EMail About the NSTA Dust Up

Just got this in my email. It looks like a form letter, but maybe I'm just a force to be reckoned with...

[UPDATE: I sent a thank you note back to Jon anyway, and he replied almost immediately. This is NOT a form letter, so I suppose that I am indeed a force to be reckoned with... Look out, Mr. Bush's successor. I may be gunning for your job next! Anyway, I wanted to personally thank Jon here for taking the time to read this blog, and for taking the time to update me on this situation.]

Neither of the links given appears to work, and this will certainly require some research.

The first link is to another piece by Laurie David at the Huffington Post, and here is a proper link to that article.

The second link should point to a Living On Earth segment, I believe, and here is the transcript from that segment. There are also links for the audio segment there.

Ok, here's the email

Jon Coifman here from NRDC, following up on an item about the National Science Teachers Association that you blogged about a few days ago.

There are two important new stories out today adding more fuel to the fire, and more information about controversy involving oil company funding for NSTA and whether it had anything to do with their decision to reject an offer for 50,000 free copies of the Al Gore global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

The rest is below the fold...

The first is a detailed piece by Laurie David that appears here: www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/crooked-curriculum-oil-c_b_35829.html

Among other things, it now turns out that although NSTA cited a no-endorsements policy for the global warming film, had no problem shipping at least 20,000 copies of a ConocoPhillips video series. It also looks like some of the things they said in their own defense aren’t adding up.

The second story is a revealing public radio interview with Ms. David and Dr. Gerry Wheeler, NSTA’s Executive Director: www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00049&segmentID=1

DISCLOSURE: The reason you are receiving this from *me* is that I work for the Natural Resources Defense Council, where Ms. David is a member of the board, and we have been helping out with some of the background on this story. So yes, I am not a bystander.

But it’s a good story anyhow. And it’s an important one.



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Jon Coifman

Natural Resources Defense Council

I'll have to look into this some more....