By John Borowski
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor Wednesday 13 December 2006
Refusal to distribute "An Inconvenient Truth" leaves world's largest science teacher's organization awash in denials and cover-ups. The refusal by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) to distribute Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" has ignited a firestorm of controversy and an avalanche of inquiries that the NSTA continues to mishandle. Commondreams.org first ran my piece "Would the World's Largest Science Teacher's Organization Ignore Climate Change Education?" on November 27, 2006, the day after Laurie David penned an editorial in the Washington Post on the same issue. Simply go to the NSTA's own discussion board and see the revulsion expressed by the NSTA's own paying members [1]:
It seems there's a second inconvenient truth, that the NSTA can be bought.
It's one thing to admit the organization needs money, another to take it from companies who have historically gone out of their way to sabotage the unpleasant scientific truth surrounding the global warming issue, and their involvement in it.
As an aspiring Biology/Earth Science teacher (will be student teaching within the year), I was deeply saddened to hear the NSTA refused free copies of an Inconvenient Truth DVDs.
The hypocrisy makes me sad and ill.
The hypocrisy of the NSTA is a stark and bold reaffirmation of the incredible stranglehold corporate interests have, not only in the media, the Congress and so many walks of life: they are now trying to manufacture consent amongst our youngest citizens in school.
I have received hundreds of emails from outraged educators and parents (many of them including emails they have sent to NSTA executive director Gerald Wheeler) and requests from radio and television stations for information. Since 1998, when I attended my first NSTA convention in Las Vegas, I and many others in the environmental education arena have been sickened by the corporate invasion of public schools. We find even more curious the reluctance of big environmental organizations to challenge and debunk educational propaganda produced by big oil, coal and timber corporations.
When caught red-handed: delete critical evidence or just lie?
Bombarded by emails, Wheeler went on the offensive, posting rebuttals to the accusation that the NSTA was a "corporate hack." His statements can be seen on the NSTA web site on November 30 and again on December 7, 2006. Instead of taking the high road - accepting the Gore DVDs, promising to sever the NSTA's links with Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute (API), Shell, ConocoPhillips and Project Learning Tree (mainly a timber propaganda conduit also involved with API) - Wheeler dug a deeper hole with misstatements and some computer wizardry. Look at the statements and compare them to the reality:
Wheeler states that the NSTA no longer partners with API and that "over the past week, we have searched all of the NSTA records and sources and we have found no evidence of NSTA having a role in the development or mass distribution of the video ["Fuel-less: You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel"]." He further says that the NSTA's relationship with API ended some 5 years ago. Sitting on my desk is a copy of the "Pipeline Community," from the American Petroleum Institute, dated February 2003. It states, "With the National Science Teachers Association, API helped create the 'Science of Energy,' a Web site." An API educational material's web site from July 1, 2000, discusses a video for middle school students that illustrates with pop music and dance the often-invisible role petroleum products play in our everyday lives: "'Fuel-less: You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel' is being distributed by the National Science Teachers Association. One per classroom." Who is lying here?
If you don't like the data, delete it from your site. Sitting on my table as I pen this piece is a group of photographs that I found on the NSTA web site [2]. The date of the document is August 10, 2004, and the photographs relate to "research on energy." What are these photographs of? Pipeline construction, oil pipes, drilling rigs, oil barrels, oil refineries, oil tankers and offshore oil rigs. Why are they no longer there? Research by Laurie David also shows the shutdown of sites on the NSTA that included "Running on Oil." And even the API's web page that included a glowing reference to the API's relationship to the NSTA is now gone! If anyone wants to see the hard copies of these documents, I will gladly share!
Another colossal misstatement has been the contention by Mr. Wheeler that the NSTA stands by a 2001 NSTA policy that prohibits endorsements, and has decided not to mass-distribute the Gore DVD to members without their consent or request, because it would constitute an endorsement. Really? In 2003, Gerald Wheeler acted as an executive producer on a ten-part video funded by ConocoPhillips, and 20,000 of those copies were shipped out! The American Petroleum Institute heralded the release with a statement on their web site. "'The Search for Solutions' [is a] multiple winner of the Telly Award for outstanding programming ... The videos are designed to capture the attention and imagination of junior high and high school students."
I downloaded the "teaching materials" and saw a potpourri of fossil fuel endorsements. My favorite is a 3-page teaching sheet on "Finding Oil" that ends with "Let the drilling begin." ConocoPhillips is a powerful member of the API powerhouse of fossil fuel interests and is very determined to open more federal waters to oil drilling. Wheeler damns his own defense of NSTA's revolving policies in an April 22, 2003, news release: "The partnership between the National Science Teachers Association and ConocoPhillips has produced a very valuable tool for our nation's science teachers," said Gerald Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director. "'The Search for Solutions' video series brings their students vivid, real-life examples of the nature of science and technology, a much-needed resource." And ConocoPhillips received the ultimate endorsement for their Trojan horse foray into our schools: with compliments and help from the biggest science teachers' organization!
More at:
[1] www.nsta.org/main/forum/showthread.php?p=2890 [2] www.nsta.org/Energy/find/photos/gallery.html [3] gwheeler at nsta.org
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John F. Borowski is a science teacher of 26 years. His pieces have appeared in the New York Times and the UTNE Reader, on Counterpunch, Truthout, Smirking Chimp, CommonDreams and many other web sites. He can be contacted at jenjill at peak.org.
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