Endangered Education: How Corporate Polluters Are Attacking Environmental Education.

Overview & Synopsis

This report claims that an attack has been waged on environmental education to derail the re-authorization of the National Environmental Education Act and to de-stabilize and de-fund environmental education in the United States. Presented in the media as a grassroots movement, stories have appeared in local, state, and national media that illustrate that environmental education has gone too far, is full of one-sided arguments and outright lies, and asks students to become activists. Conservative think tanks, foundations, and fundamental religious groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Political Economy Research Center and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have been found at the end of the public relations ploy of stories of students"brainwashed" by environmental education, simulating grassroots activity. Investigation into these groups shows that they are funded by corporate polluters like Amoco, Dow Chemical, and Shell. The report is divided into four parts: (1) "Astroturf: the stories behind the attack on environmental education"; (2) "The Anti-Environmental Backlash: individuals and organizations linked to the attacks on environmental education"; (3) "Greenwashing," examples of educational materials produced by corporate funders of the attack; and (4) "Campaign Finance," which looks at the financing of some of the nationally elected officials who are responsible for funding environmental education. (SJR)