Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy westerveldt our series with
Speaker 1: Arthur has come to a close. I'm going to miss
Speaker 1: Darna nor co hosting with me. But we do have
Speaker 1: one more thing to bring you today, and that is
Speaker 1: the complete interview that we did with Katie Worth. Her
Speaker 1: book mis Education, about the sorry state of climate education
Speaker 1: in US schools, is coming out November sixteenth, so in
Speaker 1: just a little over a week. If you're interested in
Speaker 1: getting that book, we'll stick a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Katie had a bunch of really interesting things to share
Speaker 1: from her research, which we were able to include in
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes, but we thought that you might
Speaker 1: want to hear the whole interview that's coming up right
Speaker 1: after this quick break.
Speaker 2: So I was thinking it'd be good to have you
Speaker 2: start by just talking a little bit about what got
Speaker 2: you interested in this particular subject in the first place.
Speaker 3: So I got interested. Let's see, a few years ago,
Speaker 3: my colleague Michelle Meiser and I went to the Marshall
Speaker 3: Islands because we were doing a story about climate change
Speaker 3: and children, and we wanted to go somewhere where the
Speaker 3: effects were already very visible because we were doing a
Speaker 3: film we wanted to capture it, and so while we
Speaker 3: were there, we talked to all these kids and we
Speaker 3: were really struck by how much they knew about climate change,
Speaker 3: Like they were more conversant in the causes and effects
Speaker 3: of climate change than like most adults that I know,
Speaker 3: I know little kids. So the deal with the Marshall
Speaker 3: Islands is that they can move Marshal Ease. Folks can
Speaker 3: move to the US without a visa because we have
Speaker 3: a military base on their island as part of the
Speaker 3: negotiated agreement. So there's a very large Marshal Lease community
Speaker 3: in Arkansas. Of all, one of the kids that we
Speaker 3: were talking to in the Marshall Islands his family was
Speaker 3: considering moving to the States, and so the question came up, well, okay,
Speaker 3: well what would he learn if he moved to the
Speaker 3: States about climate change? What are American kids learning about
Speaker 3: climate change? So that was sort of an open question,
Speaker 3: and there'd been some reporting on it, but not a
Speaker 3: great deal. And so that's kind of how I started
Speaker 3: digging into the question.
Speaker 4: That's so interesting. Would love to have you walk through
Speaker 4: this example of the school that you visited in Arkansas
Speaker 4: when there was surprisingly an energy company person there.
Speaker 3: We went to Springdale, Arkansas to visited some schools there
Speaker 3: because of this connection to the Marshall Islands, because there's
Speaker 3: such a large Marshal leased community in Springdale. And so
Speaker 3: I went and visited a few different schools and one
Speaker 3: of them was a middle school, and I started talking
Speaker 3: to the science teachers and in Walks this lobbyist for
Speaker 3: the oil and gas industry, and she is a representative
Speaker 3: actually of Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners, which is
Speaker 3: Arkansas's oil industry organization basically, and she was there to
Speaker 3: talk to the seventh grade and she had a whole
Speaker 3: PowerPoint presentation and her entire job was to go school
Speaker 3: to school and give a presentation about the fossil fuel
Speaker 3: industry to middle schoolers. Mostly occasionally she would visit like
Speaker 3: an elementary school or a high school, but spoke to
Speaker 3: a lot of fifth graders and seventh graders.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, And there's this one line that you have
Speaker 2: in the book that this person was talking about to
Speaker 2: where she says, so when you consider energy, you have
Speaker 2: some real thinking to do. And then she talks about
Speaker 2: like you don't want to stop building homes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So she was there. I mean, a lot of
Speaker 3: what she was talking about was kind of legitimate information,
Speaker 3: like you know, how oil is taken from the ground
Speaker 3: and the machinery that does that, and kind of the
Speaker 3: geology of it all. But then she got into talking
Speaker 3: about carbon emissions, and she didn't really explain what carbon
Speaker 3: I mimisas were, she didn't explain why they might be
Speaker 3: a problem. She said that it would be a problem,
Speaker 3: but she didn't explain anything about global warming or climate change,
Speaker 3: but instead immediately launched into this list of all the
Speaker 3: problems that exist with all of the different fuels, so
Speaker 3: like solar, if it's cloudy, you don't get energy, and
Speaker 3: wind mills kill birds and so on, And then she
Speaker 3: talks about how important fossil fuels are to the world
Speaker 3: and how they've lifted people out of poverty and if
Speaker 3: we kind of stop using fossil fuels, we'll leave a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of people in poverty, according to her, which
Speaker 3: is not supported by evidence, but you know, that was
Speaker 3: the narrative that she was telling, and she had this line,
Speaker 3: so she was talking about how when you're considering energy,
Speaker 3: you have to do some thinking about your value. She says,
Speaker 3: first of all, you need to decide your standard of value.
Speaker 3: You need to decide is human life the most important?
Speaker 3: Humans getting healthier, wealthier, happier, living longer, or is pristine
Speaker 3: nature more important? Do you want to quit building new houses,
Speaker 3: stop getting stuff out of the ground. Do we want
Speaker 3: to leave it exactly as it is? Because that would
Speaker 3: be difficult. Thankfully we don't have to choose in this country.
Speaker 3: We are working in a happy medium at this point.
Speaker 4: So wow, it's such a happy medium.
Speaker 2: I actually later on today have to evacuate because of
Speaker 2: the wildfires around me.
Speaker 4: Happy medium to hear that it's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear just you know what you thought
Speaker 2: when you heard this, and whether any like whether that
Speaker 2: class's teacher or any of the kids like, had any
Speaker 2: kind of pushback to what she was saying.
Speaker 3: None of the kids asked any questions. The only question
Speaker 3: I remember them asking was how much it might be
Speaker 3: able to make if they worked for the industry, like
Speaker 3: worked for the oil and gas industry, And she said
Speaker 3: it might be one hundred thousand dollars, and they were
Speaker 3: just like whoa. And that you know, they didn't ask
Speaker 3: any questions. She also, you know that part wasn't set
Speaker 3: up for questions. She just kind of railed through this
Speaker 3: like do we want Christine nature? Do we want humans
Speaker 3: to prosper? Which one would you choose? Thankfully we don't
Speaker 3: have to choose. Let's move on, you know. So there
Speaker 3: was like this this kind of major question raise and
Speaker 3: then resolved immediately, and then she moved on and the
Speaker 3: teacher was very deferential to her, So of course the
Speaker 3: students were too.
Speaker 4: That's so interesting.
Speaker 2: So actually I wanted to ask you about whether you,
Speaker 2: in the course of reporting this book, got a sense
Speaker 2: of how US schools became so kind of susceptible to
Speaker 2: industry influence.
Speaker 3: I remember talking to one person who was like, look,
Speaker 3: I barely have three minutes in the day to pee.
Speaker 3: So if somebody sends me this lesson plan and it's
Speaker 3: like really well produced and looks very professional, I might
Speaker 3: use it, you know, and it's relevant to my students,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's not really on teachers, you know,
Speaker 3: it shouldn't necessarily be on teachers to make sure, you know,
Speaker 3: to like I mean, well maybe it should, obviously they
Speaker 3: should check their sources and so on, but like, these
Speaker 3: are things that are meant to look professional, and they
Speaker 3: usually do some of them are like outright climate denial,
Speaker 3: but then there's a lot of materials that are much subtler,
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't necessarily catch if you weren't like really
Speaker 3: looking for it. So, for example, there's an organization called
Speaker 3: the National Energy Education Development Project the NEED, and they
Speaker 3: have their whole purpose is to create educational materials about energy,
Speaker 3: which seems like a good thing, you know, and they
Speaker 3: talk about energy conservation, They talk about every all kinds
Speaker 3: of energy, including some renewables, which like in theory, sounds
Speaker 3: like a good thing. But they are sponsored by all
Speaker 3: of these energy companies and some of them are you know,
Speaker 3: wind or solar companies, but most of them are fossil
Speaker 3: fuel companies, and that's how they get the vast majority
Speaker 3: of their budget. And so they told me that they
Speaker 3: aren't influenced by their sponsors, But then if you actually
Speaker 3: look at the materials they produce, it's really industry friendly
Speaker 3: and so like, for example, they have these packets of
Speaker 3: activities and lessons for different age groups about all the
Speaker 3: different energy sources, and there's like fourteen pages of information
Speaker 3: and activities about petroleum. Nowhere in those materials is carbon
Speaker 3: dioxide mentioned. Climate change isn't mentioned, and the only ron
Speaker 3: mental impacts They do talk about environmental impact, but what
Speaker 3: they talk about is water pollution or air pollution. And
Speaker 3: then they say, yeah, then here here, I'm going to
Speaker 3: quote this directly, so that there's a paragraph about all
Speaker 3: the great things that petroleum products do for us, but
Speaker 3: that there's a trade off because there can be you know,
Speaker 3: some oil or water pollution. And then there's a paragraph
Speaker 3: that reads, the petroleum industry works hard to protect the environment.
Speaker 3: Gasoline and diesel fuel have been changed to burn cleaner,
Speaker 3: and oil companies work to make sure that they drill
Speaker 3: and transport oil as safely as possible. Wow, So what's
Speaker 3: that saying is like, don't worry about it because the
Speaker 3: petroleum industry cares so much about it and they're working
Speaker 3: really hard to protect the environment, and so everything's fine.
Speaker 4: You know, it's this problem, but they're.
Speaker 3: Taking care of it. And basically every non renewable resource
Speaker 3: discussed in these materials presents it that way, and you know,
Speaker 3: like everything's taken care of. Yes, there's problems, you might
Speaker 3: have heard about them, but don't worry. It's all it's
Speaker 3: all being taken care of. And that has this effect
Speaker 3: of leaving children with the feeling like it almost inoculates them,
Speaker 3: so when when they hear about an oil spill, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I learned about that, but like, fortunately there's ways to
Speaker 3: take care of it, and like there's no discussion of regulation,
Speaker 3: there's no discussion of climate change. It's just like, here
Speaker 3: is this product that does so many things for us,
Speaker 3: and fortunately the people who make it are really concerned
Speaker 3: about doing it in a way that's safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So me and Darna have been focusing on kind
Speaker 2: of on the social science side, not necessarily how it
Speaker 2: influences social science curricula, although we have found some of
Speaker 2: them too, but the way that like the industry's materials
Speaker 2: and sort of influence and education has served to kind
Speaker 2: of narrow the spectrum of possible solutions that were even
Speaker 2: sort of allowed to consider.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm curious if you find that to hold up in
Speaker 2: what you've seen too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the end goal of
Speaker 3: all of this, is to stemy action on climate change,
Speaker 3: so that the trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuels
Speaker 3: that are underground can be removed before the regulation happens
Speaker 3: and sold and turned into profit right, So that's their goal,
Speaker 3: and it was laid out in that victory memo. They
Speaker 3: said that the goal was to stop the Kyoto Protocol
Speaker 3: from being implemented and to ward off future efforts like Kyoto.
Speaker 3: And you know they've.
Speaker 4: Actually accomplished yeah, victory indeed. Yes.
Speaker 3: And what we found, what I found in my recording
Speaker 3: was that, you know, they've managed to turn climate change
Speaker 3: into a political issue in science classes and in schools,
Speaker 3: and like, you know, ideally we would like to think
Speaker 3: of science as you know, it's this scientific process, it's unimpeachable,
Speaker 3: and that you're going to go to school and you're
Speaker 3: going to learn something about how the world works and
Speaker 3: not as this political thing. But this particular issue is
Speaker 3: very political, and it shows up in this political way
Speaker 3: all over the place in schools. So an academic standard
Speaker 3: is the state's expectation of what a student will learn
Speaker 3: in each class. So like a history standard might say that,
Speaker 3: like in tenth grade you learn about the Great Depression
Speaker 3: and the New Deal or whatever. They have their science
Speaker 3: standards as well, and in some science standards they talk
Speaker 3: a great deal about climate change, but in other states
Speaker 3: it's absent totally. You know, kids don't learn anything about
Speaker 3: climate change in school, and you know, and one would
Speaker 3: say that climate change is, you know, the defining issue
Speaker 3: of this century, but in thirty States climate change doesn't
Speaker 3: show up in any civics class standards.
Speaker 2: What's crazy about that to me though, too, is that
Speaker 2: this year, and unfortunately is not coming out until March
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two or something, is the first time that
Speaker 2: they're having social scientists and political scientists do a working
Speaker 2: group of political scientists and social scientists to do a
Speaker 2: report on like that aspect of acting on climate for
Speaker 2: the IECC. And I'm just like, how how is it
Speaker 2: like twenty twenty one and we're just now being like, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: there's this whole other comonent.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like it does show up in science class,
Speaker 3: but you know, ultimately, you don't necessarily have to understand
Speaker 3: the exact mechanism of climate change to understand that it's
Speaker 3: a big problem that we need to solve and that
Speaker 3: we need to prepare for right and that it's going
Speaker 3: to define our century. So you know, it should show up.
Speaker 3: It should show up in classes from kindergarten to through
Speaker 3: college in obviously and developmentally appropriate ways and you know,
Speaker 3: kids should be asked to think about what action, if any,
Speaker 3: is appropriate and kind of what solutions might exist, which
Speaker 3: is not a science question so much as it is
Speaker 3: a social science question.
Speaker 4: Right, right, right.
Speaker 2: What was like the most surprising thing that you found
Speaker 2: in researching the book or the thing that's really stuck
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 3: Well, it surprised me to learn that as many as
Speaker 3: as a third of science teachers tell students the climate
Speaker 3: change is likely natural, and that about a quarter of
Speaker 3: children leave school thinking that it might be natural and
Speaker 3: basically not believing that climate change is happening, even as
Speaker 3: they're emerging into a world where it is happening in
Speaker 3: their communities often. And you know that that didn't happen accidentally.
Speaker 3: You know that wasn't just that wasn't just caused by
Speaker 3: kind of chance or accident. It was caused by this
Speaker 3: really intentional campaign that was at times in a certain way,
Speaker 3: is really targeted at children. And you know, of course,
Speaker 3: like the adult world affects children, but then there's almost
Speaker 3: this other level where if you're trying to spread disinformation
Speaker 3: to adults and it spread and it kind of trickles
Speaker 3: down to children.
Speaker 1: That's.
Speaker 3: That's kind of to be expected, but that there was
Speaker 3: this actual people thinking how can we get children on.
Speaker 2: Our side, how can we get.
Speaker 3: This disinformation into the hands of children and into the
Speaker 3: minds of children, And then they succeeded.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. Thanks for listening. We are
Speaker 1: working on bringing you the next couple of segments in
Speaker 1: our Gas season season six, The Bridge to Nowhere. We'll
Speaker 1: be bringing you those over the next few months, along
Speaker 1: with some additional bonus episodes along the way. Make sure
Speaker 1: you're subscribed so you don't miss any of it. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll see you next time.