National Attack on Environmental Education By Vivian Newman tories about gross distortion or oversimplification of environmental problems have been appearing in such places as The Washington Times and National Public Radio, intended to illustrate how students are overburdened by unsound environmental information and how they are over-reacting with unwarranted fear to"threats" that have been exaggerated by environmental groups. A recently published book entitled Facts, not Fear: A Parent's Guide to Teaching Children About the Environment by Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw, claims to provide parents with a "balanced view" to counter the irresponsible claims of environmental extremists. Polluting industries donate multiple copies of videos and printed material for classroom use. Examples are Shell Oil's video "Fueling America's Future" larded with advertisements, Chevron's instructional video and teacher's guide that emphasize disagreements about global warming, and a video by the pressure-treated wood industry that promotes treatment as the best method for saving our nation's forests without ever mentioning documented hazards from the chemicals used in the treatment process. Early in June this year Becky Norton Dunlop, Virginia's Secretary of Environmental Quality, delivered a keynote speech at the"Fly-in-for-Freedom? meeting in Washington DC, the annual gathering of property rights and"Wise Use" activists from around the country. In her speech Ms. Dunlop stated that in today?s classrooms children are being dragged into environmental activism. To balance the equation, she has established new standards of learning for science and developed new teaching materials about natural resources that emphasize growing the economy and the theme"natural resources are renewable.? What is going on here? According to an April 1997 report from The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education, entitled"Endangered Education: How Corporate Polluters are Attacking Environmental Education," major oil and chemical companies have been bankrolling a campaign via the Heritage Foundation, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Political Economy Research Center, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute to discredit and "reform" environmental education. Their aim is to build enough media coverage to derail the reauthorization of the 1990 National Environmental Education Act (NEEA), and ultimately to de-stabilize and de-fund environmental education in the United States and protect major polluting industries from citizen awareness. Versions of this campaign have also been surfacing in state legislatures. In 1995 Arizona overturned the mandate and funding for all school districts to teach environmental education and transferred responsibility for the program from the Department of Education to the state's Land Department. The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) in late July issued a detailed account of the Fly-in's special sessions on environmental education that promoted methods of using talk radio, state by state reviews of textbooks and other teaching materials, and a model pro-logging curriculum from Alliance for America. This "movement" is only beginning to receive attention in the general press, but is plainly a phenomenon that parents, teachers, and all environmentalists should be watching and challenging.
	The Sierra Club's National Environmental Education Committee set up an email listserv this summer to help members monitor and mobilize against this anti-environment backlash. Check it out on the Club website or send a message to : CEEEACTIVISTS.REQUEST@ LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG with your full name, address, and organizational affiliation. Meanwhile, let your Senators and Congressional Representative know that you want them to support a strong NEEA. For more information: Consumers or Citizens? (a project of The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education) Oakland CA tel. 510-268-1100 CLEAR (a project of the Environmental Working Group) Washington DC tel. 202-667-6982 http://www.ewg.org