Much like sex education and evolution, the teaching of climate change is the latest topic backed by a wealth of sound science forced to yield to political pressure from a small group of disbelievers. Growing numbers of teachers, in particular, say they worry about discussing climate change because they dont want to suffer the wrath of parents with baseless beliefs.
An NPR poll released last week found that four out of five parents want climate change taught in schools. In the same poll, 86 percent of teachers supported the topics inclusion in lesson plans. But only 42 percent of teachers say thats actually happening, and politics is probably to blame.
Among the respondents, 29 percent of teachers cited their fear of parental backlash for not teaching about climate change, while 4 percent are in schools that flat-out do not allow climate-change education.
Education works most effectively when parents and teachers are conveying the same messages to children. But even while teachers are struggling to get the climate-change message across, parents hardly seem to be picking up the slack, with only 45 percent saying they discuss the topic at home.
The effort behind climate-change disbelief is big. Forbes reported earlier this year that, annually, the worlds five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spend approximately $200 million on lobbying designed to control, delay or block binding climate-motivated policy.
They do so, in part, by embracing the fiction that human behavior has nothing to do with the problem. They provide receptive politicians with all kinds of skewed data to deny the Earths climate is changing.
Students deserve to be presented with the facts, not political spin. It would be foolish to cease teaching that the sun is the center of the solar system, or that our DNA is in the shape of a double-helix, just become some individuals hold baseless beliefs to the contrary.
The only difference between those topics and climate change is that there is no financial incentive in denying our solar systems composition or our bodies biological architecture.
The price tag for current and future environmental changes is huge and growing a cost that will be borne by the next generation. Last years National Climate Assessment projected that climate change will cause enough damage alone to shrink the U.S. economy by 10 percent in the next century. Thats hundreds of billions of dollars lost to damage caused by rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, fires and pollution-caused health concerns.
Missouri public schools should not only require climate change in lesson plans, but also equip teachers with the resources to drive home the impact if humans dont change their ways. Seventeen percent of teachers said they dont know enough about it and lack the resources.
Give kids the climate facts, so they can have the tools to positively affect their destinies.
