We are DEVO

The New York Times reports:

Sitting in the headquarters of the Wyoming Liberty Group, Susan Gore, founder of the conservative think tank, said new national science standards for schools were a form of “coercion,” adding, “I don’t think government should have anything to do with education.”

Ms. Gore, a daughter of the founder of the company that makes Gore-Tex waterproof fabric, was speaking here weeks after the Republican-controlled Legislature made Wyoming, where coal and oil are king, the first state to reject the standards, which include lessons on human impact on global warming. The pushback came despite a unanimous vote by a group of Wyoming science educators urging acceptance. Wyoming was the first state to say no, but likely not the last. A House committee in Oklahoma last week voted to reject the standards, also in part because of concerns about how climate change would be taught.

It is noteworthy that Wyoming has the worst CO₂ emissions per capita of the various states. This fact makes clear the shameless belligerence of the reactionaries. Fortunately, Wyoming is sparsely populated. But its low population density is not overly consoling since the United States as a whole emits 6.089 GtCO₂ e/year (metric gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year).

But why must the reactions let the scientific consensus on this matter get in the way of their sense of entitlement and victimization?