[PAEE] Wash Post: Science a la Joe Camel

Wed Nov 29 19:31:32 CST 2006

So here is the response that came across from another listserv today.
Still dont know who to believe? yeah, me neither.

"NSTA has responded with a clarification that makes Ms. David look a  
bit misguided:

http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=52959

Nick Henshue
Environmental Sciences
Easton Area High School

On Nov 29, 2006, at 6:40 PM, Mike Ewall wrote:

>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/ 
> AR2006112400789_pf.html
>
> Science a la Joe Camel
>
> By Laurie David
> Washington Post
>
> Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01
>
> 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 just being extra cautious. But there was one
> more curious argument in the e-mail: 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 (including this one) 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. Through
> textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, 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.
>
> 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 -- which
> is 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 that a
> two-hour movie is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum.
> Students should expect, and parents should demand, that educators
> present an honest and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge
> about the 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, there are 50,000 DVDs 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.
>
>
>
> Mike Ewall
> 1434 Elbridge St.
> Philadelphia, PA 19149
> 215-743-4884
> catalyst at actionpa.org
>
> ActionPA http://www.actionpa.org
> Energy Justice Network http://www.energyjustice.net
> Corporate Accountability Project http://www.corporations.org
> Environmental Justice Resources http://www.ejnet.org
> Student Environmental Action Coalition http://www.seac.org
>
>
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