Corporate Science and School Censorship

In a Washington Post oped Sunday, Laurie David (National Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of Stopglobalwarming.org) wrote that as co-producer of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth movie, she'd heard lots of requests from parents that the film be made available to schools. So she offered to donate 50,000 DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for distribution across the country. They said no.

Is it because they perceive the content--approved as accurate by every climate scientist asked so far--as political, as taking "sides," and therefore as not something they should distribute? It has always been absurd that the Climate Crisis was a political issue. But largely because of a few giant global corporations and their political minions, it was. So if NSTA's position was that it had to remain neutral, or especially if it refused on principle to accept materials that could be in any way construed as propaganda from a source that might have a political or ideological agenda, I could respect that completely.

But that's not really why they turned down 50,000 DVDs, even though it was one of the reasons they offered. Another was much more telling: "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." Exxon contributed some $6 million in a recent campaign; and an Exxonista sits on NSTA's board.

The National Science Teachers Association not only gets bucks from Exxon and other oil companies, they distribute their "educational materials"--that is, their corporate propaganda. As for a political agenda, theirs has been clear. An internal American Petroleum Association memo leaked in 1998 said it all: Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future."

Let me quote again from Saturday's Washington Post: 'We have to deal with greenhouse gases," John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. "From Shell's point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, 'Let's debate the science'?"

Either NSTA hasn't gotten the memo from their corporate overlords (Shell is another big contributor) or it's all just part of a Shell game, but two things are clear: there is no debate over the science, and corporations with a massive self-interest will continue to work the issue to whatever advantage they can get. Corporations have also partnered with so-called conservatives who cut funding to schools and school programs, so they would be more dependent on the "private sector," i.e. corporate propaganda and control.

Some corporations, especially companies needing to build new power plants, need regulation, so the future is predictable and the playing field is leveled. But corporations are also still trying to manipulate public perception, to get the best possible deals for themselves. Apparently it's not enough to go after voters. They're going after children.

Laurie David makes the analogy to Big Tobacco's promotion of cigarettes to teens and children, symbolized by Joe Camel. Once again, the corporations are going right to the kids. The analogy is more than an analogy. As George Monbiot discovered, the leading Climate Crisis denying lobbying organization was begun by Philip Morris as a tool to deny the hazards of smoking, and especially of second-hand smoke. Many of the same people, using the same techniques and websites, have gotten big money from Exxon to engineer the so-called controversy over the Climate Crisis, where in reality none has ever existed. (Although until recent years, some scientists in the relevant fields wanted more data before they committed, there was never opposition, and today there is virtual unanimity.)

What isn't clear is what America's science teachers are going to do about this. Is teaching Climate Crisis denial any less anti-scientific than teaching Biblical creationism as science? Is it really worth the free glossy propaganda? No doubt science teachiers need more disinterested state funding for their science teaching. But maybe they should show some character first.

UPDATE: On his Countdown program, Keith Olbermann named the president of the
National Science Teachers Association as today's Worst Person in the World.