WEBVTT - Fighting Back Against Big Oil in Education 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:03.960 The students had all walked out of class to protest 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:06.640 climate change. So this is part of a global climate 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.440 strike with over a thousand marches happening in one hundred 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.159 countries all around the world, and Portland students are right 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.000 there in the thick of it, stain here. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:19.319 Today to show our one leaders, we're real live. 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.639 This is a school walkout that kids in Portland, Oregon 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.040 organized back in twenty nineteen. And you might remember that 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.720 around that time a lot of students were holding these 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.360 kinds of protests. It was a year after Greta Tunberg 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.800 held her first school strike for the climate, and millions 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.720 were showing up for these similar strikes around the world 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.880 to basically demand that governments give us some real action 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.600 on climate change. But the Portland march was a little different. 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.360 It wasn't solely focused on getting local and federal governments 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.560 to enact policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.840 also about this fight with the school board happening right 0:00:58.880 --> 0:00:59.800 there in Portland. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.320 In the past four episodes of this series, we've gotten 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:08.080 into the fossil fuel industry's insidious infiltration of school curricula. 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.760 It's something they've been doing for the past century. We've 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.760 shown how these companies pushed this false idea that we 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.000 could never live without them, that free markets are what 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.880 make us free. The nature is there for humans to 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.640 extract from. It's been pretty dark, but today we're going 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:26.840 to talk about people who are trying to fix the 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.119 education system and get that influence out. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.319 That's right, the fossil fuel industry has pretty clearly tried 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.399 to limit how we all think about climate solutions at all. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:39.800 But today we'll hear from people who are at the 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.319 very least trying to solve the problem of disinformation and education. 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.600 Welcome to a special bonus episode of the ABC's of 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.040 Big Oil, From Earth and Drilled. I'm Darna Nor. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.680 And I'm Amy Westervelt. We'll start in Portland, Oregon, where 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.360 we just heard kids walking out of school to demand 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:08.480 better climate education. Stay with us. This episode is supported 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.320 by Degrees Real Talk about Planet Saving Careers, an original 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.440 podcast from the Environmental Defense Fund. People ask me all 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.680 the time what they can do about climate change, and 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.800 I feel a little bit like a climate change guidance 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:29.680 counselor sometimes the short answer is what do you get at? 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.240 What are you interested in? Where can you plug in. 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.000 What I like about Degrees is that it helps people 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.000 figure out how they could maybe use their job to 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.160 make an impact. Degrees features candid conversations and takeaways from 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:48.480 today's most inspiring climate change makers. Each episode tells a 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.760 story of how one inspiring change maker found their climate 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.840 career and how you can too. There's a new season 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.480 out now, season three, and it's all about how, no 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.600 matter industry, you can find a planet saving job. I 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.919 got a sneak preview of season three of Degrees, and 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.360 I loved it, especially the episode about Lake Street Drive, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.000 which is a green band, which is actually a lot 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.960 harder to pull off than you might think, just in 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.200 terms of all of the disposable things that come along 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.440 with touring and concerts and music venues, trying to convince 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.200 venues to reduce their waste, all of that stuff travel, 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.200 How do you figure that out? It was really good, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.800 and there's lots more where that came from too. These 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.200 narrative stories will capture your attention and inspire you while 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.160 giving you practical tips on how to get a climate 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:45.440 focused career. Search for Degrees real talk about planet saving 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.840 careers anywhere you listen to podcasts will include a link 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.960 in the show notes too Big thanks to Degrees for 0:03:52.080 --> 0:04:00.440 their support. 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.440 Portland Public Schools sent out an email saying that while 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.920 they support kids rallying and demonstrating and lobbying and protesting, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.040 they think that it shouldn't happen during school time. The students, 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.160 on the other hand, say that it's more visible if 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.840 they strike during school and by doing that, they're showing 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:23.719 that this is something that matters to them right now. 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.840 So the story kind of starts in twenty fifteen when 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.960 a group of student activists in Portland approach the local 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.760 school board basically hoping that the officials would agree to 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.720 bring in environmental justice curricula for every school in the district. 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.919 That's right, environmental justice, not just climate science, and the 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.440 board actually passed the resolution in twenty sixteen. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.240 I think the primary place where students have gotten environmental 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.040 education in K twelve has been through sciences. And you know, 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.920 as a social studies teacher, while I certainly want students 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.840 to come to me with a solid understanding of the 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.640 sort of scientific foundations of the environmental crisis, I think 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.960 that if we stop in science classes, I think we 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:13.240 really risk overwhelming students with a lot of facts about 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:18.479 how terrible the crisis is without maybe always studying the 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.400 social movements and groups and people and communities working on solutions. 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.600 So that's Tim Swineheart. He currently teaches environmental justice at 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.880 Lincoln High School in Portland, and he worked with a 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.120 lot of those kids to get the resolution passed. Some 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.400 of them were actually his students. But he said that 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.200 even though the board passed the measure unanimously, since then, 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.760 not much has actually changed, and that's why they held 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:44.240 that big walkout in twenty nineteen. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.880 We've talked a lot in this series about the oil 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.840 industry's efforts to infiltrate education, but the industry has had 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.680 ample help. The federal government has made funds available to them, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.240 for one and schools have adopted their materials for decades. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.360 But Darta, it sounds like these activists had a much 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.599 harder time getting into just one school district than fossil 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.200 fuel companies have ever had getting into all the schools. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.000 Yeah, that's it's really true, and it's a really good point, 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.960 and it's sad. These kids got like thousands of students 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.960 to walk out of class that day, so many that 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.400 a lot of the schools actually counted it as an 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.200 excused absence, and they held sit ins at city Hall 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.479 and they worked with educators and parents to collect thousands 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.760 of signatures and support of this measure. And it's not 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.160 like the school board hasn't done anything right. They did 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.240 this review of all textbooks used in schools and they 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.120 voted to eliminate anything that promotes climate doubt. 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.960 We did a review of many of the adopted curricula 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.240 and science and social studies and found wishy washi language. 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.320 You know, the climate change might be caused by right, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.920 not all scientists agree with the theory of the greenhouse effect, 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.480 things like this, So part of it was calling out 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:02.359 what was determined to be climate denial language in some 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:03.320 of those textbooks. 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.440 And the school board has done other stuff too. It 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.640 created an advisory committee for the school district with student 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.080 and teacher activists on it. Back in twenty twenty, they 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.960 hired this manager to oversee climate justice programming, and all 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.440 of that is really good, and they even started to 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.400 work to secure some funding to support the new climate 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:25.520 justice programming, but that actually ushered in some problems because, 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:30.880 to the organizer's surprise, Portland General Electric, the area's largest 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.720 utility company had actually contributed a quarter million dollars over 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.640 three years to support the development of climate education programming. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.200 Not for nothing, either, administrators agreed to let the utility 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:48.760 help create the classroom materials. In a letter to their supporters, 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.679 the committee said that they learned of this partnership through 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.480 TV news reports, as in the school board didn't even 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.680 consult them beforehand before taking this funding. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.880 And you know, PGE is a publicly traded for profit corporation. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.400 But I think community like Portland does a good job 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.040 of greenwashing itself, you know, but also has a history 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.480 of having to really be pushed to get off of 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.400 fossil fuels, to move away from coal burning power plants. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.640 I think of how even you know, even here, like 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.360 when we have one of the strongest climate justice education 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.920 policies in the country, there is a lot of movement, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.520 you know, in a positive direction, and still we see 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.439 the ways in which corporations can sort of co opt 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.360 that process, you know, to potentially kind of make themselves 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.040 look better. Seemed like a pretty blatant conflict of interest 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:46.840 again for a publicly traded for profit corporation that had 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.199 been climate reticent in the past and had had been 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.640 called out many times by community activists for their lack 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.240 of vision when it came to climate policies and climate action. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.199 The organizers who fought so hard for this resolution are 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.880 nervous that the PG and E funding could compromise really 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.280 important pieces of the measure, Like there's this part of 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.560 this measure that says that the curricula that the school 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.240 district brings in won't encourage students to see themselves as 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.360 like impartial to climate justice, but instead to actually get involved. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.319 One piece of language that I think is so important, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.080 especially right now, is that students come to see themselves 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.240 as leaders and activists for social and environmental justice. So 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.720 this policy specifically says that the school district will support 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.640 student activism on climate and environmental justice. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.040 And so far, you know, the school board has sort 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.120 of signaled that it's going to stick to this sort 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.520 of commitment to activism. For instance, you know, they allowed 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.080 kids to get an excused absence for the school strike 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.559 that they held in twenty nineteen. But still, the idea 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.000 of a utility that gets most of its power from 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.400 gas and coal having its fingers in this project could 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.160 obviously be a real problem down the line. Especially because 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.760 the activists are hoping for the school district to do 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.040 a lot more to meet the spirit of the resolution. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.480 What a lot of people have noticed or talked about 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.800 is that the resolution says that there will be curricular 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.319 opportunities for all PPS students to study climate literacy and 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.440 climate justice. So there have been ways in which that 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:23.280 curriculum has been created more democratically by small groups of 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.720 teachers that come together as experts to kind of share 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:31.319 their craft and their practice. If the school district supports 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.640 professional development for teachers, which we have not yet, you know, 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.560 in those areas, and then there are other ways in 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.160 which what we call curriculum is actually sort of a 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.920 series of spreadsheets and links and documents that you know, 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.839 are stored on district servers, and you know, as long 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.920 as there's sort of a digital representation of a lesson 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.680 plan that may have been written by a teacher or 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.160 may have been written by a district administrator, you know, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.280 and that it's linked to state standards, then we're able 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.600 to say, oh, yeah, we have a climate justice curriculum, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.080 you know. And I think we have a mix of 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.200 both right now on Portland, and maybe given the age 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:03.960 that we live in and everything else that's going on. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.240 Maybe that's the best we can expect, but that's kind 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.640 of a whole other can of worms that has been frustrating. 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.720 Swineheart and his comrades in this fight for climate justice. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.040 Education aren't giving up the fight. They're still pushing the 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.160 school board to discontinue its relationship with PGE. But they 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.400 know that even bigger changes are needed, like transformative changes 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:27.360 for the whole education system. 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.360 We need new curriculum because this moment calls in some 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.440 ways for the entire educational project to be rethought. You know, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.679 we're facing a planetary emergency, and I think that the 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.080 status quo of education is just not going to cut 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:45.840 it at this point. 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.040 And this entirely new way of looking at education isn't 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.760 just theoretical for Swinehart, because he's actually tried to envision 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.440 what it would look like with this project that he 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.959 worked on and called the People's Curriculum for the Earth. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.679 Co edited it with Bill Bigelow, who's this former social 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.960 studies teacher, and they released it through Rethinking Schools and 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.720 that's education project inspired by Howard Zinn back in twenty fourteen. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.800 Now they're working on another edition, and it's basically this 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.960 just gorgeous book of articles and role playing games and 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.360 stories and poems and graphics, all designed to help teachers 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.920 educate their students about climate change. 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.520 We're specifically teaching against fossil fuels. We're not teaching about 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.560 fossil fuels. We're teaching against fossil fuels. That's because life 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:36.120 on Earth depends on us moving off of fossil fuels. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.959 And that's not a political opinion of mind, that's a 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:40.160 scientific fact. 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:40.520 Right. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.520 So the way in which we have developed this curriculum 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.839 have been to engage students with ways in which they 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:54.400 can see the struggles in various communities, i mean social movements, 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.320 so that necessarily are going to be part of the 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.480 fight to move our society away from fossil fuels. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.200 So, whereas the fossil fuel industry has sort of, you know, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.800 promoted this idea with schools that freedom comes from capitalism, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.160 that nature is this resource to be extracted, this curricula 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.120 that Tim worked on is full of ways to teach 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.560 kids about the importance of actually protecting the commons. And 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.480 you know, while oil and gas companies have pushed this 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.280 idea that individuals are all part of the problem, and 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.800 we all need to do our part to solve climate change. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.880 This curricula actually names polluting companies as the real enemies. 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.160 There's even a piece in it called forget shorter showers. 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.360 Fossil Fuel companies want us to believe that we can't 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.400 live without them, right, And you know, so I think 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.040 we have to recognize as communities, as educators, that it's 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.800 going to take a fight to loosen their stranglehold on 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.640 our democracy, our collective consciousness, and our communities. And I 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.480 think that part of that work has to begin in school. 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.240 But you know, my favorite part of this whole curricula 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.800 is actually some that Bill Tim's co editor came up with. 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.679 It's a response to the chocolate chip cookie experiment that 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.160 Kurt Davies told us about in the second episode of 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:09.880 this podcast. 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:11.040 You remember, my. 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.240 Daughter came home from school in probably third or fourth grade. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.000 And she said, we did this really cool lesson today 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.560 where the teacher gave us a chocolate chip cookie and 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.960 a toothpick and we had to. 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.000 Carefully extract the chocolate chips without breaking the cookie. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.600 And the lesson was you can do mining safely. And 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.160 I flipped out I was like, oh my god, you're 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:38.880 getting mining propaganda. 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.840 Well, the People's Curricula has a version of the chocolate 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.080 chip cookie experiment in it too, but it's a pretty 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:47.120 different version. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.720 My co editor, Bill Bigelow ran across that activity and 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:56.400 designed this just brilliant simulation. He took that activity and 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.520 he ran students through it in the way that the 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.760 you know, American Coal Foundation sort of suggests that you would. 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.240 But he asked them to do it really with two minds. 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.080 You know, one was to just kind of participate in 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.040 the activity. The other one was to think about, well, 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.880 what is this activity teaching students and what's missing? Right, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:20.080 it becomes this incredible opportunity for students to say, well, gosh, 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.960 I can't put this cookie back together. You know, what 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.160 is this idea of reclamation, Like what is that supposed 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.040 to I have a bunch of crumbles here. I can't 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:30.920 just put it back together. You know, if this is 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.040 the earth, what are the implications for what this means 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.920 when mining companies talk about quote reclamation. I think there's 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.080 a way in which, you know, we can use some 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.160 of this industry propaganda actually critically in our classrooms. Right 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.000 to have students examine the ways that they've been used 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.440 in the past, the way they're still deployed today, you know, 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.360 basically as sort of what's not even greenwashing because they're 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:54.440 not pretending to be green. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.760 I love that they re envision this chocolate chip cookie experiment, 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.720 and I also love that that they're trying to sort of, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.120 you know, create something that can be used beyond Portland. 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.560 I was really shocked to read that they found out 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.440 in the process of this that sort of like we won, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.240 but also the utility is going to fund this whole thing. 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.160 It's just like it shows you how hard it is 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.119 to actually get these companies out. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.760 Right one hundred percent. And it's not surprising, right, We've 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.960 talked so much in this series about how oil and 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.480 gas interests will make it seem like they're doing something 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.040 altruistic by providing funding. And obviously it's not like there's 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.920 a whole lot of public funding going around for education 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.600 right now, particularly not for climate justice education. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.240 Yeah, exactly, the problem isn't that they give funding to 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.160 this stuff. The problem is that it never comes without 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:49.760 strings attached. 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:51.760 Right, But why would they fund it if it weren't 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.120 for the strings attached? There wasn't something in it for them. 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:59.000 Honestly, I feel like one of the most insidious ideas 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.200 that that sort of fossil fueld pr has pushed is 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.080 the idea that corporations are people. I mean, way, way, 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.040 way way Before the Citizens United case made that like 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:14.840 a legal reality in the US, the fossil fuel companies 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.200 were coming up with ways to get people to think 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.560 of companies as people. And you just find that, I 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.960 don't know, invading people's thinking on these things all the time, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.960 where it's like, but shouldn't we give them a chance? 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.680 And I'm like, it's not a person, it's a corporate entity. 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.800 They don't have like you're not gonna hurt their feelings, 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.360 and of course they're acting in their own interests. 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.199 The point of a private company like this is to 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.800 make money for executives for shareholders, Like the purpose of 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.040 having the company is to grow profits, right. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.480 Which is like how corporate structures work in the US. Like, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:54.399 that's sort of like the way the law works around corporations. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.520 What I don't understand is why anybody expects them to 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:03.399 behave differently unless required to do so. Anyway. Okay, so 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.960 we've discussed the fact that one reason that fossil fuel 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.480 propaganda ends up in schools is because school teachers are 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.399 often super overworked and underpaid, and then schools in general 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.840 are under resourced, so they've kind of got way too 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.840 much on their plates to worry about. And when they're 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.120 looking for materials or curricula to bring into the classroom 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:29.840 and someone offers them something that looks credible and slickly produced, 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.879 it makes sense that they don't necessarily take hours and 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:33.800 hours to vet it. 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.680 I talk to somebody who's working on a project that's 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.040 trying to help teachers to sort of weed out all 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.760 of the bullshit lesson plans out there. I spoke with 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.640 Frank Neopold, and he works on climate education at the 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.480 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.000 I fund a project called the Clean Collection, which is 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.760 the Climate Literacy Energy Awareness Network. And what we're doing 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:03.600 there is the Internet is of educational materials, and you know, 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.200 teachers will always be looking for supplementary materials to whatever 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.640 curriculums they're working with, and whether it's from kindergarten to undergraduate, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.680 whether it's earthscience or non orth science. You know, it 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.399 could be biology. Could they also be non science disciplines. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.480 So the Clean Collection has this team of people who 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:27.400 rigorously review climate and energy education resources to see if 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.479 they're actually aligned with some basic climate literacy standards, and 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.919 then they compile all of them on this database. It's searchable, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:36.760 and then if you're a teacher and you're looking for, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.639 you know, a lesson plan about heat waves or droughts 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.760 or coal or other environmental issues, you can just go 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.399 online and find these pre vetted materials. 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:50.800 So we've looked at over thirty thousand digital assets and 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.119 we currently have a reviewed collection of something in the 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:59.600 order of, you know, seven hundred and fifty, so from 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.000 thirty thousand to seven hundred and fifty, and we continuously 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.639 re evaluate the science of materials. Once it's in, it 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.200 doesn't stay in. It has to continue to stay be current. 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.680 And this is a really cool project. But the thing 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.439 is that, you know, while these materials might be up 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.960 to snuff based on scientific standards, some oil and gas 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.919 messaging can crop up in these much subtler ways. So 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.760 for instance, there's this one vetted lesson plan from a 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.679 group we've heard about in the series before called the 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:32.480 National Energy Education Development Project or the NEED Project. This 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.000 lesson plan is called Energy Flows, and it's about all 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.720 the different forms of electricity, and there's nothing in it 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.960 that would necessarily raise red flags. But that's also the 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.200 problem because there's also nothing in it about the dangerous 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.960 effects of burning fossil fuels. And that's not surprising because 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:52.480 need is funded by dozens of companies, including almost all 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.120 of the major fossil fuel interest groups. But still there's 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.080 no outright climate denial in this and so that's better 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.199 than what might end up in a teacher's hands. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:03.440 I mean, it does seem better than just a free 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.200 for all where teachers are kind of, you know, left 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:11.120 to sort it out for themselves. But I think that, 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.600 you know, to tackle this kind of super insidious issue. 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.760 One way to do that is to create a bunch 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.639 of groups that vet every single climate related thing that 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.720 gets into schools. But it seems like surely there must 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.760 be some more systemic approaches out there. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:35.560 I'm not sure there's a way to really exercise you know, 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:42.040 fossil fuel influencing classrooms unless we like overhaul capitalism. 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.400 Okay, so this is Katie Worth again. She's the investigative 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.880 journalist we heard from the start of this series. Her 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.080 book Miseducation about the state of climate education in US 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.280 schools comes out next month. 0:21:55.480 --> 0:22:00.560 There's so much public private partnerships and schools. I think 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.879 it would just be a major shift. We would actually 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.120 have to fully fund education to like not take donations 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.080 from Apple, say you know, of computers. I'm not totally 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.400 sure how you would do it through state or federal legislation. 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.280 If say you legislate that schools couldn't use educational materials 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.560 that are from energy interests, like are we cool with 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.680 a private solar company coming in and doing a presentation 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.680 about how solar power works or donating a solar rate 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.000 to the school. So to me, the more likely and 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:41.040 achievable scenario is that we really advocate for improved climate 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.200 education in every state and in every classroom. 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.439 Can you point it out that that education shouldn't just 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.119 be one lesson in like middle school or high school either. 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:53.600 In an ideal scenario. 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.879 A good climate education can't just be a single unit 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.480 in middle school science. And then maybe if you take 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.560 you know, high school earth science or environmental science, you'll 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.600 learn a little bit more like you know it should be. 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:14.480 The issue is relevant to many educational context because it's 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:18.919