I fully appreciate that some readers may have already had their fill of Johnny Ball news over the past few days, but there is still one issue that seeks resolution. My initial reason for contacting Ball – as I mentioned in my original article – was to get him to clarify exactly what he meant in the now much-discussed Times Educational Supplement article when he said "several films have been introduced into schools which imply that the earth may not be able to sustain human life as we know it, in around 39 years' time, which is unscientific, alarmist nonsense". Given that some within the climate debate maintain that our school children are being "brainwashed" with "climate propaganda" through the showing of such films, I thought it important to establish what the current situation is with regard to these films.

This is the (almost) unedited reply I received from Ball:

As I understand it, the Al Gore film (all schools plus the book) was found in an English court to be in serious error on eight or nine separate counts....Al Gore's statement that climate change might "Cause the Gulf Stream (discovered and named by Ben Franklin, don't you know) to switch off drastically effecting Britain and Europe.

Atmospheric Temperature changes cannot on a volume to volume comparison, effect the temperature of the Oceans by anything other than a minuscule degree. Transference of influence is far more likely the other way. However, although the temperature might change over time under fluctuating conditions, the only possible way to stop the gulf stream happening, is to stop the Earth Spinning - remember your school science? Bath water in the Northern Hemisphere goes clockwise, in the south, anti clock. This is clearly evident by the way the Earth was discovered by the early sailors, who could only go, down the coast of Europe, across and then down the east coast of S America, (on the anti clockwise tack) and so on.

I must confess that I have not seen Planet Stupid [sic]. But as far as I can gather, it is set around 2050, when the very sadly lamented Pete Postlethwaite appears to be the only man alive. That scenario is of dramatic effect, but is ludicrous in terms of the fluctuations in climate and conditions on Earth today.

So, on that basis, and much more evidence for which time and tiredness prevent me from going into here and now, the concept of, as Lord Stern keeps trying to sell us, that "the North Pole will be in fifty years, possibly the only place on earth capable of supporting human life."

The concept, if stated anywhere near close to what I have presented to you here, is absolutely preposterous.

[NB: By "Planet Stupid", Ball was clearly referring to the Age of Stupid. I'm also unaware of Nicholas Stern ever having made such a statement.]

The story of Al Gore's documentary being shown in UK schools – and the resulting court case – is well documented (and frequently overplayed, it must be said). The impression is often given by some that all our school children are being forcibly made to watch such films. But there seems to be very little, if any, evidence that this is the case. (I later asked Ball to give me examples of how much the films he mentioned are shown in schools and he said: "I have to admit that I don't know.") Some individual teachers might choose to show such films, but that is very different from implying that all schools are showing these films in an unquestioning environment, or that they are somehow part of the curriculum.

Keen to get the definitive position on this, I asked the Department for Education (DfE) to clarify the situation regarding the showing of An Inconvenient Truth in schools. It said that in March, 2007, the following email was sent to all secondary schools announcing that the film, as part of a larger educational pack, was being sent out, but that schools could opt out if they wished.

Then, after the court case in October, 2007, updated guidance was emailed to schools in December, 2007.

But that was 2007. What about today? A DfE spokeswoman said it is very unlikely any school is still using this educational pack containing An Inconvenient Truth because teachers are warned on the website that this is old teaching material and could be out-of-date. She said no other climate change-related film has been distributed to schools by the department since 2007. She added:

We are awaiting to hear more about the National Curriculum review, which will look at all aspects of the curriculum, and will know more then about where teaching on climate change will fit – currently it comes more under the science curriculum, it may well still be [following the review].

I also asked the director Franny Armstrong to clarify what the position was with her 2009 film Age of Stupid (cert: 12A) being shown in schools. She said in an email:

It was not distributed in schools, certainly not in the way An Inconvenient Truth was. We spoke to someone (at DfE maybe?) at the time who told us that because of the court case/legal objection that a parent had brought against Truth's school distribution being subsidised by the government, they couldn't do the same for Age of Stupid. So there wasn't a big organised effort like there was for Truth. But Action Aid did make a schools pack which schools could buy (as far as I know there wasn't any subsidised distribution) and individual schools can buy a DVD from our shop, together with a license to screen it. Definitely some have done that, but I couldn't tell you how many as our basic shop software doesn't do statistics. But it's not zillions.

Armstrong added that this link lists where and when her film has been publicly screened.

In my original blog, I asked readers to supply evidence or examples from their own experience of these films being shown in schools. It was striking that in more than 400 comments posted (albeit, they were largely focused on Ball's smear allegations) no one offered any evidence. And on the few occasions when readers supplied information about how climate change is taught in schools more generally, it seemed to largely focus on regional initiatives to introduce so-called "green teams" into schools whereby children learn about the importance of environmental measures such as recycling and energy conservation. Older children will, of course, learn about energy, climate change etc in subjects such as geography, but any niggles our climate sceptic readers expressed seem to focus on, say, the precise wording of a specific multi-choice question buried within a text book hundreds of pages long. Nothing, in other words, that might sensibly be described as "brainwashing" or "propaganda". But, again, I put the call out to readers: please supply further information if you have it.

Lastly, my follow-up blog about Johnny Ball yesterday included this related statement by him:

Just recently I was asked to come along to a school because two days earlier they had someone from Greenpeace talking and they wanted both sides which they said would be discussed by the children when we were both gone.

Alas, I didn't get the name of the school from Ball, but it is interesting to see some schools taking this approach, namely, asking representatives of the polar opposite ends of the climate debate to address their pupils and then using their views as a further trigger for debate. Personally, I would rather just see a qualified climate scientist address pupils on climate change, but I can also see some educational merit in the "let's hear both sides" approach when it comes to a discussion about policy solutions. I worry deeply though that, in this case, the use of someone who says CO2 emissions are not in anyway a danger suggests a "false balance" is at play. Putting that issue to one side, though, I think it refreshing that, beyond the curriculum, schools are given the freedom to approach this subject as they see fit.