PAUL SMITHS, N.Y. — The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank known for attacking climate science, has been mailing a slim, glossy book to public school teachers throughout the United States. The institute says it plans to send out as many as 200,000 copies, until virtually every science educator in America has one.

The book, “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,” presents the false premise that the evidence for human-driven climate change is deeply flawed. To understand where the Heartland Institute is coming from, consider a recent comment by its president, Joseph Bast, who called global warming “another fake crisis” for Democrats “to hype to scare voters and raise campaign dollars.”

The book was first published in 2015, to coincide with the Paris climate conference and influence policy makers. The second edition was released this year with an instructional DVD.

Public school teachers are not the only ones on the institute’s mailing list. College educators are getting copies of the book, too. One academic in Albany told me that hers arrived in an envelope bearing the headline of a New York Times article about an investigation into Exxon Mobil for possibly lying about climate change. “I was in a rush, and all I noticed was the word ‘climate’ in a New York Times headline,” she said. “That made me open it rather than throw it out.”