Fraser Institute Says Environmental "Education" Is Polluting Classrooms

Contact:

Laura Jones, Director of Environmental Studies
The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4547 Email: lauraj@fraserinstitute.ca

Release Date: 31 May, 1999

Vancouver, BC>>> The environmental "education" being taught in many classrooms is fraught with misinformation, half-truths, and one-sided arguments, according to a new book, Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children About the Environment, released today by The Fraser Institute.

The Canadian edition of Facts, Not Fear provides parents, teachers, and children with accurate information to effectively address children's concerns about the health of our planet. In simple, non-technical language, authors Michael Sanera and Jane Shaw explain the myths and facts concerning many major environmental topics including air quality, global warming, world population, endangered species, forest use, and ozone.

"When teaching about the environment, many textbooks and children's books include vague, unsupported statements of doom. They misinform children about facts and examine only one view of complicated environmental topics. In some cases, children are even urged to become activists," says Laura Jones, Director of Environmental Studies at The Fraser Institute, who adapted the original version of Facts, Not Fear for a Canadian audience.

Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder and former president of Greenpeace, writing in the preface to the Canadian edition says: "As a father and an environmentalist, I am often discouraged by the amount of misinformation conveyed to our young people through the school system and the media. Facts, Not Fear will help parents, teachers, and children to think critically and to develop a sense of balance about the environment."

In a review of over 160 textbooks and 130 children's books, the authors found many irresponsible claims that promoted an exaggerated, or simply false, view of environmental concerns. For example, one textbook uses a "cancer cell" as a metaphor for human population, and claims "humanity is becoming a super-malignancy on the face of the planet."

In the past, most environmental education was taught as part of science curriculum. Children learned about biomes (deserts, forests, rain forests, etc.), discussed the interdependence of plant and animal communities, and learned about the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles.

Starting in the 1970s, however, as interest in the environment exploded throughout the country, "environmental science" began to crowd out traditional science. Environmental education spread from junior high and high school to the primary grades, and began overlapping with other subjects in an oversimplified way. Texts on health, geography, and history now typically contain one or more environmental chapters.

The enormous improvements in health and environment are not reflected in most of our children's textbooks, nor is the fact that that if the people on the Earth are to become healthier and live longer, they will do so through technology, not ideology.

From slowing the use of fossil fuels to requiring recycling, the solutions proposed are always government solutions. While government involvement is sometimes necessary-in the case of urban air pollu-tion, for example-the textbooks are wrong always to assume that only governments can correct an environmental problem.

Balanced environmental education should teach students that protecting the environment is more complicated than "good guys" battling "bad guys." Controlling pollution can be costly and can slow economic growth. Slower growth can reduce people's interest in further environmental protection and their ability to bring it about.

Children would also learn that regulations often have unintended consequences. For example, tough fuel economy standards to save fuel have led car manufacturers to build lighter cars, and lighter cars mean more deaths when accidents occur.

Environmental education should be a valuable part of science instruction but rather than teaching children critical-thinking skills, it often repeats the popular nostrums of the environmental movement. As a result, children are not provided with a solid and thoughtful foundation of knowledge, and informed that true science is really an on-going search for truth.

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver.

Suzanne Walters,Director of Communications The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4582, Email: suzannew@fraserinstitute.ca

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