Tim Graham, in a March 27 NewsBusters post, is unhappy that NPR’s Jennifer Ludden reported on conservative-driven “academic freedom” laws designed to force schools to teach the idea that climate change is not happening:
On Wednesday’s Morning Edition, reporter Jennifer Ludden was disturbed by what’s happening in science classrooms. Climate change “has been politicized,” and conservatives are pushing “so-called academic freedom bills” to teach both sides of that public-policy controversy.
“But critics point out there is no controversy within science. Climate change is happening and it’s largely driven by humans,” Ludden announced. So then why is Ludden reporting a story on this so-called non-controversy?
Perhaps because there is a multimillion-dollar machine designed to sow doubt about the nature of climate change, despite the fact that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human activity is a main cause of climate change?
Graham went on to write: “This is also NPR’s rationale for liberal bias across the range of political issues: bringing in a conservative viewpoint is confusing to the public, so it’s better to slant it toward the ‘educational’ advocates.” Graham seems to have missed that schools should not be forced to teach a “conservative viewpoint” when that viewpoint is contrary to nearly every other credible scientific analysis of the issue.
Graham also overlooks the fact that his calling climate change deniers’ arguments the “conservative viewpoint” instead of the “scientific viewpoint” pretty much shoots down his suggestion that deniers aren’t trying to politicize the issue.