One of the most important tools in the skeptic's toolbox (otherwise known as a "bullsh!t filter), is to take note of instances where privileged individuals seek to do deny others an advantage that they already enjoy.

For instance, while exhorting us (the masses) to reduce our carbon footprint, politicians, high-profile scientists, rock stars and other celebrities (the ruling elite) themselves spew vast amounts of greenhouse gases via their wealthy lifestyles and incessant international travel.

This bears directly to the National Curriculum Board’s framing paper points 35 & 37. Indeed, once again, "the current ruling class ... assert(s), through its state-funded ideologues, that we are living beyond the limits imposed by Nature."

So let's be good little peasants, and obediently eat our soybeans and bicycle to work? As Penn & Teller would say: Bullsh!t!

What a load of rubbish! It is interesting to note that Marxists and Randian "objectivists" both promote such hubristic delusions about our "glorious future" via our technological "mastery" over natural processes.

And they both criticize those that advocate a "green" approach and understanding as being the enemies of either "progress" and/or the future.

What a joke "more or less mastered the environment". Master the forces that create hurricanes and earthquakes, and sunspots and solar storms. Or even the subtle and strong forces which are created by astrological conjunctions. And even planetary alignments such as the one that is going to occur in 2012 as accurately predicted by the Mayan calendar.

The "environment", or rather the world process altogether is totally beyond any attempts to control "it"---and besides which "it" would inevitably bite back long before such attempts became anywhere near successful

Tell the victims of the 2004 Tsunami, hurricane Katrina, and the occasional and inevitable earth-quakes which demolish entire cities, that we have "mastered" the environment.

Also read the book Pandemonium by Andrew Nikiforuk and find out how the "environment" is creeping up on us in dozens of invisible ways. And quite often as a result of either our ignorance and/or hubris as to what we are/were doing---all with the "best" intentions.

Meanwhile GREEN does rule to here. GREEN was here first, and will still be here when humanity disappears. We are completely embedded in and totally dependent on GREEN processes and cycles---for the air that we breathe and ALL of our REAL food.

I read an article the other day about the growth of a new "continent".
Try googling Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.

I thought we were talking about history Ho Hum, about whether we humans shape it, and if we do, the forces (natural and human made) that effect this. And on that score 'control' sounds about right. From very modest, indeed primitive beginnings, we humans have sought to increase our level of understanding of the natural world and our place within it. This has not been because we found this to be a fun way to pass the odd eon or two but because we have sought, through knowledge gained by endless cycles of practise, theory making and testing, to be able to progressively predict and shape our destiny. This is called control and we are getting better and better at it. In both literal and figurative senses we should indeed be aiming for the stars. It is by understanding the laws of the natural world and using them to our advantage that will get us there. It is through identifying - and identifying with - our forebears who refused to turn their toes up in the face of orthodoxies and 'common sense', but who pushed on trying to make things better that makes history such an important, exiting and relevent discipline. Barry York is correct to be miffed by the omission of the English Revolution from the curriculum 'canon'. One of the most remarkable books written of the period was Christopher Hill's 'The World Turned Upside Down'. The title was drawn from a quote by one of one of its participants, Gerard Winstanley who wrote that "freedom is the man who turns the world upside down and he therefore maketh many enemies". This extraordinary insight is a history lesson in itself and one that continues to speak to us today.