Thread by @katieworth

Big Oil's spent a bazillion ad dollars trying to convince us that they care about the planet.

But what happened when Texas educators tried to add climate change to the curriculum? You can read in @sciam but here are a few of the most absurd deets🧵.

scientificamerican.com/article/subver…

So Texas was updating its science standards, which guide what's taught in classrooms and textbooks.

The educators in charge were like, maybe this time let's include something about the science of the climate crisis and what can be done to stop it?

The oil industry:

A group called the Texas Energy Council put out an urgent call to its members, asking them to get involved to help ensure that children keep learning about oil and gas's "critical contributions." ( Check it here, thanks, as usual, to @internetarchive: )

web.archive.org/web/2020092606…

These industry volunteers started showing up to Texas State Board of Education meetings and saying wiiiiild things. Like how kids need to learn that the fossil-fuel industry ended the practice of whaling for blubber. “Oil and gas literally saved the whales," one lady said. 👀🤯🐳

A few of the industry folks applied for seats on the teams charged with actually writing the new standards, then pushed from the inside to water down the climate content. One argued that scientists have invented or exaggerated the climate crisis in pursuit of money. 🙄🧑‍🔬💸

One education consultant and industry ally told the board to be careful about adding climate.“Our goal is not to produce angry children but children who love science. We're challenging them to go solve some of these exciting problems but not turn them into Gretas.” @GretaThunberg

Such arguments were generally well-received by the Texas State Board of Education, which has the final say over standards. The board is elected in low-participation elections, so it skews more conservative than Texas as a whole does. And they made their allegiances clear:

At one meeting, Republican boardmember Pat Hardy was proposing amendments verbatim from a doc written by the Texas Energy Council. A democrat on the board asked her, "Do you not think that if someone's area of work is in fossil fuels that they might have some bias on this issue?”

Pat Hardy responded without hesitation: “It might be that **I** have a bias for the fossil-fuel industry.”

‼️‼️

[Reminder that our world is already being defined by the climate crisis, and this person is deciding what children will learn about that crisis in public school.]

Midway through the standards adoption process, a new boardmember was elected: Will Hickman of the Houston area. His only experience in ed was volunteering in his kids' district and teaching Sunday School.

His day job: In-house attorney at @Shell Oil.

I'm not making this up.

In his very first meeting, Hickman asked whether the proposed science standards included the pros and cons of green energy: “Everyone thinks renewable power's a great idea, and Germany adopted it on a large scale...But the cost-benefit—it ended up raising their power prices."

At one point the board was debating whether to keep or axe a line in the standards about potential solutions to the climate crisis. The dems wanted it in and the conservative majority wanted it out. Democratic boardmember and longtime science teacher @aicha4education spoke up:

“We absolutely can't let the oil and gas industry dictate what our kids need to learn when it comes to science," @aicha4education said. "It shouldn't be about the Texas Energy Council. It should be about what's best for our students.”

Hickman, the Shell attorney, turned on his mic. He noted that the Texas education system is largely funded by oil and gas proceeds, and that all the board members had used gas to get to the venue and home again.

“If all of this is true—greenhouse gases are evil—what do we do? Do we ban gasoline and stop using gasoline-powered cars? Do we ban diesel for trucks? How do we get our Amazon and Walmart purchases?”

The board, persuaded, axed the line on solutions to the climate crisis.

In the end, the industry mostly got their way. Science students will learn about the climate crisis, but sparingly. Every time renewable energy arises, they will be asked to consider its costs. They will be told again and again about oil/gas's "critical contributions" to society.

It's worth noting that all of this took place in public view. But the hearings were rarely attended by more than a few members of the public. And our local/state media has been so gutted that very few reporters pay attention to what's happening in these rooms either.

What would have happened had even 1 percent of the parents in Texas known this was happening and spoken up? Maybe the outcome would have been the same. But maybe the @TXSBOE would have felt more pressure to give kids a real education about the science of the crisis we are facing.

I'll stop here. More details about all this in my story in this month's @sciam.

But suffice to say next time you see an ad from Shell about sustainability or from Chevron about transitioning to green energy, it's reasonable to look askance.

scientificamerican.com/article/subver…