NSTA Refuses An Inconvenient Truth DVDs

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1127-20.htm

by John Borowski

The National Teachers Association (NSTA) has spurned 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and is squandering a golden opportunity to educate tens of millions of youth in the United States! Why? This 55,000- member organization of teachers and scientists could use Al Gore's film to orchestrate the single most influential educational goal in human history: the awareness and subsequent solving of climate change. There is no denying the escalating list of climate change evidence: from the potential extinction of Polar bears and retreating glacial environments to the increase of global temperatures in unison with increased carbon dioxide levels.

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The NSTA wrote that acceptance of the DVDs would place an "unnecessary risk upon the (NSTA) capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." Also in the email, NSTA claimed that they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film and they saw "little, if any benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs. No benefit to teachers? Science teachers across the country are under-funded, overworked and often grab on to free lessons and materials as a matter of "educational survival 101." What I find despicable is that the NSTA if fully aware of that need and sadly, often aids and abets the "Fossil fuel cartels." They often deny or mislead on climate change and provide teachers with everything from "coal coloring books" to misleading videos such as "Fuel-less-You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel." Simply stated, the NSTA's refusal to distribute Al Gore's film is an unmitigated disaster that will tarnish their reputation as "brokers" of credible science materials, while squandering a prolific moment in educational history: the chance to allow students to become energy pioneers.

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It is not too late for Gerald Wheeler and the NSTA to find the courage and educational moral high ground by accepting those 50,000 free DVDs sitting in an LA warehouse. If you are a teacher, student, parent or citizen: please email Gerald Wheeler at gwheeler@nsta.org and tell him that the special interest that would benefit from those DVDs would be our children!
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I will e-mail Mr. Wheeler and I urge others who care to do so as well, but just one point about this: I think If Mr. Gore would have a separate DVD printed excluding the personal events in his life (printed from one of his presentations rather than the movie itself) perhaps that might move them to accept this DVD and not use politics as an excuse to refuse it. Just a thought.

To see any one lobby have such control over an organization that is teaching our children is outrageous, and I am also frustrated with pundits and other groups who keep tying this movie to a partisan political angle regarding Al Gore. It in my mind has eroded support and serious consideration and action regarding the URGENT information included in this DVD.

Mr. Wheeler;

As the mother of a teen who is now in high school and yearning to learn about the processes that make our Earth turn and the effect we are having on those processes, I am disgusted by the decision of the NSTA in refusing to accept copies of An Inconveneint Truth that can be used as learning tools for students.

In case you were not aware, the climate crisis and the effects of that crisis are now being felt and experienced worldwide. Forty percent of the Arctic ice cap has melted within forty years, and that pace is not predicted to slow down as glaciers from South America to Africa, to the Himalayas, to Greenland also are melting at a faster pace due to anthropogenic climate change and deforrestation.

Our oceans are also more acidic with 25 million tons of Co2 being absorbed in them DAILY. Hundreds of species are now extinct with more at risk, and weather patterns in many parts of the world including Africa, Australia, South America, Asia, and also in the U.S. are affecting rainfall patterns which are causing severe drought, stronger storms, and major damage in many areas of this world. Scientists also predict that if we as humans do not begin to slow down our rapacious use of fossil fuels within the next forty years, this world could well be unrecognizable for our children and theirs.

Is the NSTA so indebted to EXXON and other lobbies for freebies that you would even discount scientific consensus on this most grave of crises and betray your oath as an educator to our children simply to appease your benefactors? I had absolutely no idea that an organization such as yours was so beholding to the very corporations that are exacerbating the problem with their own brand of propaganda. Make no mistake that this has indeed changed my view of the education system in this country, and not for the better.

And for the record, Al Gore has stated many times that he is not running for office and has committed his life to this crisis and getting out the scientific facts surrounding what we are now seeing come to pass in our world. As a representative for people of science, I find it totally irresponsible of your organization to shun this important truth based clearly on political and economic reasons of your own.

What you do by refusing to alert our younger generation to the dangers they face in this world so that they may prepare to face them is nothing short of immoral, and as a parent I am going to make sure then that what you refuse to teach our younger generation gets out to them as best I can.

You may think by refusing to bring this truth yourself that you will stop it from getting out. This mail is to tell you that you won't stop it. Our children are our legacy, and giving them a planet that is sustainable should be the goal for all of us, as well as teaching them that to hear all sides to a debate is truly what makes a country a Democracy. So sad you don't believe that.

Signed,

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Mr. Wheeler,

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is a straightforward, truthful and factual compendium of one aspect of the effects of human activity on our only liveable planet. Children, as inheritors of the earth, need to know what is happening to their futures. Your refusal of the more than charitable offer by Laurie David is incomprehensible at best and reprehensible at worst.

In the interests of the children you are supposed to be serving, please accept his offer and have the schools show them to the children.

Well-deserved.

The NSTA is now carrying water for Big Oil.