Given that our Prime Minister has positioned Australia and our Government as being leaders in combating climate change and youth engagement, I'd think his attendance at the International River Health Conference would go a long way to validating this position. What a thrill it would be for the kids to be addressed by or meet Australia's leader, if only briefly. I'm sure that by doing this it would reinforce their resolve to care for our country and climate as the become adults. Come on Kev!

As a coordinator of a national sustainable schools initiative (AuSSI) which is funded by the Australian Government, I strongly support Arron Woods article 'Aussi kids war on climate change already underway'.
It is absolutely vital that the Australian Prime Minister recognises and supports the students at this years MDBC International River Health Conference by addressing the students at the opening ceremony in Canberra on Monday 19th October.
By attending the opening ceremony, Kevin Rudd would send an message to all youth across Australia, that he deeply cares, respects and is listening to their plight, as kids strive to combat the effects of climate change on the environment and their future.

'In around three week’s time, 2,500 students from every Australian State and Territory and New Zealand will converge on Canberra'

I take it they will be riding pushbikes or catching boats from New Zealand. No doubt just like the recent useless junkets to Bali by a large number of Pollies, everyone after burning up huge amounts of gases getting there will want to preach to others. Teaching Aussie kids a few manners and respect for their parents and authority would achieve a lot more for our future than filling them with the blind dogmas of Green faith.

It sounds like someone is brainwashing our children with the propaganda of anthropological climate change....

I wonder what they will do when they find out they have been taken for a ride (on a push bike).

Good to see the climate skeptics are alive and well. I bet you wouldn't have a problem with kids flying off to represent their school at a sporting event, but as soon as the environment is being considered you trot out the usual talk. Yes they will be travelling by air and yes emmissions will be created because at this time there is no other option. So from reading the program I see that these kids are looking at how we use technology and education to keep our quality of life and economic prosperity for now and into the future. I actually called the organisers and the majority of these kids are from rural Australian farming communities who are worried about running out of water. So regardless of your skepticism about climate change surely you want farming communities to have the best possible information to be able to combat drought?? Surely you aren't saying our kids don't need to learn about the environment when some of Australia's biggest exports are from the land? Perhaps Col and runner you might like to join the kids and see what the program is all about instead of making baseless assumptions?? I know I would like to go.

Welcome to OLO, talksomesense.

There's a clutch of rusted-on conservative regulars here who do their bit for the global War on Science, but for the most part discussion of climate change is welcome.

If it's really a problem for the sceptics, Col Rouge can organise a trip for some young people to learn about the boundless potential of neo-liberalism, then runner can take them to Jerusalem for a seminar on why Jesus wants them to wreck the planet.

Runner - why are you so negative! This sounds like a wonderful idea! Kids teaching other kids about important matters. These kids aren't giving parents disrespect - they are responsible citizens trying to make a difference. More than I can say for most adults! Well done Arron! Well done kids! Get there Kevin - kids are our future! Make a difference in their lives - one they'll always remember. This is Australia's future! Support them!

If you scare them silly, at a young enough age, kids are bound to believe the government climate change spin. It's like religion, scare the kids into believing something unbelievable. My advice, do your own investigation into this seemingly "new religion".

I agree with Raebee. Kids - or anyone, for that matter - should look at the science and decide for themselves. Otherwise it's easy to get sucked in by the corporate misinformation campaigns which are uncritically repeated ad nauseum by pro-business conservatives.

And you're far too cynical, KAEP. Without flower power and the love revolution of the Baby Boomers, gays and women would still be second-class citizens, we'd be mired in a Tory class system, and we wouldn't live in the most peaceful, conflict-free era of human history.

An educated generation of children is a great thing.

Oh dear Sancho,

Are you a hippy from way back, harking for the start of the Age of Aquarius?

Don't you know the 'flower power'and 'free love' movemments effectively ended with the brutality of one Charles Manson.

The womans movement was around long before the 60's and was championed by liberal minded women and men, just as was tolerance of homosexuality among the more progressive liberal thinks of the past.

The brainwashing of some kids by the green lunatics will end in tears and the great sadness of disillusion. A general rejection will follow just as occurred with the 'flower power' and 'free love' movements when they ended. The 'green idiocy' will eventually be replaced by more sensible attittudes as has been the case with most rabid belief systems and fad addictions.

Kevvy's failing on climate change in the Labor Party there are great divisions in the labor movement on the issue. Wait till the Unions affected by proposed legislation realise it will cost their members jobs ... Kevvy will suddenly go to water on this issue. Perhaps the efforts brainwashing the kids would have been better spent re-educationing miners, electrical workers, forestry workers and 'the list goes on'.

I quote from an opinion in the Telegraph today; "trying to change the climate is like an ant biting an elephant on the foot"... How apt.

I despise the idea of children being "brainwashed" into believing anything, let alone that we can change climate.

Knowledge used to be provided impartially, with both sides of important issues presented fairly. This is not happening in our schools on this subject, nor with many others any longer.

It is not right, it is definitely unfair to our children and I don't give a toss what the mad greenie ilk think or believe, it's wrong.

The climate change deluge of spin is not winning this government any support by the way. Penny Wong certainly will have provided a very expensive "risk management" (her words) programme if the ETS proves to be unwarranted and wrong.

Charles Manson? Your argument against the cultural renaissance of the 60s is "Charles Manson"?

Please fill in the leaps of logic you made to arrive at that conclusion, then explain how Manson's crimes invalidate or outweigh the unprecedented personal freedom we now enjoy in the first world.

When that's done, tell us how tolerance of homosexuality among a few "progressive liberal thinks", and the existence of a tiny, much-maligned women's lib movement, in any way compares to the mainstream acceptance of both groups in 2009.

The conference objectives may be fine, but it does bring up some
concerns. Having talked with a very few teachers and some quite young
school kids around six to eight years old, their knowledge of global
warming is quite significant.
What I do notice is they speak the same language as those that would
close down all power stations tomorrow.
The language seems to be a regurgitation of the teacher speak.

To my mind it is this that rings bells of brainwashing.
How you steer a course between providing information yet avoiding
brainwashing I am not sure.

Upon reading the posts, it appears that many of you have read the title "Aussie Kids War on Climate Change" without bothering to read the content. It is an "International River Health Conference" - irrespective of your personal belief on whether climate change is genuine or not, the point is that kids will get an understanding of what harms our waterways, and how they can be improved. Personally, I believe in the science behind climate change, but regardless of what your opinion is, I do not believe that teaching kids how to look after the lifeblood of the environment is brainwashing - and in any generation, meeting the country's leader is an exciting opportunity for kids.
Youthfuture

Yes, indeed teaching children to protect our waterways, land care, water conservation and minimisation of waste, is all good, good good.... We all agree with this...but....why call it Aussie Kids War on Climate Change Already Underway? Listening to the PM expose his advisors ideas is not, to my way of thinking, changing the climate.

Australian children are not changing the climate you know that. They may be planting trees and taking part in grey water projects projects at school but they are not changing the climate. What you are saying is untrue and it is not a WAR - that is really offensive. I hope these children never know what real "war" is.

Therefore, I say it again it is brainwashing, you are telling them untruths. Why not tell them how much it will cost them to live in this so called "green country" in the future and, what the odds will be that they can get a job that will pay them well enough to have a decent family life and live in a house they may eventually own? The PM might like to add that to his speeches.

Why not teach them how to manage on very little in the future? Because, that is how it will really pan out if an ETS is implemented (GST by another name). This government can't hike up the GST as they would like but an ETS might just get them what they want, more taxes by a different name.

Why are we living in such a negative world?? Get up & smell the hommus! Our kids need a voice - and this is a chance for them to be heard! Let them have the opportunity to be heard!
I am a dedicated, committed teacher with 33 years experience - students do NOT echo teacher opinion! Students speak up for what they believe - listen to them - and give them an opportunity to speak their thoughts! Get there Kev!!Thankyou Arron!

Sancho

Let me just establish right at the outset your unmitigated drug hazed verbage and a few glaringly obvious relevant facts.

'Without flower power and the love revolution of the Baby Boomers, gays and women would still be second-class citizens, we'd be mired in a Tory class system, and we wouldn't live in the most peaceful, conflict-free era of human history.'

and

'the cultural renaissance of the 60s' and 'the unprecedented personal freedom we now enjoy in the first world.'

Sancho are you trying to say Flower Power and the Love Revolution equalled a Cultural Renaissance and an Unprecedented Personal Freedom?

Now Sancho the Charles Manson family (Commune) typified the, and some would go so far to say his 'Helter Skelter' theories were at the forefront, of the Flower Power and free Love Revolution of the 60's. That being the widely accepted case ... well you remember Sharon Tate and the La Biancas. Flower Power and The Free Love movement ended then. Fact.

As for 'unprecented conflict free era' ... you have got to be joking ... arn't you?

Sancho, let me know if you've never heard of the following people and organisations and the areas of life they are widely accepted as having some key involvement:

cont.
You will need to do some research ... I hope it's not beyond you and you learn a little thing or two.

1. Equal Federal Marriage and Divorce Law.
2. Retention of a Married Woman’s Nationality and Political Status throughout the Empire.
3. Equal Pay for Equal Work.
4. Equal Parental Rights.
5. Raising Age of Consent for Boys and Girls to 21.
6. Equal Rights in the Disposition of Property.
7. Equality in Measures for the Suppression of Vice.
8. Unadulterated Food, Clothing and Link Supply.
9. Fair Rents.
10. Protection of Neglected, Delinquent and Wage-earning Children.
11. Eligibility of Women for all Commonwealth, State, or Municipal Positions.
12. Complete Civil and Legal Equality of Men and Women.
13. Elective Ministries and Abolition of Party Government.
14. Proportional Representation.
15. Reform in Liquor Traffic.
16. Cessation of Borrowing, except for Reproductive Works.
17. International Woman Suffrage.
18. International Peace and Arbitration
From the Platform of Women’s Political Association (Non-Party). (1912)

The New South Wales Married Women's Property Act and Louisa Lawson. 1890's.

1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights

Axel and Eigil Axgil
Oliver Baldwin
William Lygon
Adolf Brand
Oscar Browning
Dorothy Bussy
Byron
Edward Carpenter

look Sancho, I'm only up to the C's and even you with a modicom of research would have to acknowledge the accuracy of this statement,

'The womans movement was around long before the 60's and was championed by liberal minded women and men, just as was tolerance of homosexuality among the more progressive liberal thinks of the past.'

Now Sancho I just had to comment on this:
'how tolerance of homosexuality among a few "progressive liberal thinks", and the existence of a tiny, much-maligned women's lib movement, in any way compares to the mainstream acceptance of both groups in 2009.

Please note your ... uhmmmm ... thrashing about can only produce a strawman argument in which I won't partake. In simple terms, for you, I haven't suggested any comparisons between, well, the not so recent past and the year 2009. What I said would be clear to anyone with a modicom of intelligence.

Oh Dear, come on Keith and Sancho get back to the subject, we have moved out of the 60's, much as I wish we were still so naive and so unstressed.

The fact is, a tax, which will effect all of this country is about to be implemented. Back in the 60s I voted for the labour government because I was brought up in a labour orientated environment and we, our family, we all bloody hard workers for little remuneration and were labour through and thought.

I have now come to the conclusion that the labour party has not lived up to my expectations - not in the last decade that is. There is little to choose from because the parties are so much politically alike.

Therefore, I am thinking of being "a swinger". There's an old 60s saying, but not in that context. I will vote liberal at the next state election (my father and grandfather would roll over in their non existent graves (cremated!).

As for the federal government, well, Kevin Rudd has not won me yet, I am still very put out by the ETS as well as this indiscriminate spending on 'green' pink bats and solar energy which is going to cost people a lot of money in the long run.

I am getting the feeling more and more that Mr. Rudd wants to be a celebrity on the world stage rather than doing what is right for the 'working' people of this country. Is he still labour orientated? The ETS was never a mandate but he is trying to make it one now. Why? Don't say "to save the world" from CO2 emissions, that really is a joke.

You are right RaeBee most of us have moved out of the sixties. Sancho clearly hasn't.

I think my analogy of the effects (future) of the blind belief idiocy of man made climate warming will result in the same sort of social dislocation, for young people, as was caused by the likes of the, eventually totaly undermined, free love and flower power movements on youngsters of that era.

Sancho still believes such forces were in some way positive and proclaims their resurgence.

I think you are quite wrong to think the 60's were a time for naivety and stresslessness. Quite the opposite was the fact most of us lived with.

I am cheered by your reasoned position on climate warming. It is people like you who will lead and dominate our society's response and action on climate change. Just like it was people like you who rejected the excesses of the 60's but worked towards a more self critical attitude which ultimately produced our now more accepting and open society.

Good on you and go for it. I love people like you, you mirror the decent people of my youth.