The partisan right-wingers in the United States have been on this theme for a long time: any fact-based education that progressives convey is “indoctrination”, especially when it’s about global warming, something certain people are determined to lie about at every opportunity.
Teaching students of any age about anything that goes against right-wing ideology is “indoctrination” to these people. Yet when it comes to coloring books telling kids about the advantages of coal (believe it or not it’s not a book of blank pages) they don’t even consider that un-factual propaganda that it is. Here’s the coloring book info from Think Progress:
“Friends of Coal (FOC) is a front group created by the West Virginia Coal Association. Its mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry” and “provide a united voice” for the industry. To make dirty coal seem appealing, FOC has sponsored or initiated license plates, football games, basketball practices, plane jumps, fishing events, and scholarships. FOC is now selling coal to children. ThinkProgress obtained the “Let’s Learn About Coal” coloring book. . . . “
Amazingly dishonest propaganda, but perfectly fine and good when they do it. Also from Think Progress:
Until recently, the Build-A-Bearville website (part of the Build-A-Bear Workshop) featured online videos telling children about manmade global warming and the dangers it holds for the North Pole. In the videos, little animals learn about the problem and teach Santa Claus about it. The right wing has been outraged over the antics of these bears and penguins. One conservative called for a boycott of Build-A-Bear, and another said the the videos amount to “indoctrination.” In response to this right-wing pressure, Build-A-Bear has taken down the educational videos. A statement from “Founder and Chief Executive Bear” Maxine Clark:
Our goal is to entertain and engage the imagination of children with our stuffed animals, our store environment, and online. Our intention with the Polar Bear story was to inspire children, through the voices of our animal characters, to make a difference in their own individual ways. We did not intend to politicize the topic of global climate change or offend anyone in any way. The webisodes concluded this week with Santa successfully leaving on his journey to deliver gifts around the world. The webisodes will no longer be available on the site. [They are still available on Youtube].
The scientific consensus remains as strong as ever that manmade global warming is real. [This is the science-based part that right-wingers can't bring themselves to admit]. In the past, conservatives have also attacked the popular movie “Wall-E,” saying that it was filled with “leftist propaganda” and taught children that “human beings are bad for planet earth.”
Wall-E was a great movie, and if anything it was pretty meandering and subtle in its animated and funny sci-fi approach to a vision of the future. Only a Republican (or a libertarian) could dislike that movie.
Education on this topic and other science topics are more important than ever, as the cultish “Denialism” and other anti-science movements become more desperate, which is happening because Congress and the government are starting to take global warming seriuosly enough to do something about it.
Hopefully they will bypass cap and trade for something more effective like, at least in theory, a new cap and dividend bill called the CLEAR Act, from Senators Maria Cantwell and Sue Collins. Unfortunately, it has only a 4% emissions reduction target for 2020 from 1990 levels. (Oddly, some environmentalists think this is adequate. The author of the great 1992 anti-consumption book How Much is Enough?, Alan Durning, calls this low target ’solid’ .) A low target at this late date is not good enough.
“It’s true that Cantwell’s CLEAR Act sets out ambitious reduction targets. Yet at present, it lacks detailed guidance for achieving them, especially in the near term.”
Then why not do something instead that’s effective, like what the Carbon Tax Center and like groups suggest — tax carbon and recycle the revenue — aka give it back to the people. Reimbursements. It’s like what Palin did in Alaska.
The other option is to let the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which is what they may do if Congress isn’t successful in passing global warming legislation. Congress probably won’t be able to do that next year due to Republican obstructionism. But that same obstructionism is what will probably force the EPA to regulate GHG emissions, making it even harder for businesses to deal with it.
www.350.org"
