Your Opinion: Bias of university workshop questioned

Dear Editor:

In August, the Huffington Post reported on the University of Missouri workshop "Energy in Today's classrooms," sponsored by Missouri utilities. That would be Ameren and eight of Missouri's rural electric cooperatives served by Central Electric Power Cooperative. Huffington Post said the agenda included "Climate Skepticism and Anti EPA Messages."

We should question why our state university presented such a workshop. Does the University of Missouri have an official policy on global climate change? An organizer said the workshop was designed to provide balance, but the Huffington Post reported that it was slanted to industry viewpoints.

Why are public institutions embroiled in these kinds of issues? The University of Missouri is our flagship state university, but state funding for the university is only around 15 percent of its budget. This is common among state institutions these days. This leaves universities endlessly hustling for money from its alumni and private sources. Professors are limited in their salaries and encouraged to seek additional funding from outside sources. Graduate science programs are almost exclusively funded by grants.

Heavily involved in this August workshop is the Heartland Institute. This is a think tank funded by the Koch brothers and others in the oil and coal industries. Some names at the Institute were formerly involved in The Tobacco Institute where the tactics and goals were formed on how to sell dangerous products to an unwitting public. The Merchants of Doubt (2011) is the classic study of these tactics.

The libertarian view is that industry has the right to sell harmful products. It is the public that must make the decision to purchase or not. But if industry deliberately down plays the dangers by confusing messages, whose rights are being sacrificed?

The keynote speaker at the Energy Workshop was an MU meteorology professor who is the recipient of a monthly consulting fee ($750) from the Heartland Institute. He frequently shares his misinformation about climate change in the local Columbia media. Attendees at the workshop would not hear a balanced presentation of what 97 percent of climate scientists say on this topic.

Only 24 high school science teachers were in attendance at this second year's workshop, a small sampling of the thousands of science teachers in Missouri. Yet the world's most powerful industry will apparently spare no expense in spreading confusion. As an alumni of the University, I am saddened by its complicity.

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