Fighting Florida's floods and California's wildfires from the classroom

[Zorro]

The absence of environmental education at all levels of public education is staggering.

Florida and California continue on their path to recovery from massive floods and horrific fires. As the states invest millions in recovery, I am reminded how important it is to protect the rights of teachers — at all levels of education — to freely discuss the climate crisis which contributed to the fires and floods in the first place.

I am a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and last semester I taught a class on global environmental politics to eighty students. We talked about a lot of things, and my students now know that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of our warming planet. They know that under the first Trump administration 50 years of environmental regulations were dismantled, and that under Trump’s second term Big Oil will ramp up greenhouse gas-emissions by opening public lands for mining, receiving in turn more federal tax cuts. Students also know that Big Oil has financed the Republican party for decades and contributed over $14 million to Trump’s recent electoral success. Finally, they know that energy companies and philanthropic groups such as the Koch Foundation, whose wealth originated in oil production, give huge donations to universities to influence what is studied and discussed in classrooms. Some may accuse me of being biased in the classroom. We should all, instead, be concerned about the influence of Big Oil on education. Their money prevents students from knowing the reality of a dramatically warming planet that impacts every one of us.

Big Oil corporations — and their far-right political allies — are very aware of students’ collective power to think freely and raise questions about oil and gas mining. That is why corporations have poured enormous amounts of money into colleges to shape research and teaching. A report from the non-profit Data for Progress estimated that giant energy companies donated or pledged $677 million to 27 universities between 2010 and 2020. Notable is the amount of $154 million going to UC Berkeley, an institution that prides itself on its commitment to social justice. Also notable is the $57 million going to Stanford University where its new Doerr School of Sustainability has come under scrutiny for rolling out a research agenda that is scientifically dubious. Stanford’s internal documents show this agenda was shaped during behind-the-scenes meetings with Big Oil corporations as well as Bank of America that is a leading financier of the fossil fuel sector.

Sadly, the absence of environmental education at all levels of public education is staggering. For instance, a recent study concludes that biology textbooks have decreased their coverage about climate impacts and coverage of climate solutions by 80% in recent decades. These textbooks falsely suggest that the outcomes of planetary warming are debatable and there is no climate science consensus. Dr. Jennifer Landin, a researcher involved in the study, argues that this lack of information leaves students with a sense “that nothing can be done, which is both wildly misleading and contributes to a sense of fatalism regarding climate change.”

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2025/03/21/fighting-floridas-floods-californias-wildfires-classroom-column/