Anne Keary and Jennifer Chesnut authored a report by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and For Our Kids. CAPE uses the tagline, “Healthy Planet. Healthy People.”
This report explores the involvement of the oil and gas industry in schools and climate-related education in Canada. Given that comprehensive, evidence-based climate education is essential to addressing climate change, and that youth will be the most affected by climate breakdown, it is imperative that the industry most responsible for driving the climate crisis be prevented from influencing the education young people receive on subjects related to climate, environment, or energy…
One of our key findings is that fossil fuel companies have, through their involvement in education, effectively obscured the industry’s role in driving climate change…
We hope that this report will also contribute to global understanding of the need for fossil-fuel-free education to protect young people and safeguard their future.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Oil and gas companies are actively shaping children’s understanding of climate science and climate change solutions while they are a captive audience in classrooms across Canada. At least 39 oil and gas companies and 12 industry-tied organizations are using a variety of methods to influence how climate, energy, and environmental education is taught across the country.
Their strategies have included: providing branded educational materials to schools; establishing partnerships with government to develop curricula and resources; sponsoring school activities; and funding and supporting third-party environmental education providers.
Fossil fuel companies engaged in K–12 education in Canada include Cenovus Energy, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Canadian Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips, Enbridge, TC Energy, Fortis, and many others.
While fossil fuels produce more than 75% of all climate-heating greenhouse gas emissions, industry-supported education materials were found to consistently muddle scientific evidence about the causes of climate change, and failed to address the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. They routinely presented climate concerns as a “perspective” alongside proindustry counterarguments, and emphasized individual actions while ignoring corporate responsibility.
This is a direct conflict of interest, akin to tobacco companies teaching health topics or McDonalds sponsoring nutrition classes (they did) and ensuring that the lessons include their “side” of the story.
Fossil-fuel driven climate change is arguably the most significant threat to children’s health and future.4 Children are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, with greater exposure to air, food, and water pollution per unit of body weight than adults. In addition, youth in Canada are facing mounting climate anxiety, with 78% reporting that concern about climate change affects their mental health.
Education will be key to avoiding the most severe impacts of climate change, and evidence-based climate change education that also addresses mental health harms and climate anxiety is what is needed to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to build a more just, sustainable, and low-carbon future.
This investigation reveals that fossil fuel industry influence has occurred in the context of a government funding gap in climate education. Oil and gas companies have exploited that gap in ways that has left the industry well-placed to influence public opinion on climate change, climate solutions, and the impact of the fossil fuel industry.
By maintaining a presence in schools and funding education groups, the industry has long been able to shape the public’s understanding of climate change, using misinformation to position fossil fuels as benign, protect industry interests, and delay climate action.
Categories: Uncategorized
in-sights.ca 
In thirty years in the classroom, there was a lot of propaganda woven into various curricula and the trick was to fulfill outcomes while encouraging students to look at source material and downstream outcomes because they were, and now have, inherited the mess created by the sponsors of the drivel inserted into classrooms by a succession of governments. I once took a class to the legislature in the Rock Pile, and it turned out to be, with no comment or encouragement from me, a lesson in rudeness, bad management and wasting time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In 1973 our eldest son was about to finish Grade 1 as my wife delivered our youngest. His teacher informed the class about it, using it as a lesson, and assigned the students to pen a welcome letter to the new arrival. We agreed to bring the newborn in to meet the class as part of the process, at which time the letters were delivered to us on his behalf (bright as he was, he couldn’t read yet). The letters were all quite good, but one stood out because of the advice offered in a postscript:
“Your teddy bear is a fake animal.”
The author of that advice had some information he believed would keep the new guy from being misled. The Information Age wasn’t really in high gear yet, but the truth still came out.
Today there is an astonishing array of information sources available to children, and the question becomes whether that will aid them in discovering fact from fiction, or whether it just makes it easier to lie to them. Whether it’s the example set by the President of the United States openly and transparently lying to the world on a daily basis, AI-devised logarithms targeting them on line, or biased media distorting facts, their formative years are in more peril than ever. We owe them a better start than allowing them to be brainwashed in class by petropushers.
Climate change is not a fake animal.
LikeLiked by 1 person