DeSantis Other Right Wingers Moving Climate Denying Curricula Into Public Schools. Keep 'em Dumb I Guess

A right wing group is having some success introducing
dangerous climate misinformation into school classrooms
with the cooperation of ignorant politicians. 

 In his ongoing war against whatever he considers "woke," whatever that means, the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to flood school kids with misinformation about climate change.

Not that we should be surprised by that. 

At issue is videos produced by something called Prager University Foundation.  That sounds like a legit institute of higher education, no? 

No. Hell no. 

As Scientific American points out bluntly - and accurately  - describes Prager as "a conservative group that produces videos that distort science, history, gender and other topics."

If you watch the Prager videos on climate, Scientific American reports, you will "learn":

"Climate activists are like Nazis....Wind and solar power pollute the Earth and make life miserable....Recent global and local heat records reflect natural temperature cycles."

None of this is true, of course.  Hard core conservatives love to talk about how supposed "liberal" institutions are "indoctrinating" youth, but talk about calling the kettle black!

From Prager's standpoint, the videos are supposedly meant to rebalance schools that have been "hijacked from the left," according the organizations CEO, Marissa Streit.  

'Young kids are being taught climate hysteria.....They're hearing that the world is coming to an end, and we think that there needs to be a healthy balance."

She then went into the usual spiel from climate deniers that the climate is always changing, blah, blah, blah. 

(To spell it out, yes the climate is always changing, but not remotely near the pace it's now changing because of our burning of fossil fuels).

The PragerU videos are insidious in their depiction of climate denial as honorable, standing up for what's right in the face of scorching (pardon the pun) opposition. 

As Scientific American describes it, a PragerU video depicts a Polish teenager named Ania who is concerned about climate change because of what she learned in school. She tells her parents, who Stepford Wife-like, recite verbatim the fossil fuel industry talking points. (Basically, the climate has always warmed and cooled, and China and India should cut emissions before we do, etc.).

Of course, the mean old teacher and classmates pretty much bully Ania for repeating her parents' talking points (because of course people who are worried about climate change are just hideous).  This leaves Ania sad.  Poor girl. 

But then it's Ania's grandfather to the rescue! Grandpa tells Ania what it was like living under Nazism in World War II and tells Ania "fighting oppression always takes courage."

See? In PragerU's worldview, climate activists and scientists are not trying to warn the world of dangerous, deadly climate change, and are not trying to save lives from future climate disasters. They're supposedly just as bad and murderous as the Nazis, who killed 6 million Jews because they found them distasteful. 

Climate scientists are actively trying to ruin little Ania's life by, um, discouraging her from rolling coal. 

Scientific American's August article said that "education advocates fear that the nation's third-largest state has granted a stamp of approval that will spread videos to classrooms in other states."

Sure enough, 

Oklahoma added PragerU videos to the state's school curriculum, with state education officials describing the content as pro-American, whatever that means. 

The teachers' union, Oklahoma Education Association, quickly clapped back with this statement:

"OEA continues to believe that curriculum offered in Oklahoma classrooms should meet the high standards set by our local education professionals. PragerU isn't a legitimate accredited education organization; it is a media organization, whose creator has admitted PragerU material 'indoctrinates' kids."

The union pointed out that parents and guardians can opt out of their children receiving PragerU content. 

By the way, this  blog is a climate and weather publication, so I'm not really getting into other videos by PragerU that are just as insidious. There's videos from this outfit that basically say racism no longer exists, and that men and women should stick strictly to "traditional" gender roles that went out the window for most of us decades ago. 

Bottom line: Beware of what your children are being taught, especially in states where far right politicians have a serious and dangerous agenda.