Environmental groups are going after the world's largest publisher of children's books for teaming up with the American Coal Foundation to produce "The United States of Energy," a lesson plan designed for fourth-graders. The foundation, online at Teachcoal.org, is devoted to creating "coal-related educational materials and programs designed for teachers and students." …
The magazine Rethinking Schools published a scathing critique of the lesson plan in its latest issue, accusing Scholastic of producing "propaganda for the coal industry." They argue that the material "lies through omission" because it doesn't include problems like warming the planet, destroying mountain ranges, killing miners, or causing respiratory problems, to name a few.
My experience is that there is a lot of preaching about "renewable energy" in the public schools without mentioning how much more expensive it is and other drawbacks such as the unreliability of wind power. Steven Landsburg has described environmentalism in the schools as an intrusive state religion
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/WhyNotEnviro.pdf .
