Editorial: āDonāt cloud young mindsā
Update: On 20 February, water expert declared in a statement on The Huffington Post that he was the source of the leaked documents (see below).
Gleick, who is founder and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, said he had received an anonymous document describing the Heartland Instituteās climate strategy earlier this year. In an effort to confirm the document, āand in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethicsā, , āI solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone elseās nameā.
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Gleick , after the leak became public. He cited āpersonal, private reasonsā.
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THE political battle over whether human activity is changing Earthās climate is heading for US schools. A conservative organisation is working to develop teaching materials that sow doubt on the scientific consensus over climate change, according to documents leaked last week from the , a libertarian think tank based in Chicago.
Whatās more, a separate informal poll of nearly 2000 Earth science teachers suggests that a significant proportion may prove receptive to contrarian material. Nearly half of respondents reported teaching āboth sidesā of climate change science of their own volition.
Published peer-reviewed research does not support the existence of two equally weighted āsidesā to climate science. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared with 90 per cent certainty that human activity is pushing up global temperatures. In 2010, a survey of 1372 climate scientists showed that 97 per cent of those who publish most frequently in the field support this view (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: ).
The leaked files came to light last week when someone calling themselves āthe Heartland Insiderā emailed several environmental blogs, claiming were confidential documents prepared for the Heartland Instituteās board. They included details of donors to the organisation over the past decade, plus strategy papers and fundraising plans.
The Heartland Institute has not confirmed the authenticity of any of the documents. It does admit , and has only specifically disavowed one document as false.
In particular, a document entitled ā2012 Fundraising Planā includes plans to develop a curriculum for US schools that questions the āalarmistā consensus among climate scientists that human activity is warming the planet. Noting that āprincipals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspectiveā, the document says Heartland is considering a proposal by educational consultant David Wojick to develop teaching modules casting doubt on human-induced climate change.
High-school students would learn that āwhether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversyā, and that the reliability of climate models āis controversialā. Younger students would learn that āthere is a major controversy over whether humans are changing the weatherā.
āStudents would learn that whether humans are changing the climate is a major controversyā
According to the document, Heartland plans to pay Wojick $5000 per module, and an anonymous donor has pledged the first $100,000 to the project.
Both the Heartland Institute and Wojick confirmed to New Scientist that these plans are under development. Both say Heartland has yet to give final approval. James Taylor, a senior fellow at Heartland, says schools are giving students a false belief that humans are causing global warming, and that the institute āhopes to restore sound science to the classroomā.
This is not the first time the institute has tried to influence how climate change is taught. In 2009, it distributed 150,000 copies of The Skepticās Handbook by Joanne Nova. According to Novaās website, .
These efforts to meddle in education are disturbing, says Roberta Johnson, executive director of the (NESTA) in Boulder, Colorado. āThe fact that the Heartland Institute specifically mentions that theyāre going to try to make things appear controversial is disheartening. Theyāre trying to intentionally make the science seem more doubtful than in fact it is.ā
Indeed, US science teachers report that they often meet objections when teaching about climate change (see āScience teachers under pressureā). In an conducted by NESTA last year, 36 per cent of 1909 respondents indicated that they had been influenced, either directly or indirectly, to teach āboth sidesā of climate change; 5 per cent said they were required to do so, rising to 12 per cent in southern states. Nearly half said they choose to because they think there is validity to both sides. In comments, a significant number of teachers said they presented both views so students could decide for themselves, says NESTA. āThatās a little hard to deal with, because clearly the evidence is all in one direction,ā says Johnson.
A , conducted last year by the (NSTA), gave similar results, though with just 53 teachers. In it, 81 per cent of respondents reported that they have faced scepticism about climate change from students, 55 per cent from parents, and 28 per cent from school administrators.
Science teachers are usually fairly good at evaluating evidence, so they should make sound decisions about materials such as those the Heartland Institute is developing, says Francis Eberle of the NSTA in Arlington, Virginia. However, a small proportion of teachers ā 6 per cent in the NESTA survey ā do not believe that global warming is happening and think that climate change is ājunk scienceā. For them, Heartlandās planned teaching materials may form a valuable resource. āProviding them with a curriculum that meets the story they want to tell ā they would be highly receptive to that,ā says Johnson.
Science teachers under pressure
Curricula in the US are set at state level or even by school districts. Climate change contrarians have gained a foothold in several states.
ā¢ In 2010, South Dakota passed a non-binding resolution questioning the scientific consensus that temperatures are rising and calling for ābalanced teaching of global warmingā.
ā¢ In Louisiana, a 2008 law calls for āopen and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloningā.
ā¢ Last year, the Los Alamitos school district, California, required teachers to present āa balance of viewpointsā on controversial issues. The school trustee who introduced the measure referred to his doubts about global warming. After an outcry by parents and teachers, the rule was modified.
ā¢ In 2009, the Texas education board altered the stateās science standards to require students to āanalyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warmingā. A requirement that they āanalyze the changes in Earthās atmosphere through timeā was changed to read āanalyze the changes in Earthās atmosphere that could have occurred through timeā. The state could reject textbooks that do not meet its standards, says Steven Newton of the . As Texas is one of the nationās largest textbook purchasers, authors may feel pressure to include the new language or risk being dropped.
NCSE also reports anecdotal evidence of teacher pressure. For example, in 2007 a school board in Washington state told teachers showing Al Goreās movie An Inconvenient Truth to present āthe opposing viewā. The policy was later abandoned. Last year, a parent at a San Francisco school complained that teachers were ābrainwashingā her child with respect to human-induced climate change.
