An interview with Eric Buehrer conducted by Dr. D. James Kennedy, host of the radio program, Truths That Transform, heard on over 200 radio stations nationwide. Buehrer is president of Gateways to Better Education (714-586-5437).
April 1997 – Dr. D. James Kennedy: You’ve talked about the three sides of environmentalism. What do you mean?
Eric Buehrer: Environmental lessons in public schools can be either scientific, political, or even spiritual.
DJK: What do you mean by the scientific side of environmentalism?
EB: It sticks to the science of studying the environment. It teaches students to explore nature, enjoy its beauty, and measure how nature grows, how it works, and how man interacts with it. It offers a balance of viewpoints on controversial topics.
DJK: What about the political side of environmental education?
EB: John Padalino, head of the National Science Teachers Association’s task force on environmental education, points out that there is a real problem with a lot of the curriculum. He goes so far as to call it “junk.”
The political side of environmentalism comes out when a teacher (or the material a teacher uses) is one-sided on disputed subjects; Or, when the lessons move away from a rational look at evidence and intentionally have students react emotionally to a doom-and-gloom scenario; Or, when – in the name of applying the lesson – students are asked to write to government officials or corporations to push a particular agenda.
For instance, one high school sponsored an evening lecture for parents entitled “The Fate of the Rain Forests” and ended it with a fund-raiser for the World Wildlife Fund. That’s not education. It’s activism.
Texts routinely scare students with misinformation about global warming. What is often not taught is that atmospheric temperatures are cyclical and that water vapor is a bigger cause of the greenhouse effect than is man-produced carbon dioxide. In many lessons on global warming students never hear about the scientists who disagree with the more liberal views on global warming.
This is not to say that the environmental movement has not had positive effects on our society. It’s good that we’ve worked to reduce pollution. But we need to be careful that we are not passing off propaganda for serious curriculum.
DJK: How does global education fit into this?
EB: For some, lessons on the environment are a way to push a global education agenda. For instance, the environmental problems are transnational that is, they cross national borders. Water pollution, air pollution, famine, etc. Some teachers and lesson materials use this to promote the idea of solving the problems as a global citizen rather than just an American citizen, of solving the problems by promoting the United Nations as the governmental entity that can address the problems best.
This comes out when solutions to global problems are discussed. For instance, consider this, coming from a professor of education at a well-respected university. In one of his textbooks about how to solve world problems – including environmental problems – he writes: “Men may cling to much of the language and symbolism of old creeds – secular and religious – but unless a new faith... overcomes old ideologies and creates planetary synthesis, world government is doomed.’’ That’s incredible!
DJK: What do you mean by the spiritual side of environmental education?
EB: There is a side that gets just plain weird. It teaches that we are one with nature in a spiritual sense. This is an eastern mystic religious concept.
The Gaia theory is another New Age idea that springs up ever so often in science curriculum. This is the idea that the Earth is a spiritual entity, that all life on the planet is a part of that entity – like cells in a global brain.
For instance, I came across an outdoor activity in which children were taught that trees had spirits we could talk to. At the top of the student worksheet the activity was entitled “We are one with nature.”
DJK: What can parents do if they are concerned about the quality of the environmental education their children are getting?
EB: (1) Look at any textbooks or supplemental reading your child brings home.
(2) Make an appointment with the teacher to discuss your concern. When talking with the teacher emphasize you are interested in seeing a balanced approach to disputed issues such as global warming. Also, you want to see if students are encouraged to become politically active by contacting political or corporate leaders.
(3) If you find that any of this is being done you can emphasize that environmental instruction should stick to scientific education. There should be a balance of views, but they should be rooted in science, not in politics and not in mystical theories about the universe. Politics would be more appropriate in a social studies class and eastern mysticism would be more appropriate in a course on comparative religions. 
