(Houston) School textbooks discarded, climate-skeptical booklets sent to teachers… In Texas as in other American states, conservatives are trying to influence the teaching of climate change in classes, yet another area of cultural battles that are fracturing states -United.
Last week, the Texas Board of Education voted to exclude science textbooks because of an approach deemed too “biased” to climate change by conservative elected officials, who refuse to allow these issues to “scare” students.
The information in some school textbooks “was presented in a way that teaches our future scientists that humans have a negative impact on their environment,” said Evelyn Brooks, a Republican elected to the Council.
“It’s this strategy of fear that I have a problem with,” she said to explain her vote, brushing aside the international scientific consensus on the causal link between human CO emissions.2climate change and its devastating consequences for the planet.
All this “is a blatant lie”, she assures on the telephone, a few days before the global climate negotiations at COP28 in Dubai.
Some of the textbooks for middle school students “only present one side of things, it doesn’t show students the position of both sides,” says Evelyn Brooks. “Our approach must be based on sound science, not political ideology. »
“Perpetuate the problem”
The Green Ninja publisher’s manual was thus rejected because it “includes climate change”, confirms its director, Eugene Cordero. An elected member of the Council, he said, for example, criticized the following exercise proposed to students: “Write a story to warn your friends and family of possible extreme weather and climate episodes. »
Textbooks from eight out of 22 publishers, including Green Ninja, were ousted by the Board of Education (which has ten Republicans and five Democrats), according to a count by NCSE, an NGO that advocates for the teaching of climate change.
Some textbooks were finally accepted after attenuations of elements on the climate or on the theory of evolution, also in the viewfinder in the face of religious creationism.
Without national school programs, the United States leaves each state, school district, and even each establishment a great deal of educational freedom. But using books approved by the Texas Board of Education makes it easier to obtain grants.
In this southern state of 30 million inhabitants, the summer of 2023 was the second hottest on record after 2011 – causing cascading dramatic consequences.
“If kids don’t understand what all this means, they’re just going to perpetuate the problem,” said Marisa Perez-Diaz, a Democrat on the Council. According to her and Staci Childs, another elected Democrat, educational content was also criticized because it “negatively reflected the gas and oil industry”.
Two of the 10 Republican elected officials work directly for this sector, in a state which dominates American hydrocarbon production.
The inclusion of the climate issue in Texas textbooks dates from a decision by the same board in 2021, when “a consensus could be found between the parties” according to Marisa Perez-Diaz.
Today, she says, new “much more conservative” Republicans have “succeeded in polarizing the debates.”
Improvement
Elsewhere in the United States, the teaching of climate change is also an area of struggle for influence, after political battles over the place of racism or sexuality in classrooms.
In Oklahoma (south), a public agency entirely financed by the oil industry donates educational materials to schools – often in dire need of resources – with the stated aim of defending fossil fuels.
On the internet, a company co-founded by the former Republican governor of Arkansas (south) Mike Huckabee offers for sale an educational monthly, one issue of which is entitled “the truth about climate change”.
“Everyone knows that the planet’s climate is constantly changing, and that industrial development has caused damage to the environment,” we read. “But that doesn’t mean our planet is doomed. Very intelligent people have not been able to say what will happen to the planet. So we really don’t know. »
And earlier this year, the Heartland Institute, a climate skeptic influence group, sent 8,000 American teachers a manual peppered with misleading claims about climate science, according to AFP checks.
But, Glenn Branch of the NCSE would like to remind us, “the teaching of climate change in the United States is improving, overall” before specifying: “It is also because we are starting from a very low level. »