An end-run for SCIENCE!

Oil Companies Stop Teachers from Taking "Inconvenient Truth" DVDs

At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.

The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.

The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said 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... But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

...NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel," a shameless pitch for oil dependence.

Scores of teachers from across the country e-mailed David in support of the movie, asking for copies. And at least 15 organizations, including the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Gardening Association, the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the United Steelworkers, have contacted her to offer distribution help.

David said she has decided not to go through any specific organization but will make the DVD available free to the first 50,000 teachers who request it. If demand exceeds supply, she said, she will try to find private funding to pay for additional copies to distribute.

"Our teachers deserve better than what they are getting," David said.