American Government textbook cited for climate misinformation

A nonprofit environmental group is calling on one of the country's largest textbook publishers to correct a school book that it says contains a discussion of global warming "so biased and misleading it would humble a tobacco industry PR man." The book, American Government 11th edition, is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and approved for use in high school Advanced Placement courses in the United States. Citing what it says are misleading and scientifically inaccurate passages in the chapter that covers environmental policy, the Friends of the Earth network has launched an email campaign asking the public to contact Houghton Mifflin and request a revision to the forthcoming edition and a corrective addendum for all editions still used in classrooms. "The whole chapter creates a false impression that this is an open debate -- and that even if global warming is real and is caused by people, [it questions] whether that's actually a problem," Nick Berning, Friends of the Earth press secretary, told OneWorld. "[This] is no longer a matter of scientific debate. There is scientific consensus that humans are creating global warming that is harming the planet. It's pretty simple." Other environmental groups and prominent scientists including NASA's James E. Hansen and Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs with the Climate Institute in Washington, DC, have sent letters to the authors and the publisher requesting a correction. MacCracken's letter dated Mar. 28 says the chapter fails to take into consideration the work done by the thousands of scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has published four reports on global warming that have "unanimous endorsement by the nations of the world." As of Apr. 17, about 5,000 people had used the campaign's Web site to send an email to Houghton Mifflin. At issue are a series of statements made about global warming in a section of the book discussing how policy is made in the United States. Some of the statements are factually erroneous, says Friends of the Earth, while others will mislead students about the severity of the problem. On page 559, the textbook's authors write that "it is a foolish politician who today opposes environmentalism. And that creates a problem, because not all environmental issues are equally deserving of support. Take the case of global warming." They add that, "on the one hand, a warmer globe will cause sea levels to rise, threatening coastal communities; on the other hand, greater warmth will make it easier and cheaper to grow crops and avoid high heating bills." "Our sense isn't that there is an inherent bias on the part of Houghton Mifflin, just that this got by them and we hope that they will correct these errors," Friends of the Earth's Berning said. Berning's group also noted, however, that the textbook was authored by "a prominent conservative, James Q. Wilson, who is affiliated with the...American Enterprise Institute -- which has received oil industry funding -- and by John DiIulio, who served as director of faith-based initiatives in the George W. Bush White House." In a written response to OneWorld, Houghton Mifflin noted that the company takes accuracy and objectivity very seriously. "American Government is a political science textbook, not a science text. It does not take any position on the topic of global warming, nor does it attempt to provide its readers a history of the subject. In the text, the authors use the subject of global warming to illustrate the politics of policymaking," Richard Blake, senior vice president of communications and government relations, wrote. Houghton Mifflin will make an 11th edition update available on-line to educators and students. It is not clear whether this will include a review of or revisions to the sections cited by the campaign. If the publisher does not issue a correction, Friends of the Earth has said it may ask educators and schools to pull the books from their classrooms. The campaign was launched when New Jersey high school student Matthew LaClair shared his concerns about his textbook with the nonprofit Center for Inquiry, which contacted Friends of the Earth. Dimitri Saliani, assistant principal of Eleanor Roosevelt High School, a public school in New York City that is itself working to reduce its energy use -- and busily preparing for Earth Day events this week -- said that the concerns raised by the campaign would not necessarily be enough to prompt his school to stop using the book. "Now that I'm aware of this, I'll take a look at it, but [even if I agree], I am not sure I want to blacklist the textbook based on something like this. Sometimes you want to have that discussion -- if it's controversial, why is it controversial? And let students discuss their own thoughts and analyze the book's perspective together," Saliani told OneWorld. Susan Miller, Roosevelt High School's AP economics and government teacher, agreed, and said the campaign's outcome would not impact her use of the book. Teachers typically supplement textbooks with a range of other materials that help students understand complex issues, she said. "Few of us rely solely on just one textbook." Friends of the Earth's Nick Berning is concerned, however, that students may not be equipped to detect "bias in a textbook." "This is written in authoritative textbook voice. It's not a problem of voice or perspective, it is misleading about science," he said. "These are facts we're dealing with, not opinions, and the textbook gets the facts wrong."