Heartland indoctrination documents
(via Think Progress)
Brad Johnson has come into possession of
internal documents of the Heartland Institute. These show that the organization "is planning to develop a 'global warming curriculum' for elementary schoolchildren that presents climate science as 'a major scientific controversy.' This effort, at a cost of $100,000 a year, will be developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, a coal-industry consultant."
Wojick will, the documents say, put together various teaching "modules" on climate issues, focusing on skepticism about whether CO2 emissions contribute to climate change and the "major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather."
In an email to Johnson, James M. Taylor, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, explained why it is developing the curriculum denying climate change:
We are concerned that schools are teaching climate change issues in a manner that is not consistent with sound science and that is designed to lead students to the erroneous belief that humans are causing a global warming crisis. We hope that our efforts will restore sound science to climate change education and discourage the political propaganda that too often passes as “education”.
Taylor is managing editor of Heartland's
Environment & Climate News, which calls itself an "outreach publication for common-sense environmentalism." In fact,
ECN takes positions that are often anti-environment, its stance on control of mercury emissions and its
apologia for the tobacco industry being just two of many examples.
Heartland is a member of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council and sits on four of its nine task forces.
The renowned science magazine Nature stated in July 2001:
"Despite criticizing climate scientists for being overconfident about their data, models and theories, the Heartland Institute proclaims a conspicuous confidence in single studies and grand interpretations...[I]t makes many bold assertions that are often questionable or misleading, and do not highlight the uncertainties. [...]
It is scientists, not sceptics, who are most willing to consider explanations that conflict with their own. And far from quashing dissent, it is the scientists, not the sceptics, who do most to acknowledge gaps in their studies and point out the limitations of their data — which is where sceptics get much of the mud they fling at the scientists. By contrast, the Heartland Institute and its ilk are not trying to build a theory of anything. They have set the bar much lower, and are happy muddying the waters.
Lying propagandists, in other words. But they're careful about it. Every school board in the country ought to give the thumbs-down to these indoctrination modules when they arrive.