Fighting Florida Floods and California Wildfires from Classrooms

Florida and California continue their path to recovery from major floods and horrific fires. As the state invests millions in recovery, I recall how important it is to freely discuss teacher rights, at all levels of education, about the climate crisis that has contributed to fires and floods in the first place.

I am a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and last semester I taught 80 students a class on global environmental politics. We’ve talked about a lot, but my students now know that burning fossil fuels is the main cause of our warming planet. They know that under the first Trump administration, 50 years of environmental regulations will be dismantled, under the big oil of Trump’s second term, open public land for mining, and receive more federal tax cuts, and increase greenhouse gas emissions. Students also know that Big Oil has funded Republicans for decades and has donated more than $14 million to Trump’s recent election success. Finally, they know that oil-producing wealth is rich in donation to universities and large donations that affect what is being studied and discussed in the classroom. Some may accuse me of being biased towards the classroom. Instead, we all need to worry about the huge impact of oil on education. Their money prevents students from realizing the reality of a dramatically warming planet that affects us all.

Large oil companies, and their far-right political allies, are very aware of the collective power of students to think freely and raise questions about oil and gas extraction. That’s why companies have poured huge amounts of money into universities to shape their research and education. Reports from non-profit data on progress estimates that between 2010 and 2020, the giant energy company has donated or pledged $677 million to 27 universities. It is also being scrutinized as $57 million went to Stanford University and its new Doerr Sustainability School has rolled out a scientifically questionable research agenda. Stanford’s internal documents show that the agenda was shaped during a behind-the-scenes meeting with the leading oil companies and Bank of America, a leading investor in the fossil fuel sector.

Sadly, the lack of environmental education at all levels of public education is phenomenal. For example, a recent study concludes that biology textbooks have declined 80% in recent decades in coverage of climate impacts and climate solutions coverage. These textbooks falsely suggest that the consequences of planetary warming are controversial and there is no consensus in climate science. Dr. Jennifer Landin, a researcher involved in the study, argues that this lack of information gives students a sense that “that we can’t do anything, it’s intensely misleading and contributes to a deadly sense of climate change.”

Katie Worth points out that her book Miseducation: Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America is how most high school and university science classes use textbooks that disregard climate science. In addition to the issue of misinformation, the three companies create textbooks for most of the countries and modify textbooks according to the dominant political views of each of the 50 states. According to Worth, “ideology drips from elected officials into the education department and classrooms.” “Therefore, accurate information on climate change falls within the scope of children living in free states, but children living in conservative states are frequently provided with feed for denial.”

I first experienced the police on climate change information while giving a speech at the University of Pittsburgh. The lecture was well received. But then I was approached by students and faculty. Students told me how brave I was saying what I did. My work is called many things – both the good and the bad – but never brave! In a private conversation around coffee later, I learned that campus had accepted a $4.2 million Koch Foundation gift in 2019 to establish a new center for governance and markets. In a tone of tranquility, one professor told me that some senior scholars either retired early or left for other jobs with greater autonomy than research.

I returned to my classroom last fall and quieted the auditorium on the last day I taught amidst the applause. I told students that if we were in a public university in Florida, Texas or Indiana, we probably wouldn’t have been able to offer classes. The material we covered violated Republican laws that prevented teachers from speaking about subjects deemed “controversial.” The students were shocked and furious. Some gathered on the podium to continue the conversation. The numbers argued that it was my social responsibility to teach them facts about their lives, their families and the environment that affected their future children. Given the massive floods in the Southeast, the tragic deaths and massive intergenerational destruction caused by these climate disasters, I couldn’t agree any more.

Eve Daryan Smith is a renowned professor and fellow at AAUP’s Center for Academic Freedom Defense and is the author of the upcoming book, “Policing Higher Education: The Contidemocratic Attack fonedocratic Attack and Why is it important.”