The Next Generation Science Standards were intended to provide a set of guidelines that would improve education in public schools. In the process, they seem to have introduced state legislators to the reality that evolution and climate change are widely accepted by the scientific community. That has led to a showdown between legislators and the governor (Kentucky), the rejection of the standards in two states (Oklahoma and Wyoming), and a private lawsuit (Kansas). Now, thanks to West Virginia, we can add another option to the list: modifying the sections that deal with climate change.

The Charleston Gazette has a report on the aftermath of the adoption of the standards by the West Virginia state school board. It turns out that one board member, Wade Linger, made some changes to the sections that dealt with climate change. He apparently objected to a question about the planet's rising temperatures because, "If you have that as a standard, then that presupposes that global temperatures have risen over the past century, and, of course, there’s debate about that.” So, he amended the question to read "rise and fall in global temperatures over the last century"—even though the temperature trend for the last century is clearly upward.

Other modifications include changing instructions about analyzing geoscience data and climate models to directing students to analyze the "creditability [sic]" of the data. Linger also will have students debate Milankovitch cycles, which cause entry and exit from glacial periods, when discussing climate change.

The people involved in influencing science education typically demonstrate a poor understanding of current science, and Linger is no exception. He is quoted as saying "We need to look at all the theories about it rather than just the human changes in greenhouse gases," despite the fact that there's nothing else that rises to the level of theory that's been proposed to explain the warming. He's joined in that confusion by fellow board member Tom Campbell, who said “Let’s not use unproven theories,” apparently unaware that theories never get proven.

When asked about his focus on climate change, Campbell revealed his true motivation for these changes. “West Virginia coal in particular has been taking on unfair negativity from certain groups," he told The Gazette. "I would prefer that the outlook should be ‘How do we mine it more safely and burn it more cleanly?'”