‘Little Green Steps’ Reflect Sustainability in Education (Part 2)

Published August 24, 2015

By Nancy Thorner and Bonnie O’Neil – 

The word “sustainability” is now being overused throughout our public education system. The claim is that teaching sustainable development to students will help them solve problems, such as climate change and poverty reduction, by teaching students how to change their behavior and thus help combat issues deemed as problems. 

There is value in teaching our youth to respect our environment and explaining the importance of not polluting the Earth.   However, teaching only one viewpoint about controversial issues, and claiming that only one viewpoint represents established science,  certainly silences any further discussion on the issue. That is not education, it is indoctrination (brain washing) and thus becomes a form of political pollution in the classroom.  

Sustainable development is a “catch phrase” that students in most every American classroom are hearing way too often. The biased education material presents students with a viewpoint claiming that the Earth is in dire peril due to mans’ irresponsible behavior, and that without an enforced program of sustainability, the Earth is doomed. Parts of that curriculum are highly debatable, but students are rarely given opposing facts or viewpoints, even though they exist. Students are rarely taught that a growing number of credible scientists have studied the issue and arrived at different statistics and conclusions than the doomsday apologists.

If the goal of schools and teachers is to encourage students to be critical thinkers, why aren’t students being given opposing facts, documented by reputable scientists, and complete with credible arguments For instance, shouldn’t students know that credible scientists strongly disagree with the premise man can control the climate and that there are logical reasons for their skepticism?  Students deserve to see evidence that indicates there has not been global warming for 18 years and six months. Important and credible facts contradict all the doom laden climate models cited in the IPCC’s (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) various reports.

To put this into perspective, children in grade school through high school today, who are presently studying the climate change propaganda, ironically have not lived during a time of global warming.  

How many students, parents, or teachers are even aware today that the leading proponents of Climate Change were caught falsifying facts.  It had to be embarrassing that facts provided by the United Nation’s scientists did not align with their own global warming theory, and in fact proved the Earth had not been warming for at least two decades.   That most likely was the reason for their name change from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change”.  They might have thought people would not consider that climate change happens naturally and has done so since the Earth’s existence.   Obviously, those early documented changes could not have had anything to do with man made causes, since man wasn’t even on the Earth yet,  but who bothers to check such details.

It was discreetly decided to stop using the term “Global Warming” and switch to a name that covered any changes, hot or cold. The new name allowed all changes or patterns of weather to serve as proof of climate change.  No need for those promoting dire warnings to  worry about whether the Earth warms or cools, as both can be used to put forth their agenda. 

The obvious question is:  What is the reason for blaming that people are damaging our Earth and changing our climate?  We submit it is the ageless attempt for people seeking more power and control over government and the people.  Power is seductive, and leads to a desire for even more more ways to dictate how we all shall function and live, based on a proposed scenario that is at least partially fictional. Obviously, a reason for such control must include a dire threat if people are to comply.   Climate Change is a great excuse.

It is also curious, but not unexpected given its biased agenda, that the media provides so little attention to facts that would place doubt about man-made climate change, even when international scientists were caught falsifying and/or not accurately reporting those nasty inconvenient facts.  It is time for the public to demand the media and government allow all sides of this argument to be published and readily available for students and the general public.  

Sustainability in studying poverty

Schools choose to teach controversial issues dealing with other areas of sustainability, and poverty is a particularly important social issue to study.  It is highly optimistic to think a student studying poverty can add anything significant to help solve a problem that has existed for many centuries, especially when this is another subject in which specific facts are withheld.  How many students are told, and in many cases even their parents are left uninformed, about the billions of tax dollars that have been spent to relieve poverty in America?

Intensive studies and expensive government programs have continually been initiated to resolve the growing problem of poverty, but all have proven faulty, with the result being more and more Americans end up on some type of welfare program and eventual total dependency on government assistant programs.  Advocates of welfare reform in California point out that the state has one-eighth of the nation’s population but one-third of all welfare recipients.  Why?  California is one of the more attractive “nanny states” with a variety of numerous programs that provide cradle to grave assistance.

The most recent experiment by our government, referred to as “the war on poverty”, was established under the administration of President Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago.  The program has failed in spite of the length of time, large amount of invested money, numerous agencies set up to administer the program, and new laws that have been written and implemented expanding it.  Those who study the issue wonder why we continue with this expensive, failed program when evidence shows more people are added to the welfare rolls than those who escape it.  Why are we so unwilling to admit the truth and move on to something that might actually work?

Star Parker was once a black single mother on welfare, until she realized the only real solution was for her to take charge of her own life.   She succeeded in breaking her addiction to welfare and thus the system that had her bonded to eternal poverty.   Parker began a ministry to educate others of the dangerous trap of a lifetime: government  welfare. Today Star Parker is a syndicated columnistRepublican politician, author, and conservative political activist.  Star warns all who will listen, that: “The war on poverty is an unending cruel experiment on the black community that all Americans can regard as a mirror into the future of everyone, as we allow government to grow and control our destiny.”

As to the mainstream media, it has lost its appetite for hiring investigative reporters who at one time worked diligently  to find facts that tell the whole story and thus the truth.  Then too, elected officials quietly change our laws, habits, and society to accommodate a specific, unproven viewpoint, and there is no significant opposition to these powerful game changing socialists.  

By attaching the word “sustainability” to whatever the subject might be, the public, having been trained to accept that term as the motivation for blind acceptance, never questions the possibility that we are being deceived by those whom we should trust the most. Therefore, whether the subject is banning fossil fuels, initiating a federal education program for all our children, or paying higher taxes to subsidize liberal ideas concocted by the elites among us, the American people rarely question the changes or new laws.

Sustainability tinkers with impressionable minds

Should we really expect our children, with their impressionable minds, to behave or believe any differently than adults, when not provided with important information or facts needed to make informed decisions?   In other words, are we to believe our children will question what they are being taught, when adults are derelict in doing so?  Few students are equipped or courageous enough to refute what they are being taught.  Most will parrot back the rhetoric offered by their teachers and textbooks, and few parents are aware of what that might be, or actually even know the truth themselves.  

The challenge of parents is knowing exactly what information or material their children actually receive daily, whether at school, on their computers or cell phones, and/or watching television. Without due diligence we could be raising a generation that is being indoctrinated in unknown ways by educators and media sources that are in direct disagreement with our principles and values.

Do you know what your children or grandchildren will be taught or exposed to when they start back to school after the summer break?  If not, get involved!  Be assured that sustainability is a term most students in every classroom have heard and are been taught to fully respect, without question. The topic of sustainability will be taught from K through 12.  None of us any longer have the luxury or comfort of believing those in charge of our country or our education system have our traditional, time-honored beliefs or values in mind.  We must realize others are making decisions for our families and thus our country’s future.  

Common Core offers one-sided views

What has caused our education system to change in such a short period of time?  We know elections have consequences, right?  We know presidents have differing viewpoint and political agendas and they are given the privilege of making changes.  Education was never meant to be under the control of the federal government, but instead it was designed to be a state initiated and run program.  However, President Obama may have forgotten or failed to respect that time-honored ideal.  Instead Common Core was initiated and sold to all the states with various incentives.  Following the Common Core standards came the controversial Common Core material  which is now being taught to the vast majority of children in America today.  It  has a very different look than what you might have experienced at the same age.

Common Core was designed by a select, small group of liberals, and the end product is one every parent and patriot should investigate, and be highly suspicious of the process that allowed a national education program to be accepted by states even before it was written, and obviously without any previous testing proving if it was superior to what it replaced. For instance, Illinois agreed to accept Common Core, sight unseen, back in 2010.  It is now being implemented throughout most states.  

Consider that Common Core science curriculum from K-12, offers a one-sided view of Global Warming.  As noted in this article, “Scared Green: Sustainability Lies We Teach”, children are being taught material that has them terrified of what their future might be if society does not adapt to a specific behavior.   The author, Wood,  further writes: “While the sustainability pitch to children often involves extolling the little green steps they can take for themselves, it is almost always mixed with apocalyptic warnings of what will happen if they fail.”

It is not comforting to know that American schools, like many throughout the world, scare our children, using controversial material as fact, and without offering opposition information from other leading scientists  After all, how can we expect children to become critical thinkers, if we don’t give them opposing arguments?  Instead they are inundated with the importance of taking “little green steps”, and if they do not take those steps, they are led to believe the world could ultimately end up as a “temple of green doom.” 

Many public-school children have sat through multiple screenings of “The Story of Stuff,” the 20-minute animated “documentary” that propagandizes young children on the environmentally ruinous nature of consumer goods, which has its roots in the all-encompassing United Nations Agenda 21, which emphasizes sustainability. The purpose, of course, is tactics which scare children into behaving in a specific way.

How is this issue affecting our college age children?  Do you know what professors are teaching in university classes today? Part 3 will address these questions.   Be prepared to wonder if the high costs paid for a college education today is worth the indoctrination they are receiving from liberal professors, many of whom have an agenda with which you might wholeheartedly disagree. 

[Originally published at Illinois Review]