Some environmentalists and parents in Ohio are outraged over a partnership between Radio Disney of Cleveland and the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Production Program (OOGEEP), which promotes oil and gas energy to children and families.
The program, “Rocking in Ohio,” traveled around the state between September and December of last year, using games and demonstrations to inform children of how oil and natural gas pipelines work.
“Kids are the best way [to spread the message],” said Ron Grosjean, one of the board of directors for OOGEEP. “They retain [information] – they remember it.”
Environmental activists and some parents told The Washington Examiner the program is a “propaganda campaign and shouldn’t be taught to their children.”
One parent, Lisa Hoyos, even started a petition on Credo Mobilize to “immediately halt” the program, which has garnered nearly 80,000 signatures:
“Radio Disney should not – under the guise of teaching kids ‘science’ – promote dirty energy that gives kids asthma, pollutes our air and water, and fuels climate change.”
The Examiner says Hoyos is also a co-founder of Climate Parents, a group dedicated to “mobilizing parents and families to push policymakers and energy companies to stop prioritizing dirty energy, and to scale up “kid-safe and climate-safe’ energy instead.”
Robert Shields, chairman of the Ohio chapter of Sierra Club, told the paper that “kids’ ability to reason is not yet quite established, so it feels to me that they’re getting some kind of propaganda.”
Alison Auciello from Food and Water Watch in Ohio at least said that energy education programs for children should be balanced: “They’re not giving a balanced education on [oil and gas]. Public schools should also be inviting anti-fracking people into schools. That doesn’t seem to be happening at all.”
In a 1/9 statement to Al Jazeera, Radio Disney indicated that it would pull out of the program: “The sole intent of the collaboration between Radio Disney and the nonprofit Rocking in Ohio educational initiative was to foster kids’ interest in science and technology. Having been inadvertently drawn into a debate that has no connection with this goal, Radio Disney has decided to withdraw from the few remaining installments of the program.”
See the Washington Examiner story here.
RBR-TVBR observation: It’s tough not to take sides here on the merits of using our own resources for energy rather than that from foreign nations, the jobs it creates, etc. So instead, we will look at this as simply a great way to bring in non-traditional revenue to a radio station that added an educational element. Radio Disney of Cleveland should be congratulated for that thinking-out-of-the box sale. We can’t blame them, however, for pulling out of the partnership. Environmental groups have a very clear record of demonizing and destroying companies/startups that they believe could harm the environment. Radio Disney doesn’t need to play tag on that playground.
