigorously opposed the Royal Society and George Monbiot’s denunciation of research that is funded by oil companies. The Royal Society is using the power of authority rather than reason and judgement when they condemn the research funded by oil companies Science never used to have a consensus I hope I teach my students to exercise their own judgement.

Our eco-school project will make a difference, but not just to the environment It will help develop the value-judgments of my pupils. Hopefully, it will make them better citizens, better human beings. Ofsted can never hope to assess that, I thought, as I placed the newspaper carefully into our new recycling box.The writer is the president of the Girls’ Schools Association and the head of Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girlseducation independent.co.uk. Dr Alan Kendall is a senior lecturer in geology at the University of East Anglia who teaches a class in fossil fuels and climate change. They organise extraordinary fundraising projects, elect their prefects, learn to be part of a team, and to win or lose with grace.They start to care, about the environment or about other cultures and creeds, not because “citizenship” is a statutory requirement on the curriculum, but because dedicated professionals in our classrooms know how to “connect” with the young and, sometimes against all odds, lead them heroically into a wider, deeper sense of self and others.Hannah was right, of course. We might start with the politicians themselves – all those tabloid stars, prone to self-promotion of the first order, and sporting dubious value-systems. What kind of citizenship do they promote? One, at present, in which public, media-hyped apologies justify bitter character assassinations Role models they most certainly are not.