One Brave High School Student: Keep Climate Denial Out of Our High Schools.
I’m Corey Husic, and I’m a high school student in Pennsylvania. It’s come to my attention that you, Joseph Bast, President and CEO, Heartland Institute are prepared to spend a significant amount of money on a “global warming curriculum” to teach kids that climate change isn’t real.
That’s right. According to your own budget documents, you want to hand teachers a curriculum that says global warming is “a major scientific controversy” and that carbon dioxide might not even be a pollutant.
Please be advised: Your entire premise is false. The reality is that our climate is changing now and human activities are a primary cause. I’m just a high school student, so please don’t take my word for it. Just ask any National Academy of Science in the world or just about any actual climate scientist.
Abraham Lincoln:
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.”
Behind the Controversy, an Effort to Rewrite Curriculum on Climate Change
The Heartland Institute is funded by oil and coal companies with a financial interest in denying climate science.
Heartland described its plan this way: “Dr. David E. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change.David E. Wojick is a well-known and vocal climate change “skeptic”, with strong links to the coal industry and a now-defunct coal industry front group called the Greening Earth Society.
David Wojick was listed as a “Scientific Adviser” to the Greening Earth Society, a group that was funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association, an association of coal-burning utility companies.
David Wojick has been described as a journalist and policy analyst. According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Wojick has not published any research in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of climate change.
Heartland Institute Leaks Highlight Astroturf Quackery
For years we’ve watched as the corporate-funded “fauxcademic” group the Heartland Institute took tobacco-industry money, then argued that the industry’s ties to cancer deaths were based on “junk science.” They’ve been very active on the broadband front, taking money from incumbent ISPs and then arguing how there is no broadband price, coverage or speed issues, while also fighting tooth and nail against the rights of towns and cities to wire themselves.
Heartland isn’t having a very good week, with leaked documents and e-mails showcasing how the firm takes corporate cash to sow seeds of doubt about established science and indisputable data. While they have always hidden their funding, the documents show the company takes money from AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The documents also show how they’re well funded by corporations to attack climate science, particularly in the classroom.
“The public health community’s campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science.“ -Heartland Institute, paid bullshitters.
