Inconvenience is 50,000 Must See Movies Sitting in a Warehouse: Or Big Energy and the Soapboxes they Buy

"Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future," read a memo leaked to the media in 1998 from the American Petroleum Institute.

I earlier criticized AESA's grievance(s) with NCLB for needing any examples of how NCLB fails to live up to its promises. AESA's beef with market capitalism in the schools could use this story, "Science a la Joe Camel" published in the Washington Post as ammunition.

Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, responsibly reveals more inconvenient truths. This time the truths are about education and some of the corporate funding that influences education. 50,000 donated DVDs of David's and Al Gore's movie sit in LA because the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) insists that they will not benefit and wish to remain free from political association. The NSTA wishes to keep corporate interests and funding in tact and sees the film as disruptive to those goals. NSTA has accepted $6 million from Exxon Mobil since 1996. Laurie insists that energy sector profits are buying classroom soapboxes.

I don't doubt that she is right. Anyhow, it's a good read and could make a movie of its own.