Denialists target teachers

Science teachers in Nevada, kindergarten through high school, should start seeing some quirky matter showing up in their mail.

The Heartland Institute is distributing climate change material across the nation in an effort to influence about 200,000 science teachers to not teach science. Copies of its booklet “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” and a DVD are being sent to teachers. The booklet has already been sent to many reporters.

Scientists do not disagree on warming. There is a remarkable degree of consensus among climate scientists that warming is happening and that it is mostly caused by human activity. In 2016, a study by the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society found that “only 4 of 69,406 authors of peer-reviewed articles on global warming … or 1 in 17,352, rejected AGW” [Anthropogenic Global Warming].

The Heartland Institute holds events—including one in Las Vegas in 2014—that it calls International Conferences on Climate Change that are given trappings to make them look like scientific gatherings.

The Institute does not disclose its current funding sources but in the past has received tobacco, oil and gas corporate money.

Heartland also denies the link between tobacco and cancer.