Source
Automatically imported from: http://commons.somewhere.com:80/rre/1997/A.CLEAR.View.Assault.on..html
Content
| | | | --- | --- | | Red Rock Eater Digest | Most Recent Article: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 |
A CLEAR View: Assault on Environmental Education
``` ---
This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu
---
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 10:55:58 -0400
From: "CLEAR View Mailing List"
Attached is the latest issue of A CLEAR View, our periodic bulletin on the 'wise use' movement.
Permission to repost by electronic means (or reproduce in other media) all or part of the attached report is granted so long as the information is attributed to CLEAR.
Distribution within environmental organizations and networks is encouraged.
Feel free to invite friends and colleagues to subscribe to
A CLEAR View by encouraging them to send a message to:
Please visit our new WWW homepage at www.ewg.org.
As always, send along your news and leads regarding 'wise use'-- you are our eyes and ears!
Please contact CLEAR (at clear@ewg.org) with any comments or questions.
Thank you.
A CLEAR View Special Issue: Assault on Environmental Education January 27, 1997 Volume 4 Number 2
Contents *1 Notable Quotes *2 Assault on Environmental Education on the Rise *3 The Anti-Environmental Education Manifesto: A new book downplays threats to the environment. *4 Anecdotes from the Backlash: The "horror story" virus *5 Six Criticisms of Environmental Education: What the critics have to say about environmental education.
6 State Level Attacks by the Environmental Education Backlash:
Contests in the classroom and the legislature. *7 Profile: The Environmental Education Working Group
A CLEAR View SPECIAL ISSUE January 27, 1997 Vol. 4 No 2
Assault on Environmental Education
*1 Notable Quotes "[Y]our children will become no different than coal, or trees, or oil, one more resource for the state to oversee and manage." -- from a Texas Christian Coalition newsletter warning parents to protect their children's education. (Source: People for the American Way)
For 16 years, the Weekly Reader [the nation's oldest and most widely circulated newspaper for schoolchildren] has asked its readers what they most want the President to do. This year, the 93,000 children surveyed said: "The number 2 goal [for President Clinton] is cleaning up the environment." The environment ranked second to "stopping violence." -- from "Dear Mr. President," by Carol Zimmerman, Parade, 1/12/97
"To provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, commitment, and skills needed to protect and improve the environment." -- The Tbilisi Declaration. One of three objectives reached at the world's first intergovernmental conference on environmental education, 1978.
*2 Attacks on Environmental Education on the Rise In community after community, in places as divergent as Watsonville, CA and Pensacola, FL, right wing community organizers in conjunction with national think tanks have sought to quell or dictate environmental education in the public schools. Members of the "wise use" movement, the religious right, and free market environmentalists have increasingly criticized environmental education on the airwaves, in the news media, and in a growing body of literature. Why? The religious right feels discussion of the environment will diminish the appeal of creationism, free market environmentalists think it will undermine industry, and "wise users" fear their children are being taught that what they do for a living is bad.
The assaults may be reaching a crescendo because the 1990 National Environmental Education Act, which created the EPA's Environmental Education Division, is up for reauthorization in the 105th Congress. Perhaps, too, the right sees education as the next battleground after their unsuccessful effort to rollback environmental regulations during the 104th Congress.
Much of the alarm has been vocalized and spread by many of the same "wise use" and free market organizations and individuals who have appeared in the "A CLEAR View". In this issue, CLEAR reviews the anti-environmentalists' major manifesto, highlights some of the state level assaults on environmental education, lists the major criticisms against environmental education textbooks, and profiles the coalition responsible for most of the recent environmental education criticism. We also list some of the so- called environmental education "horror stories" that appear in a variety of right wing publications.
*3 The Anti-Environmental Education Manifesto Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw's new book Facts, Not Fear : A Parent's Guide to Teaching Children About the Environment (Regnery, 1996) is the newly-minted manifesto of the anti- environmental education activists. Throughout the book, Sanera and Shaw employ a familiar tactic of the anti-environmentalist movement: downplay threats to the environment by falsely debunking scientists. In chapter after chapter on population, natural resources, acid rain, global warming, endangered species and more, the authors counter scientific consensus on the state of the environment with material from the likes of S. Fred Singer, Patrick Michaels, and Robert Balling -- all members of the burgeoning anti-environmental science brownlash.
At a December 17 press conference sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and held at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., Sanera and Shaw said the purpose of the book was to balance environmental "misinformation" being taught in the public schools with "science based" information. CLEAR's review of the book's authors, organizations that provided support, and the identities of the academic and scientific review panel, however, reveals the project's ideological bias and anti- environmental stance.
For example, Sanera is the Director and Research Fellow for the Center for Environmental Education Research, The Claremont Institute. A conservative think tank founded in 1979, the Institute seeks to restore the original intent of limited government in a free market system. The Claremont Institute is funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a prominent right wing funder which receives its money from holdings in Amoco, Bristol Myers Squibb, Exxon, Cyprus AMAX, Ford Motor, and Philip Morris and other corporations. Sanera is also an Adjunct Scholar with the Heritage Foundation (which is funded by such corporations as Amoco and Exxon) and is founder and president of the Arizona Institute for Public Policy Research, a member of the Environmental Education Working Group (see "Profile" at the end of this issue). He has also co-authored Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution and Steering the Elephant: How Washington Works.
Other right wing groups involved in the publication of Facts, Not Fear include the Alabama Family Alliance's (part of Focus on the Family, a large, religious right coalition based in Colorado -- whose Washington D.C. lobbying arm, the Family Research Council, is run by Gary Bauer) and its president Gary Palmer, who is described as being the inspiration for the book and whose organization owns the copyright to Facts, Not Fear. PERC's Terry Anderson and Richard Stroup and CEI's Fred Smith and Jonathon Adler also provide support for the book.
Co-author Jane Shaw is a Senior Associate at the Political Economy Research Center (PERC). PERC funders include Amoco Foundation, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Coca-Cola, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc..
On the book's academic and scientific review panel are a number of scientists (but mostly economists) whose beliefs on the environment have partnered them with industry. For example, Robert Balling (Director, Office of Climatology and Associate Professor of Geography, Arizona State University) reviews the book's global warming chapter and receives funding from "the Kuwait government, foreign coal and mining corporations and Cyprus Minerals Company -- a U.S. coal mining company and frequent funder of the 'wise use' group People for the West." (Earth Island Journal Oct-Dec, 1996)
We've charted some of the fables perpetuated by the anti- environmentalists in Facts, Not Fear, and we've contrasted their misstatements with the scientific facts as viewed by the majority of the scientific community, as discussed in Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich's Betrayal Of Science and Reason (Island Press, 1996):
FABLE: "One reason why global warming has received so much attention is that computer models predict it." (Facts, Not Fear, p. 155) FACT: "Let us reiterate that global warming is indeniably real; worldwide thermometers have documented nearly a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise since the nineteenth century." (_Betrayal of Science and Reason, p. 129)
FABLE: "The Earth's "carrying capacity" is enormous." (_Fact, Not Fear, p. 67) FACT: "The number of people Earth can support in the long term (without degrading the environment) -- given existing socioeconomic systems, consumption patters, and technological capabilities -- is called the human carrying capacity of the planet at the time. And carrying capacity can be exceeded without causing immediate effects obvious to the untutored observer." (_Betrayal of Science and Reason, p.67)
FABLE: "Most natural resources are plentiful. While some may become more scarce over time, price changes will cause people to find substitutes. The resources that we use will change over time. Materials that were previously unknown or neglected will provide the services we want." (Fact, Not Fear p. 82) FACT: "The problems commonly encountered in making substitutions, such as substituting nuclear power for fossil fuels, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for ammonia in refrigerators, aluminum for copper wire, should have alerted everyone to the "unlimited substitution" fallacy." (_Betrayal of Science and Reason, pp. 93-94)
Book Links Activists. Facts, Not Fear links the national think tanks and the local community organizers. For example, Sanera has spoken at the Parents Raising Educational Standards in Schools (PRESS) Conference in Wisconsin, attacking environmental education in public schools. His book and a videotape of his presentation are available from the group. He also conducted a study in 1996 for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute of the environment-related content of textbooks used by 12 school districts in the state. His findings were discussed in the Wisconsin State Journal in December, 1996. Mainstream newspapers have mentioned Sanera and his work, and are spreading the word of the anti- environmental education movement. For instance, articles in The Wall Street Journal, AP Newswire, Investor's Business Daily, and the Wisconsin State Journal have boosted public awareness of Sanera and Shaw's attacks on environmental education. In addition, the Alliance for America, the wise use umbrella organization, has purchased 500 copies of Facts, Not Fear and has distributed them to 400 wise use grassroots organizations across the country.
*4 Anecdotes from the Backlash The environmental education backlash disseminates a number of so-called "horror stories" about the damage environmentalists are inflicting on schoolchildren's minds. While the anecdotes may be true, they are not presented in the context of many positive stories of environmental education, nor do they attempt to put environmental education in any kind of perspective. The "horror stories" serve only one purpose: to alarm and scare parents. It is a powerful tactic and one that succeeds with a public already confused about the state of the environment and science-related issues. The following story reveals the contagious nature of an anecdote:
"They killed trees to make my bed," said a sad six year. The child's comment led her mother, Nancy Bray Cardozo, to take a second look at what her child was being taught." The story originally appeared in Audubon, and later appeared in a _Wall Street Journal (9/4/96) op-ed piece urging readers to counter support for the 1990 National Environmental Education Act reauthorization; also found in Chuck Colson's Prison Ministry newsletter "Breakpoint"; also in an article by Jane Shaw hotlinked to the Alliance for America website; and in Facts, Not Fear.
*5 Six Criticisms of Environmental Education Jo Kwong's article "Environmental Education: Getting Beyond Advocacy," (published by Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, MO) cites six "trends" in "environmental education literature." The backlash appears to organize around these "trends": 1. EE is often based on emotionalism, myths, and misinformation 2. EE is often issue-driven rather than information-driven. 3. EE typically fails to teach children about basic economics or decision-making processes, relying instead on mindless slogans. 4. EE typically fails to take advantage of lessons from nature, and instead preached socially or politically correct lessons. 5. EE is unabashedly devoted to activism and politics, rather than knowledge and understanding. 6. EE teaches an anti-anthropocentric philosophy: man is an intrusion on the earth and at times, an evil.
*6 State Level Attacks by the Environmental Education Backlash Classrooms and state legislatures have become the battleground of the anti-environmental movement's assault on environmental education. In the last several years, right wing community members have protested legislation, curricula, and textbooks in an attempt to roll back environmental education. In some cases, the right has accused teachers of pushing their political beliefs or cited objections to science textbooks for being anti-industry. In other cases, the work of national organizations, like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have attempted to pass legislation that would limit the teaching of evolution and population issues.
Part of the upswing in the anti-environmental education backlash comes from the Parental Rights movement. In conjunction with the rise in environmental censorship, religious right leaders have sought a way to destroy school barriers to censorship with a set of legislative initiatives known as parental rights legislation. It is unclear what role, if any, they have had in some of the incidents mentioned here, but People For the American Way (PFAW) has examined the movement in-depth in their publication: " 'Parental Rights': The Trojan Horse of the Religious Right Attack on Public Education." (Available at PFAW's website < http://www.pfaw.org>)
ALEC is a front-runner in the effort to get parental rights plank adopted by state legislatures. ALEC, featured in the most recent "A CLEAR View," is a nationwide network of conservative state legislators, who have promoted, among other conservative issues, the Parental Rights Amendment (PRA) in state legislatures. ALEC involves state elected officials in a "partnership to develop public policies that harness the immense power of free markets and free enterprise". A 501(c) (3) membership organization, ALEC claims "nearly 3,000" state legislatures from every state as members. In addition, ALEC includes representatives of the corporate world as both active members and funders of the organization. ALEC has produced model legislation for property rights that has passed in a handful of states. ALEC is funded in part by ALCOA Recycling Company, Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, Eastman Chemical, International Paper.
Arizona. The backlash has seen the greatest success in Arizona, where an Environmental Education Curriculum Review persuaded the legislature to overturn a 1990 law requiring environmental education in public schools. A June 10, 1996 US News and World Report reported that: "The curriculum guide has been withdrawn and funding for classroom projects is slashed. If school districts choose to continue environmental instruction, teachers are not to encourage advocacy or activism...".
State Rep. Russell Bowers from Mesa, AZ, led the campaign. According to US News & World Report, "he was prompted in part by the curriculum guide that suggested second graders dance to wolf howls and whale songs. 'It's ecocultism,' " was how he described it.
Texas. The Texas Agricultural commissioner, along with farm and ranch groups objected to an environmental science book called Environmental Science: Ecology and Human Impact, for being too "negative on an industrial society." (PFAW)
Florida. In Pensacola, FL, Whit Wise, a candidate for school superintendent wanted the same textbook objected to in Texas withdrawn from the schools, claiming it "presents students with a Unabomber theme" and portrays industry negatively. In addition to contacting local television stations and newspapers, Wise attempted to gain local industry support for his objections. (Greenwire/PFAW)
California. A Senate subcommittee considered withdrawing state funds for environmental education in secondary schools. The attempt failed. (Kansas City Star, 6/29/96)
In Watsonville, CA members of the community, many involved with agricultural affiliations, objected to a lesson on the harmful effects of pesticides and an assignment in which students were asked to write letters to the newspaper on any farming topic, in a class studying agricultural issues for being allegedly "one-sided" and "controversial". The objectors wanted the teacher to be fired for "teaching lies". A letter of reprimand was placed in the teacher's file citing her for failing to follow district policy governing the use of "controversial" topics. The letter also stated that because the teacher allegedly did not follow the policy, the students were subsequently "led to inaccurate and misleading conclusions from their research as evidenced in their letters" and that the publication of those letters "resulted in the undermining of carefully developed relationships between groups in the community who represent farm workers and the agricultural industry". (Source: People for the American Way)
In Laytonville, CA, the timber community tried to ban the schools from using Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. (US News & World Report, 6/10/96)
New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, ALEC's model legislation for a Parental Rights amendment was considered but died in committee. The legislation would have required parental permission in order for children to learn anything about "nuclear war, nuclear policy...globalism...population control, and organic evolution, including Darwin's theory..." (Source: PFAW)
*7 Profile: Environmental Education Working Group (EEWG) The leading coalition assaulting environmental education borrows its language from environmentalists. The Environmental Education Working Group (EEWG) has an eco-friendly name, but the Environmental Working Group it is not. Like the "wise use" groups Northwesterners for More Fish, The Global Climate Coalition, and The Wilderness Institute, the organization's name only serves to confuse the public into thinking that EEWG stands for environmental protection.
But our research shows that individuals associated with the EEWG hail from conservative groups like the George Marshall Institute, Political Economy Research Center (PERC), Heartland Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Arizona Institute on Public Policy Research, the Alaska Council on Economic Education, and the Alabama Family Alliance. EEWG's stated mission is "...to strengthen environmental education by creating a firm intellectual base of sound science and economics" but their unstated mission is clearly to weaken environmental protections by promoting environmental misinformation. Below is a sampling of EEWG's member groups:
*Heartland Institute is a nonprofit, conservative Chicago-area think tank, also known as an activist group. In April 1996, the Institute distributed to college campuses "EARTH DAY '96: A Free Guide To Saving The Planet" -- a 35 page newspaper imparting to readers the myth that environmentalists have become "leftist extremists" that "are anti-human, anti-science, anti-trade, and anti-free enterprise." Readers were told that global warming, ozone depletion, dioxin, chlorine and other issues are not problems and that too much is being spent on recycling and attempts to reduce pollution, and that free markets are the best way to protect the environment. Heartland is a member of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) network, a wise use umbrella group founded by the Land Improvement Contractors Association in 1990. Heartland president Joseph Bast is the co-author of the book Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism.
*The George Marshall Institute is a Washington, D.C., nonprofit think tank that specializes in the "politicization of science," which it seeks to counter and debunk. The Institute is a member of the ECO network. Its Board of Directors includes Sallie Baliunas, who has written several articles skeptical of the ozone crisis and global warming trend, "The Ozone Crisis" and "Ozone and Global Warming: Are the Problems Real?" available through the Washington Roundtable on Science and Technology. Baliunas contributed to "Earth Day '96," a magazine published by the right wing Heartland Institute and distributed on Earth Day on campuses throughout the country.
The George Marshall Institute founded the eleven-member Independent Commission on Environmental Education (ICEE) to evaluate the "current state of environmental education." By evaluating educational programs such as Project WILD, WET, and widely used curricula and text books, the Commission plans to make recommendations for environmental education guidelines in a written report due out this spring. Members of the ICEE include Bruce N. Ames, (Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley) who lead the campaign to discredit the 60 Minutes report on ALAR by saying the chemical was an insignificant risk; and Nicholas Eberstadt, (Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute and Visiting Fellow, Center for Population Studies, Harvard University) who contributed to CEI's book The True State of the Planet. Both men are also on the academic and scientific advisory panel of Facts, Not Fear, (Regnery, 1996) the anti-environmental education contingent's manifesto.
*Political Economy Research Center (PERC). Based in Bozeman, MT, PERC was formed as a think tank promoting free market environmentalism. The non-profit PERC is a member of the Alliance for America and Heritage Foundation networks. Listed as a think tank resource in the Heartland Institutes publication "Earth Day 96," PERC staff members Richard Stroup, (Senior Associate) and Jane Shaw (Senior Associate) wrote articles about free market environmentalism. Jane Shaw is a co-author of Facts, Not Fear. Before launching her book, Shaw was PERC's Director of Environmental Education but has been replaced by Don Wentworth, who will publish a newsletter on environmental education called "The Environmental Examiner" and direct a major conference on environmental education this year in Big Sky, MT, sponsored by PERC and funded by the Donner Foundation, which has also funded the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, the Center for Individual Rights, and Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
PERC has developed an environmental education curriculum called Eco-Detectives, published by the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE). NCEE is an umbrella organization for councils nationwide that support the teaching of economics in high school. PERC has received money from conservative foundations such as the Amoco Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation.
*Atlas Economic Research Foundation - This Fairfax, VA-based conservative think tank, incorporated in 1981, creates, develops, advises, and supports independent public policy research institutes. Jo Kwong, Director of Public Affairs at the Foundation and an Assistant Research Professor at George Mason University, has authored several articles critical of environmental education: "Environmental Education: Getting Beyond Advocacy," published by the Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis; "EcoKids: New Automatons on the Block," "On Coercive Environmental Education," and "Environmentalism: The Newest Paganism?" She developed the six criticisms of environmental education material around which the ICEE and other anti-environmental education organizations appear to be organizing. The Foundation is also listed as a think tank resource in the Heartland Institutes "Earth Day "96" publication, and is an ECO, State Policy Network, and Heritage Foundation network member.
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) - Founded in 1984, CEI is a Washington-based conservative policy group "dedicated to the principles of free enterprise, individual liberty and limited government." Jonathan Adler, director of Environmental Studies at CEI, has written critical articles on environmental education, including "Environmentalists Aim Propaganda at Children," which was published in 1993 in Human Events and is the precursor and original outline for Facts, Not Fear. He has also written "Little Green Lies: The Miseducation of America's Children," and "A Child's Garden of Misinformation." Adler is also cited frequently by other anti-environmental education writers. CEI was also involved in the publication of Facts, Not Fear: Adler contributed to the book and President Fred Smith is credited with having helped launch the book project. CEI receives money from Amoco, Koch, Dow Chemical, Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Carthage Foundation, among others. CEI is also a member of ECO, State Policy Network, and Heritage Foundation network, sponsored the most recent Western States Coalition Summit and has appeared at nearly every Alliance for America Fly-In (the "wise use" movement's annual lobby on Congress.). (Contributed by Sara Savitt and Allison Daly)
For additional information on anything you've read in A CLEAR View, please contact CLEAR.
Editor: Sara Savitt Contributors: Dan Barry, CLEAR Director Allison Daly, Grassroots Coordinator
---
CLEAR Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research 1718 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20009 tel. 202-667-6982 = fax 202-232-2592 = = e-mail: clear@ewg.org = www: http://www.ewg.org
---
CLEAR provides grassroots and national environmental advocates and organizations with information about the vital importance of fair and effective environmental policies in protecting human health, natural resources, communities and private property. Through publications, research and facts, CLEAR helps concerned citizens understand and counter misinformation about environmental policy and science and the impacts of environmental law on the economy and private property.
CLEAR depends on grassroots activists to keep us informed of any articles, anti-environmental events, success or horror stories about local, regional and national resource and property rights battles.
---
CLEAR is a project of the Environmental Working Group, a not-for- profit 501(c)(3) environmental research and publishing organization based in Washington, D.C.
About the Environmental Working Group
The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. Environmental Working Group is a project of the Tides Center, a California Public Benefit Corporation based in San Francisco that provides administrative and program support services to nonprofit programs and projects.
======end====== ```
| | | --- | | ProcessTree Network TM For-pay Internet distributed processing. | | Advertising helps support hosting Red Rock Eater Digest @ The Commons. Advertisers are not associated with the list owner. If you have any comments about the advertising, please direct them to the Webmaster @ The Commons. |