After scaring children with scientific misinformation, environmental education uses this fear to motivate children to change their personal lifestyles and to engage in politics. The texts instill guilt about over-consumption, depletion of natural resources and pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. Children are told that they are responsible for environment al problems over which they have no control. Perhaps the worst part of environmental education is the political manipulation of children in support of causes favored by adults. Congressmen, Senators and state legislators receive mail bags full of letters from children urging the passage or defeat of environmental legislation.
Children frequently testify before congressional and legislative committees.
Political action training manuals are used in schools teach children such political skills as how to lobby, picket, hold a press conference and fundraise. We hope that the current national discussion of the merits and demerits of environmental education will lead to the improvement of the environmental education that our children receive. We firmly believe that those improvements must sta rt with environmental education grounded in sound science. Students must start with a fundamental understanding of the science of environmental issues before they are ready to confront the more complex political and policy issues which surround environme ntal issues. Michael Sanera is Director of the Claremont Institute's Center for Environmental Education Research.