WEBVTT - The ABCs of Oil | Katie Worth on the State of Climate Education in the U.S. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:18.119 Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy westerveldt our series with 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.880 Arthur has come to a close. I'm going to miss 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.640 Darna nor co hosting with me. But we do have 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.000 one more thing to bring you today, and that is 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.040 the complete interview that we did with Katie Worth. Her 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:37.000 book mis Education, about the sorry state of climate education 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:43.280 in US schools, is coming out November sixteenth, so in 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.000 just a little over a week. If you're interested in 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.760 getting that book, we'll stick a link in the show notes. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.040 Katie had a bunch of really interesting things to share 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.240 from her research, which we were able to include in 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.800 a couple of episodes, but we thought that you might 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.040 want to hear the whole interview that's coming up right 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:08.440 after this quick break. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.560 So I was thinking it'd be good to have you 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.480 start by just talking a little bit about what got 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:31.319 you interested in this particular subject in the first place. 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.320 So I got interested. Let's see, a few years ago, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.320 my colleague Michelle Meiser and I went to the Marshall 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:46.080 Islands because we were doing a story about climate change 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.920 and children, and we wanted to go somewhere where the 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.560 effects were already very visible because we were doing a 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.120 film we wanted to capture it, and so while we 0:01:58.120 --> 0:01:59.760 were there, we talked to all these kids and we 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.120 were really struck by how much they knew about climate change, 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:09.840 Like they were more conversant in the causes and effects 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.320 of climate change than like most adults that I know, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.200 I know little kids. So the deal with the Marshall 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.400 Islands is that they can move Marshal Ease. Folks can 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.160 move to the US without a visa because we have 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.160 a military base on their island as part of the 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:31.480 negotiated agreement. So there's a very large Marshal Lease community 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.160 in Arkansas. Of all, one of the kids that we 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.520 were talking to in the Marshall Islands his family was 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:44.480 considering moving to the States, and so the question came up, well, okay, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.560 well what would he learn if he moved to the 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.640 States about climate change? What are American kids learning about 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.040 climate change? So that was sort of an open question, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.800 and there'd been some reporting on it, but not a 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.920 great deal. And so that's kind of how I started 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:02.080 digging into the question. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.960 That's so interesting. Would love to have you walk through 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.440 this example of the school that you visited in Arkansas 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.519 when there was surprisingly an energy company person there. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.000 We went to Springdale, Arkansas to visited some schools there 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.839 because of this connection to the Marshall Islands, because there's 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:28.360 such a large Marshal leased community in Springdale. And so 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.760 I went and visited a few different schools and one 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.920 of them was a middle school, and I started talking 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:42.800 to the science teachers and in Walks this lobbyist for 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:47.920 the oil and gas industry, and she is a representative 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.720 actually of Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners, which is 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.680 Arkansas's oil industry organization basically, and she was there to 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.280 talk to the seventh grade and she had a whole 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.600 PowerPoint presentation and her entire job was to go school 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.280 to school and give a presentation about the fossil fuel 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.200 industry to middle schoolers. Mostly occasionally she would visit like 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.039 an elementary school or a high school, but spoke to 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.920 a lot of fifth graders and seventh graders. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.159 Wow, okay, And there's this one line that you have 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.160 in the book that this person was talking about to 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.599 where she says, so when you consider energy, you have 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.320 some real thinking to do. And then she talks about 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.680 like you don't want to stop building homes. 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.479 Yeah, So she was there. I mean, a lot of 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.279 what she was talking about was kind of legitimate information, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.599 like you know, how oil is taken from the ground 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.440 and the machinery that does that, and kind of the 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.960 geology of it all. But then she got into talking 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.640 about carbon emissions, and she didn't really explain what carbon 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.479 I mimisas were, she didn't explain why they might be 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.800 a problem. She said that it would be a problem, 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.480 but she didn't explain anything about global warming or climate change, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.360 but instead immediately launched into this list of all the 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.200 problems that exist with all of the different fuels, so 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.240 like solar, if it's cloudy, you don't get energy, and 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.919 wind mills kill birds and so on, And then she 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.320 talks about how important fossil fuels are to the world 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.680 and how they've lifted people out of poverty and if 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.479 we kind of stop using fossil fuels, we'll leave a 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.240 whole bunch of people in poverty, according to her, which 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.560 is not supported by evidence, but you know, that was 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.840 the narrative that she was telling, and she had this line, 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.120 so she was talking about how when you're considering energy, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.640 you have to do some thinking about your value. She says, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.880 first of all, you need to decide your standard of value. 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.000 You need to decide is human life the most important? 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.920 Humans getting healthier, wealthier, happier, living longer, or is pristine 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.520 nature more important? Do you want to quit building new houses, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.920 stop getting stuff out of the ground. Do we want 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.760 to leave it exactly as it is? Because that would 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.120 be difficult. Thankfully we don't have to choose in this country. 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.960 We are working in a happy medium at this point. 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:27.359 So wow, it's such a happy medium. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.719 I actually later on today have to evacuate because of 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:32.159 the wildfires around me. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:38.640 Happy medium to hear that it's fine. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.440 I'm curious to hear just you know what you thought 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.919 when you heard this, and whether any like whether that 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.680 class's teacher or any of the kids like, had any 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.039 kind of pushback to what she was saying. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.440 None of the kids asked any questions. The only question 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.440 I remember them asking was how much it might be 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.479 able to make if they worked for the industry, like 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.120 worked for the oil and gas industry, And she said 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.599 it might be one hundred thousand dollars, and they were 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.840 just like whoa. And that you know, they didn't ask 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.400 any questions. She also, you know that part wasn't set 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.000 up for questions. She just kind of railed through this 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.560 like do we want Christine nature? Do we want humans 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:28.320 to prosper? Which one would you choose? Thankfully we don't 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.680 have to choose. Let's move on, you know. So there 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:35.360 was like this this kind of major question raise and 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.840 then resolved immediately, and then she moved on and the 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.000 teacher was very deferential to her, So of course the 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:43.000 students were too. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:44.840 That's so interesting. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.400 So actually I wanted to ask you about whether you, 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.920 in the course of reporting this book, got a sense 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:55.320 of how US schools became so kind of susceptible to 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:56.440 industry influence. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.400 I remember talking to one person who was like, look, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.280 I barely have three minutes in the day to pee. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.560 So if somebody sends me this lesson plan and it's 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.960 like really well produced and looks very professional, I might 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.360 use it, you know, and it's relevant to my students, 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.720 you know, like it's not really on teachers, you know, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.600 it shouldn't necessarily be on teachers to make sure, you know, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.000 to like I mean, well maybe it should, obviously they 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.360 should check their sources and so on, but like, these 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.920 are things that are meant to look professional, and they 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.280 usually do some of them are like outright climate denial, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.520 but then there's a lot of materials that are much subtler, 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:43.200 and you wouldn't necessarily catch if you weren't like really 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.640 looking for it. So, for example, there's an organization called 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:54.680 the National Energy Education Development Project the NEED, and they 0:08:54.800 --> 0:09:00.480 have their whole purpose is to create educational materials about energy, 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.400 which seems like a good thing, you know, and they 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.679 talk about energy conservation, They talk about every all kinds 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.920 of energy, including some renewables, which like in theory, sounds 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.720 like a good thing. But they are sponsored by all 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.000 of these energy companies and some of them are you know, 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.280 wind or solar companies, but most of them are fossil 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.960 fuel companies, and that's how they get the vast majority 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.160 of their budget. And so they told me that they 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.760 aren't influenced by their sponsors, But then if you actually 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:35.319 look at the materials they produce, it's really industry friendly 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.360 and so like, for example, they have these packets of 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.840 activities and lessons for different age groups about all the 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.080 different energy sources, and there's like fourteen pages of information 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:53.800 and activities about petroleum. Nowhere in those materials is carbon 0:09:53.840 --> 0:10:00.199 dioxide mentioned. Climate change isn't mentioned, and the only ron 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.280 mental impacts They do talk about environmental impact, but what 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.319 they talk about is water pollution or air pollution. And 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.640 then they say, yeah, then here here, I'm going to 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.360 quote this directly, so that there's a paragraph about all 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.280 the great things that petroleum products do for us, but 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.079 that there's a trade off because there can be you know, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.360 some oil or water pollution. And then there's a paragraph 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.680 that reads, the petroleum industry works hard to protect the environment. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.920 Gasoline and diesel fuel have been changed to burn cleaner, 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.720 and oil companies work to make sure that they drill 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:45.600 and transport oil as safely as possible. Wow, So what's 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.280 that saying is like, don't worry about it because the 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.560 petroleum industry cares so much about it and they're working 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.640 really hard to protect the environment, and so everything's fine. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.079 You know, it's this problem, but they're. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:02.199 Taking care of it. And basically every non renewable resource 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:08.400 discussed in these materials presents it that way, and you know, 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.160 like everything's taken care of. Yes, there's problems, you might 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.640 have heard about them, but don't worry. It's all it's 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.600 all being taken care of. And that has this effect 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:24.800 of leaving children with the feeling like it almost inoculates them, 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.079 so when when they hear about an oil spill, they're like, oh, yeah, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.320 I learned about that, but like, fortunately there's ways to 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.280 take care of it, and like there's no discussion of regulation, 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.439 there's no discussion of climate change. It's just like, here 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.080 is this product that does so many things for us, 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.959 and fortunately the people who make it are really concerned 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.640 about doing it in a way that's safe. 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.160 Yeah. So me and Darna have been focusing on kind 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.600 of on the social science side, not necessarily how it 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.840 influences social science curricula, although we have found some of 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:06.000 them too, but the way that like the industry's materials 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.240 and sort of influence and education has served to kind 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.200 of narrow the spectrum of possible solutions that were even 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:14.920 sort of allowed to consider. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:16.000 Yeah. 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.960 I'm curious if you find that to hold up in 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:20.559 what you've seen too. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.200 Yeah, I mean, I think that's the end goal of 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:29.360 all of this, is to stemy action on climate change, 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.680 so that the trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuels 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.359 that are underground can be removed before the regulation happens 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:43.679 and sold and turned into profit right, So that's their goal, 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.440 and it was laid out in that victory memo. They 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.160 said that the goal was to stop the Kyoto Protocol 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:54.559 from being implemented and to ward off future efforts like Kyoto. 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:56.720 And you know they've. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.120 Actually accomplished yeah, victory indeed. Yes. 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.680 And what we found, what I found in my recording 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:13.839 was that, you know, they've managed to turn climate change 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:19.640 into a political issue in science classes and in schools, 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.000 and like, you know, ideally we would like to think 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.560 of science as you know, it's this scientific process, it's unimpeachable, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.240 and that you're going to go to school and you're 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.880 going to learn something about how the world works and 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.880 not as this political thing. But this particular issue is 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.680 very political, and it shows up in this political way 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.720 all over the place in schools. So an academic standard 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.440 is the state's expectation of what a student will learn 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.640 in each class. So like a history standard might say that, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.360 like in tenth grade you learn about the Great Depression 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.000 and the New Deal or whatever. They have their science 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.920 standards as well, and in some science standards they talk 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:06.199 a great deal about climate change, but in other states 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.640 it's absent totally. You know, kids don't learn anything about 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.080 climate change in school, and you know, and one would 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:19.920 say that climate change is, you know, the defining issue 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.000 of this century, but in thirty States climate change doesn't 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.800 show up in any civics class standards. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.160 What's crazy about that to me though, too, is that 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.880 this year, and unfortunately is not coming out until March 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.080 twenty twenty two or something, is the first time that 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:42.480 they're having social scientists and political scientists do a working 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.960 group of political scientists and social scientists to do a 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.080 report on like that aspect of acting on climate for 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.920 the IECC. And I'm just like, how how is it 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:57.480 like twenty twenty one and we're just now being like, oh, actually, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.200 there's this whole other comonent. 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.440 I mean, it's like it does show up in science class, 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.840 but you know, ultimately, you don't necessarily have to understand 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.720 the exact mechanism of climate change to understand that it's 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.000 a big problem that we need to solve and that 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.000 we need to prepare for right and that it's going 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.960 to define our century. So you know, it should show up. 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:30.840 It should show up in classes from kindergarten to through 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:36.280 college in obviously and developmentally appropriate ways and you know, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.960 kids should be asked to think about what action, if any, 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:46.080 is appropriate and kind of what solutions might exist, which 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.240 is not a science question so much as it is 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:50.800 a social science question. 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:52.960 Right, right, right. 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.680 What was like the most surprising thing that you found 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.960 in researching the book or the thing that's really stuck 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:00.400 with you. 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:09.520 Well, it surprised me to learn that as many as 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:16.480 as a third of science teachers tell students the climate 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:23.120 change is likely natural, and that about a quarter of 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.680 children leave school thinking that it might be natural and 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:32.360 basically not believing that climate change is happening, even as 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.400 they're emerging into a world where it is happening in 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:43.720 their communities often. And you know that that didn't happen accidentally. 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.280 You know that wasn't just that wasn't just caused by 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.800 kind of chance or accident. It was caused by this 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:55.880 really intentional campaign that was at times in a certain way, 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.640 is really targeted at children. And you know, of course, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.520 like the adult world affects children, but then there's almost 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.960 this other level where if you're trying to spread disinformation 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.640 to adults and it spread and it kind of trickles 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:11.840 down to children. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:12.520 That's. 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.359 That's kind of to be expected, but that there was 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.720 this actual people thinking how can we get children on. 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.720 Our side, how can we get. 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.359 This disinformation into the hands of children and into the 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.639 minds of children, And then they succeeded. 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.400 That's it for this time. Thanks for listening. We are 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.280 working on bringing you the next couple of segments in 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.280 our Gas season season six, The Bridge to Nowhere. We'll 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.120 be bringing you those over the next few months, along 0:17:55.160 --> 0:18:00.000 with some additional bonus episodes along the way. Make sure 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:03.040 you're subscribed so you don't miss any of it. Thanks 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:04.840 for listening, and we'll see you next time.