Ecokids; J. Kwong

As our nation continues its all-consuming pursuit of protecting the environment, "re gardless of the cost," we are overlooking the greatest cost of all: the toll on our children. My review of environmental "ed ucation" has revealed a number of unset tling trends and strategies. It is apparent, for example, that (1) children are being scared into becoming environmental activists, (2) there is widespread misinformation in maDr. Kwong is an environmental research assis tant at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia. This is a longer version ofan article published by The Acton Institute (Grand Rapids, Michigan) in the March/April 1995 issue of Religion & Liberty. terials aimed at children, (3) children are being taught what to think, rather than how to think, (4) children are taught that human beings are evil, (5) children are feeling helpless and pessimistic about their future on earth, and (6) environmental education is being used to undermine the simple joys of childhood. Are we raising critically think ing leaders or simple automatons that can recite that latest environmental dogma?

Raising EcoKids A quick glance at the materials aimed at children and their educators reveals one very apparent trend: a call to activism. The bestseller 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save the Earth, published by The Earth Works Group, urges kids to write to their U.S. Senators, the President, and world leaders, or join an environmental group. Suggested groups include the Natural Re sources Defense Council, famous for per petuating hysteria over Alar-treated apples in the late 1980s, and Greenpeace, an orga nization that even its admirers say built its reputation on publicity stunts and playing "fast and loose" with scientific facts. The textbook Your Health, published by Prentice-Hall, encourages children to "con sider joining an environmental group." Its suggestions for further contacts include Greenpeace, Zero Population Growth, 155 156 THE FREEMAN • MARCH 1995 Planned Parenthood, and Earth First! (a group that has solicited terminally ill people to undertake life-threatening eco-terrorist activities). And Kid Heroes of the Environ ment, another publication of The Earth Works Group, praises children for conduct ing petition drives, organizing letter-writing campaigns to political leaders, and boycott ing businesses.

The Alley Foundation, a "non-political, nonprofit organization dedicated to the en vironmental education of our youth," dis tributes a book called' 'Cry Out. " It tells the children, "Unless you take action NOW, the beautiful forests where you go hiking, the beaches where you swim in clean water, the clear morning when you take a breath of sweet-smelling air could all become things of the past." What's so wrong about these calls to activism? Nothing, really, if children are taught solid facts about environmental sci ence and if they understand the tradeoffs involved in adopting alternative courses of action. Yet this hardly seems the case. Children are often taught by people lacking training in environmental subjects. Consider that the United Nations Envi ronment Programme markets its publica tion, "Environmental Education for Our Common Future," to teachers "whatever subject they teach." 1 Or that school sys tems across the nation, often at the require ment of government mandates, are incor porating environmental education into traditional subjects such as mathematics, history, languages, and civics. Children are learning from teachers who can barely dis tinguish myth from fact in the environmental arena.

Myths vs. Facts Environmental professionals have learned that sensationalism sells. It boosts donations to their nonprofit organizations and helps peddle materials to educators. The focus is typically on the negative: how human beings or evil corporations are dev astating the environment. Take the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill of March 1989. Environmental groups, rec ognizing a heavensent fundraising bless ing, sprang into action generating state ments, press conferences, and reports that portrayed the spill as one of the greatest ecological disasters of all time. The media joined the frenzy. The public was informed that Prince William Sound would take at least 50 to 100 years to recover, and in the meantime the salmon and herring fisheries could go extinct. Donations to environmental groups, which for many had been on the decline, shot up in response to the dire need for environmental protection. Largely ignored was the evidence that the oil spill was not in fact a major ecological disaster. In 1990, the fish catch topped 40 million, far exceeding the previous record of 29 million in 1987.2 Internationally recognized oil pollution ex perts found the coast recovering nicely one year after the accident.

It seems that the truth loses out if a more sensational version is plausible. For exam pie, children are taught that acid rain is destroying our forests; overpopulation will exhaust our resources; the ozone layer is rapidly being destroyed; and global warming willlead to disastrous climatic change. All of these, and many other scare scenarios, have been widely debated or refuted by experts. Yet, they are taught as facts. A "Science Gazette" article in a Prentice Hall textbook describes the consequences of warming of the earth with photographs of houses falling into the sea and a 1930s dust bowl farm. The text notes that warming in the polar regions could melt the ice and increase sea level by "as much as seven or eight meters!" Severe drought would occur in the western United States and "farms might have to be abandoned because of lack of water. " In other places, more rain will fall, causing an insect explosion. "Valuable food crops would be gobbled up by millions of insect pests.,,3 Global warming is portrayed as a sinister process resulting from greedy human behav ior. But, in fact, some warming is a natural phenomenon. Essential for the existence of life forms on earth, greenhouse gases, such ECOKIDS: NEW AUTOMATONS ON THE BLOCK 157 as carbon dioxide, raise the average tem perature to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists disagree on whether increased carbon dioxide from coal burning and auto emissions will change the climate. The un derstanding is so vague that in the mid to late 1970s, scientists predicted that we were headed for a disaster via global cooling. Understandably, it is difficultto present a balanced picture in textbooks. For one thing, the need for simple writing for chil dren leads some authors to present issues as black or white, right or wrong. And the need to appease many interest groups in order to gain statewide adoption leads many text book authors to write from the "politically correct" perspective. Nonetheless, it's well worth considering the impact that such doom and gloom scenarios may have upon our youth. Raising Automatons Environmental policy analyst Jonathan Adler tells about how classrooms of school children submitted public comments to the Food and Drug Administration on the sub ject of bioengineered produce. He writes: "Their letters didn't address the scientific or even, really, the ethical issues: They were about death! They called the biotech tomato 'Franken Tomato,' and they pleaded, 'Please don't do this, I don't want to die!' "