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Home > Archive > Alternative Power sources > November 2006 > An inconvenient partnership
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An inconvenient partnership
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| lkgeo1 2006-11-28, 9:25 am |
| An inconvenient partnership
Teachers association's ties may keep 'Truth' out of schools
COURTESY PHOTO
Donated copies of 'An Inconvenient Truth' are being rejected by the
National Science Teachers Association.
By Laurie David
Special to The Washington Post
Published on 11/28/2006
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the
first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every
student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former Vice President Al Gore's film about global
warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made
the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National
Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their
classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer. The teachers had a different
idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special
interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they
didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw
"little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free
DVDs.
Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run
is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been
enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and
is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.
Still, maybe the NSTA is just being extra cautious. But there was one
more curious argument: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place
"unnecessary risk upon the (NSTA) capital campaign, especially certain
targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the
Exxon Mobil Corp.
That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done
everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming
and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading
newspapers questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming,
and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have
tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is
drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to
support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that
aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits. It's bad
enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of
grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle
cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it
has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the
association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic
networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and
learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has
a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003,
NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.
So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.
In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's
foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way
children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate
from high school. And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the
action.
The oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are
exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of
their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox, through
textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars.
NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the
American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the
science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running
on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track
record - citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the
companies fought tooth and nail, by the way - but makes only vague
references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video
produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless
pitch for oil dependence.
The education organization also hosts an annual convention, described
on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 companies and
organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab equipment,
computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements."
The company "regularly displays" its "many ... education materials" at
the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem High
School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with
industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual
convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school
administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.
Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the
curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by
Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits
of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.
"The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other
corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski
says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the
timber industry papers over clear-cuts."
An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly explains
why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: "Informing
teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to
erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in
the future."
So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the
classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant Productions,
which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from giving away DVDs,
and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost business from limits
on global-warming pollution and a shift to cleaner, renewable energy.
It's hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim
of tight education budgets. And we don't pretend a movie is a
substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should expect,
and parents should demand, educators present an honest and unbiased
look at the true state of knowledge about challenges of the day.
As for Exxon Mobil -- which just began a fuzzy advertising campaign
that trumpets clean energy and low emissions -- this story shows that
slapping green stripes on a corporate tiger doesn't change the beast
within. The company is still playing the same cynical game it has for
years.
While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching
with all this, 50,000 DVDs are sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse,
waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to
keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework.
Laurie David, a producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," is a Natural
Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of StopGlobalWarming.org.
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| Steve Cothran 2006-11-28, 1:25 pm |
| If life were fair, parents that let their children hear/watch
*anything* Al Gore says would be cited for child abuse/neglect.
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| Steve Cothran wrote:
> If life were fair, parents that let their children hear/watch
> *anything* Al Gore says would be cited for child abuse/neglect.
>
>
You (apparently) have an odd definition of "fair."
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| Steve Cothran wrote:
> If life were fair, parents that let their children hear/watch
> *anything* Al Gore says would be cited for child abuse/neglect.
>
>
BTW, you also need to set the clock on your computer to the right time.
--
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minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.
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| Steve Cothran 2006-11-28, 5:25 pm |
| On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:51:19 GMT, CJT <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote:
>BTW, you also need to set the clock on your computer to the right time.
You need to set your mind to reality. You have a cause and want
Ambition Al as your frontman? "What is not prohibited,is mandatory".
Wonder why all the Dems stayed far,far away from him in the last
election.
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| Steve Cothran wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:51:19 GMT, CJT <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> You need to set your mind to reality. You have a cause and want
> Ambition Al as your frontman? "What is not prohibited,is mandatory".
>
> Wonder why all the Dems stayed far,far away from him in the last
> election.
.... which has what to do with your apparent inability to accomplish
simple tasks like setting your computer's clock?
--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.
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