Book Review by John Stauber

Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw's book, Facts Not Fear, purports to be a guide for parents of school-age children confronted by "junk science" and "fearmongering environmentalism." They say they were inspired to write the book when Sanera "was driving his teenage son Andy and a friend to a movie. As Michael listened to the boys talking, he noticed that they weren't discussing last Sunday's Denver Broncos game or the latest Sylvester Stallone film. They were figuring out the exact date on which the world would run out of oil. . . . The boys explained that their science textbook said that proven reserves of oil could last only seventy years. . . . Michael began to realize why Andy was forming a gloomy view of the future."

Imagine the parental horror. Could it have been any worse if he'd caught the boys stashing marijuana in their school lockers? And Andy wasn't the only kid who had them worried. Shaw recalls sitting with her own seven-year-old son at a pizza place near their home. "David looked at the plastic cup that held his Dad's soft drink. 'Do you know what you could do that would really help, Mom? . . . You could stop using Styrofoam.' . . . Jane's heart sank. She knows that using plastic does not harm the Earth any more than using paper or glass. But how to explain that to a seven-year-old? And what else had David learned that was mistaken? And how could she undermine his trust in his teachers. . . . She didn't know what to say. 'Maybe plastic isn't all that bad,' she ventured."

"Who do they learn is responsible for this careening toward ecological disaster?" Sanera and Shaw ask. "We are. Parents, the current generation, have brought the Earth to the edge of doom," but "the good news is that these claims are not true."

Facts Not Fear is conversational and anecdotal in style, often written in the voice of fellow parents who "like you" are "worried about what our children are learning." But Sanera and Shaw are not merely parents who happen to love styrofoam and Sylvester Stallone. They are committed, paid activists in the conservative anti-environmental movement. Sanera directs the Claremont Institute's Center for Environmental Education Research, while Shaw is a Senior Associate at the Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Montana.

These non-profit enterprises may have less familiar names than the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the CATO Institute or other think tanks headquartered in Washington, DC, but their money comes from the same pro-industry sources: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the William H. Donner Foundation--names that will be familiar to anyone who has studied the funding patterns of the anti-environmental conservative movement.

The Right Guide, a national directory of conservative groups, describes Sanera's Claremont Institute as "one of the most influential conservative think tanks on the West Coast." Its projects include "Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership," which opposes efforts by the U.S. Center for Disease Control to treat gun safety as a public health issue. In 1996, says the Right Guide, the Claremont Institute spent $136,480 on "academic programs to help high school teachers and journalists understand 'the principles of American Democracy.'"

Jane Shaw's employer, the Political Economy Research Center, is part of the so-called "wise use" movement which has been waging war against green groups and activists especially in the western United States. Fighting under the banner of "property rights," the wise use movement is heavily subsidized by the logging, mining, drilling and off-road-vehicle industries.

Facts Not Fear and other anti-environmental books have found a home at Regnery Publishing Inc. in Washington, DC. Regnery has also published Dixy Lee Ray's books, Trashing the Planet and Environmental Overkill, two of the earliest titles in what has become an ideological genre. It also published Animal Scam by Kathleen Marquardt, an anti-animal rights activist closely associated with a bizarre group called the American Policy Foundation, which accuses environmental writer Jeremy Rifkin of promoting "suicide, abortion, cannibalism and sodomy." Other Regnery titles include Inquisition, a book that paints the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's tax evasion conviction in a favorable light, and a flattering biography of James Watt, Ronald Reagan's felonious Secretary of the Interior, written by "wise use" founder Ron Arnold.

Balancing Act

The dishonesty in Facts Not Fear begins with the photograph on its cover, which depicts an idyllic scene of children planting a tree under the supervision of a smiling adult--the sort of activity through which adults can help children develop an appreciation of their natural environment. The text of the book does provide lists of recommended learning activities for children, but the purpose of those activities is diametrically opposed to the tree-hugging cover photo. In the chapter on forests, for example, the activity it recommends is, "Visit a lumberyard with your children."

The foreword to Facts Not Fear, written by Marilyn Quayle, says the book offers "what parents and teachers need to keep a sense of balance about our environment," so that "our children" can "appreciate and enjoy nature, not see it as a source of anxiety and alarm." But "balance," as defined by the authors, means unrelenting war against what they see as a massive liberal conspiracy.

"During the past three decades," write Sanera and Shaw, "a few emotionally powerful ideas--the idea that technology is bad, that we are running out of resources, that population is out of control--have taken hold. Although these ideas are not likely to stand the test of time, environmental groups continue to hawk them."

Sanera and Shaw say they reviewed "more than 130 textbooks, 170 environmental books for children, and numerous examples of curriculum materials." Amid these thousands of pages they managed to find a handful of errors, but mainly their complaint is about broad conclusions rather than specific facts. To their dismay, the books they reviewed tend to repeat the conclusions of scientists who warn that the past century of industrialism has brought about ecological crises.

Facts Not Fear champions "good" scientists and castigates "bad" ones. The latter, it says, are in cahoots with the liberal media, teachers, opportunistic politicians and green activists bent on scaring us all out of our wits.

"Some scientists . . . reinforce the message conveyed by the media," the authors state. "Stephen Schneider, a scientist at . . . the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, told Good Housekeeping readers that world global warming would mean that food and water supplies would be threatened (temporarily at least), that certain diseases might go haywire, that numerous species of animals or plants--even whole ecosystems--would be endangered, and that both the temperature and the level of the oceans would rise, leading to more likelihood of severe storms and flooding of the coastlines."

Why would a highly regarded scientist like Schneider stick his neck out by making these sorts of statements? The answer, according to Sanera and Shaw, is money. "Since so much scientific research is funded by government grants, some scientists often improve their access to funds if they can show politicians that their work may 'save the planet.'" They claim that Schneider's views are disputed by "equally reputable scientists."

In the chapter on forests,
the recommended activity is,
"Visit a lumberyard
with your children."

So why aren't we hearing more from the global warming skeptics? Fear of reprisals, the authors explain: "Other scientists who downplay crises may find themselves in hot water because they are threatening the budgets of their colleagues."

According to Sanera and Shaw, this alleged conspiracy to suppress dissident views extends all the way to the White House and to Vice President Al Gore in particular. "His message: Agree with him or be quiet. Because of his prominence, scientists had to listen. . . . Environmental crises can boost political careers. . . . In Gore's view, global warming is 'the most serious threat that we have ever faced; and 'we must act . . . even before we know every last detail about the crisis.' "

Before we get too carried away with this depiction of Gore as an eco-extremist, perhaps someone should check in with the people of East Liverpool, Ohio. Back in 1992 when Gore first campaigned for vice president, they heard him promise to block a planned toxic waste incinerator that was being built just 400 yards away from an elementary school, in a flood plain in a valley that experiences frequent pollution-trapping air inversions. "The very idea," said candidate Gore at the time, was "just unbelievable to me."

Once in office, however, he quickly reversed himself-- not surprisingly, since Little Rock investment banker Jackson Stephens, the Clinton-Gore campaign's biggest financial backer, was involved in financing the incinerator. Today the incinerator is chugging away, pumping tons of toxins into the air each year including dioxins, acid gases like hydrogen chloride, and heavy metals including mercury, lead and chromium.

If you want an example of environmental rhetoric that harms school children, think of the East Liverpool incinerator. Politicians like Al Gore may talk a good game, but when push comes to shove it is polluters like Jackson Stephens who "boost political careers," and the politicians know it. The eco-bashing rhetoric of writers like Sanera and Shaw serves mostly as an ideological diversion, making the politicians who sell out the environment--Democrats and Republicans alike--seem reasonable by comparison.

Facts Not Fear attempts to debunk specific major environmental and health concerns--over-population, depletion of natural resources, forest destruction, species extinctions, air pollution, climate change, pesticide contamination. The 150 pages that it devotes to these topics can be summed up as, "Don't worry, be happy."

Sanera and Shaw offer specific suggestions on how parents "can readily answer questions that your children may ask." The answer to each question is pretty much the same: "Are there too many people? No. . . . Does population growth cause starvation? No. . . . Is America running out of trees? No. . . . Will the rainforests disappear? No. . . . Are Americans exploiting the rainforests by eating too much meat? No." A few sentences of familiar rationalizations provide the counterweight to each carefully posed question.

Marilyn Quayle's preface promises that these claims have all been carefully reviewed by "respected scholars . . . so you can read this book with confidence." The "scholars" cited, however, are names that will be familiar to anyone who has monitored the far-right anti-environmental movement: Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, Ronald Bailey and Michael Fumento of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Robert Balling of Arizona State University, Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, Frederick Seitz and Sallie Baliunas of the George C. Marshall Institute, Steven Safe of Texas A&M, and the late Julian Simon of the Cato Institute.

The purpose of Facts Not Fear is not to enlighten parents, teachers or students, nor is it to broaden scientific debate or inquiry. The real goal is political: to attack the very idea that environmental problems exist, and especially to disparage the view that government or citizen action might be necessary to address these problems.

Sanera and Shaw conclude their book with a "what we can do" chapter for parents, warning that "you may be in a state that has mandatory environmental education laws. The objective of most of this legislation is to indoctrinate students in the environmental views favored by activist groups. Unfortunately, these individuals and groups are not generally receptive to providing both sides of issues." Then again, neither is Facts Not Fear.