MAY 05 2025

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Ever wonder what your kids are really being taught in schools about renewables and Net Zero? Become a member of the on-line lesson provider Cool.org and find out. Here’s my little scenario, inspired by Cool’s true classroom materials[1]:

Samantha, aged 13, flings her schoolbag on her bedroom floor and yells from the bathroom. “Mum! Get rid of these plastic toothbrushes.”

Mum: “Why?”

Samantha: “To save the planet. Cool.org says Australia throws out 30m toothbrushes every year.”

Mum: “That makes sense, dear. But how do we clean our teeth?”

Samantha: “Cool says we must buy bamboo toothbrushes, they’re biodegradable.”

Mum: “Sounds OK. Where from?”

Samantha: “Dunno.”

Mum: “What do they cost?”

Samantha: “Only $5 per brush.”

Mum: “Heavens. Woolies’ got plastic ones for $2. How long does a bamboo one last?”

Samantha:“The planet is boiling! I hate you! Drive me to Emma-Lou’s place. At least her parents aren’t climate deniers.”

I took a renewed interest in Cool.org (formerly Cool Australia) after an April 16 email from its Head of Community Engagement Naomi Nicholas announcing its alliance with green billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes (right). Mike’s $29.5-billion fortune puts him third on Australia’s rich list.

Mike has a little $30 million charity called Boundless Earth. Cool and Boundless Earth, via its “Hearts and Mind Epic”,  have put together a new suite of seven class lessons on “misinformation”. Each lesson is curriculum-aligned and described as a “complete teaching package, with lesson plans, explainers, activities and videos.” The material targets 10- to 12- year-olds (Years 5 and 6), and 14- to 16-year-olds (Years 9 and 10). Boundless Earth is run by Eytan Lenko, an Al Gore convert to climate catastrophe [2]. He’s “looking forward to seeing it [the program] roll out through the Australian education system.”

Mike and Eytan are particularly incensed at alleged misinformation decrying our politicians’ agreed quest for Net Zero by 2050. They want teachers to expose misinformers who claim wind and solar are costing households and taxpayers a bomb while potentially crashing the grid and bringing on blackouts.

The Cool.org charity, drafts the scripts for teachers. Cool CEO Thea Stinear claims that Cool “helps young people cut through the BS. It helps them spot what’s real. What could be more important in this day and age?” Jason Kimberley of the multi-millionaire Just Jeans family set up Cool in 2008, catering to pre-school, primary, secondary, private and public schools with endorsement by departmental and school authorities.[3]

Cool, in fact, runs a parallel universe within the school system. Well over 17 million kids to date have imbibed at least one Cool lesson, delivered by the nearly 200,000 teachers who have signed on to Cool. Believe it or not, 92% of Australian schools have delivered Cool materials to kids. I’ve been recording this Cool educational empire for years, here, here, here and here.

Cool’s Naomi has emailed,

“In today’s world of complex politics and with an upcoming Australian Federal Election, finding trustworthy information is challenging—even for adults. Imagine how difficult it is for young people! 😵‍💫 

We’ve created resources to help you teach students about misinformation and disinformation, and build critical thinking and media literacy skills so they can navigate their information landscapes with confidence. 

Our new Combatting Misinformation Education Resources equip students with practical tools to assess source reliability and make informed decisions about our democracy and climate future. 

Ready to empower your students? Grab these FREE misinformation-fighting resources today! 💪

Your planning pal,
Naomi from Cool.org

The package of seven billionaire-sponsored lessons operates “through the lens of clean energy”. It urges teachers to

♦ Inspire young people to champion sustainability in their communities and

♦ Engage students in meaningful discussion and action around environmental challenges.

The ages 10-12 lessons comprise Powering the Narrative: Clean Energy in Media; Renewable Energy Investigators; Fueling Facts, Busting Myths; and The History, Geography and Momentum of Clean Energy in Australia

The 14-16 set get The Language of Misinformation: Fact, Fiction and Persuasion; Disinformation Digital Detectives; and Science over SkepticismLesson kits are tagged with lines like, “Cool.org thanks our philanthropic funder, Boundless Earth, for its generous contributions and collaboration in creating these resources.” Cool’s CEO Stinear hails the venture, “A massive shout out to our partners at Boundless Earth who supported us to bring these into the world”.

To cut CO2 emissions, Cool harangues kids to turn off bedroom lights and walk or bike to school. Meanwhile, last month Cannon-Brookes spent $120 million or so on that billionaires’ toy, a Bombardier twin-jet to zip him round the globe in speed, luxury and a hefty trail of CO2. As the ad puts it, “The Bombardier Global 7500 represents the pinnacle of private aviation, delivering unmatched range, luxury, and performance.”

Never mind turning off lights, Cannon-Brookes and now-separated spouse Annie Todd have also bought mansions, ranches, getaways and islands by the dozen, adding them like we buy morning coffees. The $100-million flagship in their $350-million property portfolio is Fairwater Estate, the Fairfax clan’s former Harbourside pile on 1.2 hectares at Point Piper. It must have quite the CO2 footprint.

Cannon-Brookes does acxknowledge a conscience. He explained that buying the Bombardier – which burns 25,000 gallons of avgas on a long-haul trip of, say, Sydney to New York – left him “with a deep internal conflict” on CO2 emissions. But the need for security and fast trips to maximise his family time tipped the scales on this reluctant purchase, he explained.[4] Of this, ascerbic columnist Joe Aston wrote, “Watching him lie to himself so publicly in order to maintain his self-narrative of a moral actor is actually more delicious than the jet purchase itself.”

Cool douses kids from pre-school upwards in a waterfall of green-left woke-ism and renewables advocacy, purportedly “building a sustainable and just world for all.” As a Cool member, I see exactly what Cool offers teachers and kids, but much of the Cool materials are paywalled to outsiders. Education was captured by the left decades ago, and school and department authorities have no qualms about kids imbibing green activism from third-party providers.[5]

Clearly, the teacher-attrition and retention crisis would be a lot worse without Cool coming to schools’ rescue with its free, pre-packaged on-line lessons. But frankly, I’m near-traumatised at how completely and ruthlessly such third parties are drafting schoolkids to the green crusade. I’ll detail Cool’s material and machinations in two further articles in this three-part series.

Cool’s own statistics show its power: how long before it hits the 20 million tally for its schoolkid audience?

♦ More than 170,000 teachers and 20,000+ parents have signed on. A third of the teachers are in school decision-making roles.[6]

♦ They’ve downloaded more than 2.3 million lessons, at a current rate of well over 250,000 downloads a year. Each lesson is passed around among teachers and reaches an average 186 kids

♦ Three quarters of kids taking the Cool green lessons changed their behaviours, attitudes and engagement to conform with Cool’s agendas. Two-thirds became sustainability and social activists in the school milieu — “nurturing behaviours that stay with them for life.” In case you’re wondering, Cool’s survey also found 70% of the educators have also taken action on social and green issues, thus

creating better outcomes for humanity…Educators take action alongside their students…Focus groups showed that this joint action between educators and students is critically important… Long term: Informed, active and empowered citizens for a happier, more sustainable and just society for all.

It is no mystery why teachers love using Cool’s pre-packaged lessons:

“How INCREDIBLE your resources are, and what an important resource you are creating for teachers who are incredibly overworked.” — Emily, high school teacher, NSW

Three-quarters of teachers report unmanageable workloads, and 90% say they lack preparation time. A third are working outside their expertise. Large numbers are trying to teach classes where 40% of the kids are bored, disengaged and doubtless cutting-up. Cool’s lesson-writers, in contrast, create on-line lesson kits that pep up classrooms. Two-thirds of teachers say that Cool lessons bring back joy to classrooms. Each lesson saves teachers three hours work, enabling them to better engage with students (68% of responses) and “attend to their own well-being” (39%).

Something like 10,000 “relief teachers” use Cool pre-packaged lessons, unsurprising given they come in at short notice to baby-sit a sick or missing teacher’s classes.[7]

Third parties’ costs of warping education leftwards are so little it’s laughable. The Cool charity runs on annual revenue of about $3 million, a third of that from grants. Direct employee costs are only $1.8 million. Cool is also funded or supported by other leftist or naïve do-gooders suchas the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund, the Myer,[8] Fox Family and Ian Potter foundations, and by corporate behemoths like Google, Canva and Cisco.

The Cool staff give contracts to skilled educators to create and package the lessons, which cover the gamut of primary-secondary topics – much is uncontentious. Cool works closely with other green-left school intruders such as WWF and its absurd lights-off Earth Hour campaigns [9]. Cool ally Damon Gameau with his renewables propaganda movies including 2040 and Future Council claim to have reached millions of students.[10]Atlassian tycoon Cannon-Brookes’ Boundless Earth charity had revenue of $30 million in 2022-23 and $15 million in 2023-24. Mike tosses in $10-15 million donations now and then, equivalent by mega-tycoon standards to what a householder would find when dusting the lounge cushions.[11] His schools venture is just a minnow within the overall Boundless program, and Boundless itself is just a minnow within Cannon-Brookes pledge in 2021 to spend $1.5 billion on his crusade for renewables.

His road to renewables super-powerdom started with a $35-billion project to take solar power from south of Darwin to Singapore via a 4200km undersea cable. and the project is behind schedule, to put it mildly. Jets and mansions notwithstanding, Cannon-Brookes is ‘determined to push Australia towards a carbon neutral future’.

Parents are given special roles in schools’ Cool climate farrago. More than 25,000 parents are Cool paid-up subscribers. Cool tells us to use “climate action” to promote family quality time as kids are turned into “passionate, confident leaders”. Parents should set an example by writing climate letters to the government and joining the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (these parents must be pretty elderly “youth”).

Given Australian schoolkids’ poor international ratings on maths, it’s odd that Cool suggests parents rely on kids’ maths to choose among today’s expensive electricity and gas suppliers. Even using the official energy-compare websites can be a nightmare of complexity for householders, but Cool instructs:

 “Ask your kid/s to spend some time on an energy compare website and present you with the most green energy supplier within your budget. If possible, also ask them to start researching solar panels, and present you with a money-saving case for getting some panels installed.”

Parents are supposed to add to the kids’ Einstein-like maths exercise by getting them to catalogue all energy sources “starting with First Nations energy practices and moving through wood, coal, oil, gas and renewable sources.”

Further parent-driven homework involves your kids discussing “how they believe the change in [energy] sources has impacted society and the environment, and where their beliefs may have come from”.

Kids when in doubt are referred to discredited leftist fact-checkers like AFP, ABC, the defunct RMIT effort and that academics’ playground, The Conversation, which disallows all sceptical comments.

Parents are told, “Call out hate speech and misinformation, but do it constructively. Responsible citizens use social media for positive change, not drama.” This is a bit rich coming from Cool’s drama queens who scare kids with climate-catastrophe bugaboo.

Tony’s latest book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95

Tomorrow: how Cool turns schoolkids into campaigners

[1] From 2mins50secs

[2] High Flyers podcast #125, 5/4/2023

[3] Cool 2022-23 Annual Report, p1

[4] Cannon-Brookes: “Although private aviation is far from a big contributor to global emissions, it is a carbon-intensive way to travel…My commitment to climate is as strong as ever. I’m still pretty damn focused on making an impact at a large scale, removing huge volumes of emissions through active investments and philanthropy … and have the proud scars to prove it.”

[5] Victoria’s one-time education minister and premier, Joan Kirner, at a Fabian Society meeting in 1983, explained that the education system must be reshaped to be “part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change rather than an instrument of the capitalist system”.

[6] 7% of the educators are principal/deputy/director/department head.

18% are specialist teachers, and 16% sustainability or curriculum coordinator

[7] Drawn from Cool Annual Report 2022-23 and Cool.org’s Social Impact Report 2024.

[8] “Cool Australia’s work is rigorous, inventive and backed by evidence. The Myer Foundation is proud to support this important initiative.” Leonard Vary – CEO, Sidney Myer Fund and The Myer Foundation. Cool Impact Report.

[9] Cool’s Earth Hour lesson for Years 3 – 4, ages 8-10: “Students will be asked to create an advertisement for Earth Hour in the form of a video, infographic, image, poem or story. The advertisement should explain about how climate change is affecting your favourite food or farming region of Australia.”

[10] Gameau is quoted, “Our impact couldn’t have happened without Cool. They brought the concepts and ideas to millions of children and have helped to spark ideas, awareness and enthusiasm for a better future we can create. Great change can only happen through education.”

[11] Boundless received $30.4m from a Cannon Brookes entity in 2022-23, and it received another $15m last year, of which $12m was from the billionaire personally.