Since the late 1980s, oil industry–backed think tanks and advocacy organizations have worked tirelessly in an attempt to confuse the public and politicians on the issue of climate change by questioning the legitimacy of climate science. Now, over twenty years later as the international scientific community shares a consensus that anthropogenic climate change is a reality that must be addressed, the climate change denial campaign has ended up where it truly does not belong — schools.
Earlier last week, private documents from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization, revealed plans to promote skepticism and doubt upon the cause and effects of climate change within the public school system.
Much like the evolution vs. creationism matter of decades past, schools around the country have somehow found themselves in the midst of a fight against science. Although this most recent leak is not at all the first of its kind, it does lend a frightening look into the politics of education.
Among the leaked documents are budgets for the Heartland Institute as well its ‘climate strategy’ to execute in schools. The strategy includes: “modules” for grades 10–12 on climate change (‘whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy’), climate models (‘models are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial’), and air pollution (‘whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions).”
The ‘curriculum’ was developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, a coal-industry consultant, who is to receive $5,000 a module (with 20 modules produced a year). Money happens to be one of the glaring and most revealing aspects of the documents. Because funding is outlined dollar by dollar, where Heartland decides to distribute money is very telling of their motives.
This year alone, the organization is expecting to raise over $7 million. They’ve received sizable donations from large-scale corporations, including oil companies and notably, The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Because of the oil industry’s obvious stake in the distribution of doubt on climate change, Koch’s involvement should not be shocking. The Koch brother’s foundation is expected to be contributing $200,000 this year, a sizable increase from their $25,000 donation last year.
Although the past few years have seen quite a few leaks from recognized organizations, the Heartland Institute leak alarmingly proves that money and politics are now permeating the school system like never before.
