Fighting Florida’s floods and California’s wildfires from the classroom

By Eve Darian-Smith

Florida and California continue on their path to recovery from massive floods and horrific fires. As the states invest millions in recovery, I am reminded how important it is to protect the rights of teachers — at all levels of education — to freely discuss the climate crisis which contributed to the fires and floods in the first place.

I am a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and last semester I taught a class on global environmental politics to 80 students. We talked about a lot of things, and my students now know that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of our warming planet.

They know that under the first Trump administration 50 years of environmental regulations were dismantled, and that under Trump’s second term Big Oil will ramp up greenhouse gas emissions by opening public lands for mining, receiving in turn more federal tax cuts. Students also know that Big Oil has financed the Republican Party for decades and contributed over $14 million to Trump’s recent electoral success. Finally, they know that energy companies and philanthropic groups such as the Koch Foundation, whose wealth originated in oil production, give huge donations to universities to influence what is studied and discussed in classrooms.

Some may accuse me of being biased in the classroom. We should all, instead, be concerned about the influence of Big Oil on education. Their money prevents students from knowing the reality of a dramatically warming planet that impacts every one of us.

Big Oil corporations — and their far-right political allies — are very aware of students’ collective power to think freely and raise questions about oil and gas mining. That is why corporations have poured enormous amounts of money into colleges to shape research and teaching. A report from the non-profit Data for Progress estimated that giant energy companies donated or pledged $677 million to 27 universities between 2010 and 2020. Notable is the amount of $154 million going to UC Berkeley, an institution that prides itself on its commitment to social justice.

Also notable is the $57 million going to Stanford University where its new Doerr School of Sustainability has come under scrutiny for rolling out a research agenda that is scientifically dubious. Stanford’s internal documents show this agenda was shaped during behind-the-scenes meetings with Big Oil corporations as well as Bank of America that is a leading financier of the fossil fuel sector.

Sadly, the absence of environmental education at all levels of public education is staggering. For instance, a recent study concludes that biology textbooks have decreased their coverage about climate impacts and coverage of climate solutions by 80% in recent decades. These textbooks falsely suggest that the outcomes of planetary warming are debatable and there is no climate science consensus. Dr. Jennifer Landin, a researcher involved in the study, argues that this lack of information leaves students with a sense “that nothing can be done, which is both wildly misleading and contributes to a sense of fatalism regarding climate change.”

Katie Worth, in her book “Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America,” points out that most science classes in high schools and colleges use textbooks that downplay climate science. Adding to the misinformation problem, three companies produce textbooks for much of the country, and they modify their textbooks according to the dominant political views in each of the 50 states.

According to Worth, “Ideology trickles from elected officials through educational departments and into classrooms. Accurate information about climate change thus becomes the purview of children living in liberal states, while children living in conservative states are frequently provided fodder for denial.”

I experienced firsthand the policing of information about climate change when giving a talk at the University of Pittsburgh. The lecture was well received. But afterward I was approached by students and faculty who told me how brave I was for saying what I did, which took me completely by surprise. My work has been called a lot of things — both good and bad — but never brave!

In later private conversations over coffee, I learned that the campus had accepted a Koch Foundation gift of $4.2 million to set up a new Center for Governance and Markets in 2019. In the years following, some faculty felt pressured to silence any criticism about the negative impact of oil consumption. In hushed tones, one professor told me that some senior scholars had taken early retirement or left for other jobs where they would have greater autonomy over their research.

Back in my own classroom last fall, on the last day of teaching amid student applause, I quieted the lecture hall. I told the students that if we were at a public university in Florida, Texas or Indiana, I probably would not have been able to offer the class. The materials we had covered violated Republican legislation that prevented a teacher talking about subjects deemed “controversial.”

The students were shocked and outraged. Some gathered at the podium to continue the conversation. A number argued that it was my social responsibility to teach them facts about the environment which impacted their lives, their families and their future children. Considering the LA fires, the colossal floods in the Southeast, and the tragic deaths and massive intergenerational destruction caused by these climate disasters, I couldn’t agree more.

Eve Darian-Smith is a distinguished professor and fellow at the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, and author of the forthcoming book “Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Higher Education and Why It Matters.” This opinion piece was originally published by the Tampa Bay Times, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. Banner image: A student raises his hand in a classroom (iStock image).

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