Jeremy Vine Show Monday 12th March

[Helen May]

Hi everyone,

Topics on today's show are:-

Green agenda in the run up to the Labour party leadership and will aviation taxes to help save the planet?

Should primary schools teach foreign languages?

Peace of Mind, part of 'Life To Live' with Dr Sarah Jarvis - today's special is about young people who self harm.
More info here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/life2live/

The 100 year old who is believed to be the oldest bell ringer in the country.

[GingerWeegie]

Morning H

1) yet another bandwagon to be jumped upon!!

Why continue the lie about taxation? It's having NO effect, other than more money for Gord to fritter away on his chums in the city.

2) NO, get them to teach ENGLISH, to a decent level. THEN leave the foriegn languages to secondary school, ONCE English is FLUENT!!

3) "Get yer razorblades 'ere, 10 for a pouwend"

4) (sorry forgot!) So H, does he ring YOUR bell? (we MUST be told)

[MIKERAPHONE]

Hi Helen..primary schools teaching German would not be a bad idea.
Does anyone do Latin these days apart from trainee Doctors.?
french is a possibility then again Spanish.

Out of that lot German to me would serve the Children better later in life

[FLYBYNIGHT]

I agree that they should learn English first of all.
I know somebody who is a teacher in London. About 60% in her classroom hardly speak any English and never do so at home. It's a nightmare for her.

When I learnt languages we were told we needed to have good knowledge of our own language first before we could learn foreign ones.
Especially when it comes to grammar.

I think that in years to come Chinese would be useful!

FLY

[Helen May]

They taught French from the age of 10 at my school, a good idea I thought even at the time. Not sure about from the age of 7 though, a bit confusing for many children.

H

[Riitta]

I spoke Finnish to my daughter from birth ... didn't confuse her at all.
As I've said before, a child in Finland is not allowed to leave school until s/he can master at least one foreign language, why are British kids?
That said I wish the teachers in Britain wouldn't be allowed to teach ANYTHING until they themselves learn to speak and spell English correctly.
The poor basic skills of many teachers is more confusing to a child than a foreign language could ever be.

[Lovewood]

We were taught French in the final year of primary school, being quite fluent in our native tongue by that point, Mike.

In fact, due to my great grandmother have the decency to expire when she did, I had the £200 necessary to go on a school trip to Paris for a week in the final year.

We were one of only two feeder schools that taught a foreign language, and we were at a clear advantage because of it.

Great idea.

[Helen May]

We were one of only two feeder schools that taught a foreign language, and we were at a clear advantage because of it.

Great idea.

I found that too, Lovewood.

H

[Ian Mac]

Re - Green agenda to help save the planet.

This piece is a bit long winded, but i hope you'll stick with it. I found it quite interesting, albeit he's got a book to sell.

'A trailer for Channel 4's documentary 'Great Global Warming Swindle' had me saying "We're being told lies!'. A friend complained "That's not your style".

In my line of work, which is reporting new discoveries by seekers after scientific truth, issues of mendacity seldom arise, so the friend's comment was fair. It left me trying to remember what i was talking about when the programme makers found that soundbite in an interview lasting more than an hour.

Polar bears was it? You've seen clips of pathetic creatures supposedly trapped on shrinking rafts of ice and waiting to drown. For those who keep shouting that we are heating up the planet disasterously, the polar bears are an emblem of human wickedness. The fact is, these mighty swimmers are increasing in numbers as their arctic homes become a little less chilly.

Perhaps i was commenting on the fairy tale that the world's climate experts agree about global warming being our fault. The appearance in the programme of a string of eminent scientists saying otherwise belied that. They also complained that their names still appear in the list of 2500 experts said to back the official line, even when they've insisted they disagree.

Or were the 'lies' the commonplace assertion that global warming is speeding up, as man made emissions of carbon dioxide increase?. The most reliable measures of the world's temperature come from weather satellites. These show no rise at all since 2002. It's entirely possible that global warming has stopped.

After all you've heard about our grandchildren being barbecued in an ever-hotter world, you may think i'm fantasising, but the big question is, why did the world warm up by a modest half a degree or so during the last century?.

The official story, coming from politicians and a self-chosen clique of climate scientists who advise them, blames an increase in carbon dioxide and other gases. The rival theory says the warming in the 20th century was caused by mother nature.

The culprit is the sun. The star we live by has mood swings, between depressions (when the world is chilly) and hyperactivity which brings climatic warming. During the last 100 years, the sun became increasingly feverish until about 1990, when it settled at a high, but no longer increasing level of activity. I suspect that's why the temperature is no longer rising. And if the sun starts to sulk again, we may soon be complaining about global cooling.

What interests me is how the sun's moodiness translates into climatic change. As a lifelong reporter of scientific discoveries, i'm well used to intense arguments whenever professors end up with egg on their faces because some bright youngster has found out something they never knew, but when it comes to the climate, the story turns nastier than that.

In 1996, a Danish physicist, Henrik Svensmark, made an outstanding discovery. The ordinary clouds that you see every day, take their orders from the sun and the stars. What happens is that exploded stars far away continually shower the earth with atomic particles called cosmic rays. These help to build invisible chemical specks floating in the air, which are essential if water droplets are to form to make clouds.

The sun comes into the game as a batsman, knocking away many of the cosmic rays before they can reach the earth. During the 20th century, the invigorated sun reduced the influx of cosmic rays to such an extent that the world became less cloudy and so warmed up.

This was a wonder of nature that was not politically correct. Had Henrik's findings concerned the weather on mars, scientists in the media would have hailed it at once as terriffic news. But on the earth it undermined what the top experts were saying, and the media were reporting, about carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming.

As a reporter, I was amazed and saddened to find i had the story virtually to myself. For 11 years Henrik has been either ignored or ridiculed. But he's a broad shouldered Viking, who'd not give up without a fight, and during that time he has managed to prove his theory thoroughly.

With an experiment in the basement of the Danish national space centre in Copenhagen, Henrik and his pals showed exactly how cosmic rays work their magic in cloud-making. That was in 2005 and Henrick and i decided to write a book together. For me, it's been the most exciting time in my career because as we worked, Henrick was forever improving the story by coming up with new surprises.

The book is titled 'The Chilling Stars' a new theory of climate change, by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder.

It was in the sunday post. Unfortunately i couldn't find it online and had to wear out my fingers typing it all (well most of it anyway). I hope you appreciate the sacrifices i make for this place. :wink:

[Riitta]

Ian, are you really Nigel then?

Here's the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6362407.stm

[Ian Mac]

Lol, not me Riitta, but i'm quite intrigued by the story so i might buy it.

[Phillip Phlopp]

I have yet to see a sensible theory by the naysayers for why the majority of scientists, academics and world leaders have all conspired together to agree that there is something going on with our climate, when, according to the naysayers there is no change/the change is natural.

According to the documentary it is Greenpeace subversion or scientists wanting to get funding or a left wing attack on capitalism. This theory kinda fall apart when you would have thought that those who are providing the funding would question why the people they are sharing the stage with are giggling and nudging each other.

[Ian Mac]

I have yet to see a sensible theory by the naysayers for why the majority of scientists, academics and world leaders have all conspired together to agree that there is something going on with our climate, when, according to the naysayers there is no change/the change is natural.

According to the documentary it is Greenpeace subversion or scientists wanting to get funding or a left wing attack on capitalism. This theory kinda fall apart when you would have thought that those who are providing the funding would question why the people they are sharing the stage with are giggling and nudging each other.

PP,I don't think scientists have colluded to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. Where there is a scientific theory about anything, you'll find an opposing theory.

What we could have here, is a political drive to address a worrying phenomenon, namely global warming, that has taken to it's bosom, the most acceptable and easily understood explanation.

Doesn't make it right though.

[Feverfew]

What annoys me about the green debate is that people focus too much on global warming/climate change because they are relatively new, fashionable theories.

There are lots of other good reasons why we should all be cutting down our use of energy and reducing pollution, so why tie it all to climate change which the 'naysayers' then dispute?

It then descends into an argument about whether climate change is man-made or not, which is a different debate altogether and a lot less important one at that.

[Ian Mac]

What annoys me about the green debate is that people focus too much on global warming/climate change because they are relatively new, fashionable theories.

There are lots of other good reasons why we should all be cutting down our use of energy and reducing pollution, so why tie it all to climate change which the 'naysayers' then dispute?

It then descends into an argument about whether climate change is man-made or not, which is a different debate altogether and a lot less important one at that.

I totally agree FF.

[Feverfew]

Cheers, Ian Mac (I wasn't expecting any replies as I had come to the threrad so late!)

Like the new board? I think it is good, though I am bit scared to go on the serious World News board!

[Ian Mac]

Cheers, Ian Mac (I wasn't expecting any replies as I had come to the threrad so late!)

Like the new board? I think it is good, though I am bit scared to go on the serious World News board!

Well you seem like a clever poster to me FF.

Don't think you'd have any problem arguing your corner.

[Belly Dancing Goldfish]

I shouldn't worry FF I don't think it will be totally serious but hey if a topic gets picked for the show then here it comes ;-)