Bad Deeds: Conservative Group Plans to Teach Our Kids Anti-Science Rhetoric in Schools

The following excerpts are from an article in the highly-respected Scientific American magazine: – Leaked documents from the free-market conservative organization The Heartland Institute reveal a plan to create school educational materials that contradict the established science on climate change.

The documents, leaked by an anonymous donor and released on DeSmogBlog, include the organization’s 2012 fundraising plan. It lists Heartland Institute donors, from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation (established by Koch Industries billionaire Charles G. Koch), to Philip Morris parent company Altria, to software giant Microsoft and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

The climate change education project is funded so far by an anonymous donor who has given $13 million to the Institute over the past five years. Proposed by policy analyst David Wojick, who holds a doctorate in epistemology and has worked for coal and electricity generation companies, the project would create education “modules” written to meet curriculum guidelines for every grade level.

“These [anti-science] documents are breathtaking, and they reveal what many of us have long suspected: That there is a campaign afoot by groups directly funded by the fossil fuel industry and right-wing foundations such as Koch Industries to mislead the public about climate change,” Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann wrote in an email to LiveScience.

Other donors giving more than $10,000 a year to the Institute include Allied World Assurance Company, Amgen, USA, AT&T, Bayer Corporation, Comcast Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline and General Motors. Links to all documents can be found at DeSmogBlog.

So, What is the Actual Scientific Opinion on Climate Change? – National and international science academies and professional societies have assessed the current scientific opinion on climate change. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the IPCC position that “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.” Among the world’s recognized scientific organizations, there are 30 of them that have issued official statements in agreement that global warming is real and that human activities are contributing to it. There are two organizations that have issued non-committal statements. There are zero science academies and professional societies that have issued dissenting statements.

Also, the Pope of the Catholic Church has issued a paper declaring that climate change is occurring due to human activity.

References for these official statements from the science academies and professional societies follow:

References

^ Working Group 1, IPCC.
^ “Warming ‘very likely’ human-made”, BBC News, BBC (2007-02-01). Retrieved on 2007-02-01.
^ Science Panel Calls Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’ Rosenthal, Elisabeth for The New York Times, February 2007
^ On the Climate Change Beat, Doubt Gives Way to Certainty Stevens, William for The New York Times, February 2007
^ U.N. Report: Global Warming Man-Made, Basically Unstoppable Fox News, February 2007
^ New York Times Panel Urges Global Shift on Sources of Energy
^ About IAC
^ IAC report Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future Forward
^ IAC report Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future 5.2 Conclusion
^ US National Academies’ news page. See ‘’ Statement on Climate Change’’.
^ Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change June 2005
^ The Science of Climate Change from www.royalsociety.org
^ CAETS Statement on Environment and Sustainable Growth
^ “Lets be Honest”. European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2007-03-03). Retrieved on 2008-04-01.
^ a b “Joint statement by the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) to the G8 on sustainability, energy efficiency and climate change”. Network of African Science Academies (2007). Retrieved on 2008-03-29.
^ a b Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions
^ European Science Foundation Position Paper Impacts of Climate Change on the European Marine and Coastal Environment – Ecosystems Approach pp. 7-10
^ a b AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change www.aaas.org December 2006
^ FAS web page, retrieved 3/25/08
^ WMO’s Statement at the Twelfth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
^ Climate Change Research: Issues for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences from www.ametsoc.org
^ Royal Meteorological Society’s statement on the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.
^ AMOS Statement on Climate Change
^ Position Statement on Global Warming – Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (Updated, 2007)
^ CFCAS Letter to PM, November 25, 2005
^ INQUA Statement On Climate Change.
^ AMQUA “Petroleum Geologists’ Award to Novelist Crichton Is Inappropriate”
^ Global warming: a perspective from earth history www.geolsoc.org.uk
^ IUGG Resolution 6
^ IUGS pdf Climate Change p.6
^ IUGS pdf Climate Change p.9
^ Position Statement of the Division of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences of the European Geosciences Union on Climate Change.
^ CFES ‘’Global Climate Change’’
^ Global Climate Change Position Statement
^ Human Impacts on Climate
^ Statement supporting AGU statement on human-induced climate change, American Astronomical Society, 2004
^ Statement supporting AGU statement on human-induced climate change, American Institute of Physics, 2003
^ [1], American Physical Society, 2007
^ “Statement on Global Climate Change”. American Chemical Society (2007). Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
^ Policy Statement, Climate Change and Energy February 2007
^ Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere www.climatescience.gov
^ Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate www.climatescience.gov
^ American Statistical Association Statement on Climate Change
^ Policy Statement on Climate Variability and Change by the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC)
^ Position Statement: Climate Change from http://dpa.aapg.org
^ a b Julie Brigham-Grette et al. (September 2006). “Petroleum Geologists‘ Award to Novelist Crichton Is Inappropriate”. Eos 87 (36). Retrieved on 2007-01-23. “The AAPG stands alone among scientific societies in its denial of human-induced effects on global warming.”
^ Volunteers: Good For AAPG Climate
^ Understanding and Responding to Climate Change
^ Joint Science Academies’ Statement
^ The Science of Climate Change
^ Climate Change Research: Issues for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences February 2003
^ Pope urges international agreement on climate change

Attacks Paid for by Big Business Are Driving Science Into a Dark Era – Most scientists, on achieving high office, keep their public remarks to the bland and reassuring. Last week Nina Fedoroff, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), broke ranks in a spectacular manner.

She confessed that she was now “scared to death” by the anti-science movement that was spreading, uncontrolled, across the US and the rest of the western world. “We are sliding back into a dark era,” she said. These pronouncements were set against a background of an entire intellectual discipline that realises that it, and its practitioners, are now under sustained attack.

As Fedoroff pointed out, university and government researchers are hounded for arguing that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are changing the climate. Their emails are hacked while Facebook campaigns call for their dismissal from their posts, calls that are often backed by rightwing politicians. “Those of us who grew up in the sixties, when we put men on the Moon, now have to watch as every Republican candidate for this year’s presidential election denies the science behind climate change and evolution. That is a staggering state of affairs and it is very worrying,” said Professor Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego.

Corporate business interests sponsor campaigns in the US aimed at blocking the introduction of environmental and medical measures such as bans on smoking and the use of DDT, laws to limit acid rain, legislation to end the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere and attempts to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In each case, legislation was delayed by years, sometimes decades, thanks to the activities of a variety of foundations – such as the Heartland Institute – which are backed by energy companies such as Exxon and billionaires like Charles Koch. These institutions, acting as covers for major energy corporations, are responsible for the onslaught that has deeply lowered the reputation of science in many people’s minds in America.

Climate Scientists Vilified on Fox News, blogs and by Republican Members of Congress –

Regards,

Jim