Hope on the Environmental Teaching Horizon

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by Tony Hahn, MA Political Science, Carleton University, Anthony_Hahn@hotmail.com

Book Review of Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Canadian Edition) by Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw, Adapted for Canadian Readers by Liv Fredricksen and Laura Jones (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 1999).

"If you lined up all of the inhabitants of China and got them to simultaneously jump, once, it would create a tidal wave through the Pacific that would engulf all of North America from Los Angeles, California to St. John’s, Newfoundland." So said my World Issues teacher as he pontificated about the imminent danger of overpopulation in my final year of high school. Like the rest of my classmates, I sat open-mouthed as a combination of fear and amazement went through my head. For some reason, though, I doubted the validity of my teacher’s claim. But, who was I to argue? Daily, I saw messages of gloom and doom in the media and it had increasingly been drilled into my head through my education that the world was about to collapse if humanity did not change its attitudes towards the environment.

Growing up in southwestern Ontario in the 1980s, the environment was not much of an issue outside of the odd news report about acid rain. However, when I was in high school in the early 1990s, the green movement emerged and everyone took notice. One can only shudder to think of the analogies that schoolteachers have come up with since my experience 6 years ago to illustrate aspects of the various ecological issues that the globe faces today.

Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment, published in May 1999 by The Fraser Institute, is an excellent tool that parents can use to help give their children a balanced view of the state of the planet. Based on an American book that incorporates Canadian data and experiences, the authors discuss the myriad ways in which children are taught from a frighteningly young age several environmental "truths": rainforests are chopped down so Canadians can enjoy McDonald’s hamburgers, global warming is the result of corporations polluting the atmosphere, the world’s food production capacity is fixed, and so on. Naturally, this leads to feelings of guilt on the part of kids who come home from school confused about the world they are discovering. Parents, for their part, are left speechless as they try to make sense of things for inquiring young minds. Facts, Not Fear examines several children’s environmental textbooks, exposes the fraudulent assertions within them, debunks those myths, and gives parents statistics and suggestions for activities by which to combat the environmental panic that kids are exposed to in their schools.

The greatest strength of Facts, Not Fear is its exhaustiveness. The book discusses how fear mongering has been perpetuated through issues ranging from forestry and wildlife conservation, to air pollution, to pesticides on fruit. Hundreds of texts and children’s books on the environment are cited or reviewed, and a list of recommended books to provide balance in the environmental education of children is also included. The book exposes the sensationalism that we have come to expect from the environmental movement, and includes more credible interpretations of ecological issues.

For me, the most significant effect of this book was that it made me aware of not only the weaknesses in the environmental education of our children, but also in the flaws of the education system generally. Inconclusive evidence is often passed off as truth in public schools, and the opposing perspective is omitted; the result is that students are not given the chance to decide their own point of view for them- selves. The environment is one issue area that illustrates the problem with modern educational philosophy today. Facts, Not Fear is an excellent way to bring some sense of balance to children’s education.

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Last Modified: Friday, November 5, 1999.