A social studies book states that scientists disagree on the reasons for climate change. Group raises flag over Texas books

The new social studies textbooks up for consideration this week by the Texas Board of Education have already come under heavy fire for their emphasis on America’s Christian heritage. A new analysis just out by the National Center for Science Education raises more red flags — about the textbooks’ treatment of global warming.

The NCSE, which has clashed with the Texas school board before over its treatment of evolution, points to “deeply concerning” sections in several geography, world culture and economics texts. One sixth-grade book, for instance, introduces global warming this way: “Scientists agree that Earth’s climate is changing. They do not agree on what is causing the change.”


That’s highly misleading, the NCSE contends, because the vast majority of active climate experts, as well as the overwhelming majority of published research papers, agree that human activity is driving climate change.

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The text goes on to present students with excerpts from two articles on climate change, one written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the other by the Heartland Institute, a conservative advocacy group. “This misleads students as to good sources of information, pitting an ideologically driven advocacy group … against a Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientific body,” the NCSE reviewers write.

A fifth-grade social studies book from a different publisher also states that scientists disagree on the reasons for climate change. Yet another asserts that “some scientists…predict we’ll have some cooler years and things will even out.” The NCSE says it is “not aware of any currently publishing climatologists who are predicting a cooling trend where ‘things will even out.’”

The review also found that some publishers erroneously attributed the thinning of the ozone layer to fossil fuel emissions, when in fact the problem is caused by chlorofluorocarbons.

The Texas textbooks were written to align with instructional standards that the Board of Education approved back in 2010 — with the explicit intention of tugging social studies teaching to the right.

The publishers have said they will review critiques of their texts, listen to the board’s comments and make adjustments as needed. The board will also take public comment before voting on which textbooks to recommend for purchase by school districts across the state.