The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change — established in IPCC assessment reports since 1990 and reaffirmed in the 2023 AR6 synthesis — is included in the Next Generation Science Standards (2013) adopted by 20 states. The remaining states use modified standards; several have actively softened climate language at the state-board level. Public-school treatment of climate change remains a flashpoint distinct from, but ideologically continuous with, the evolution disputes of the 20th century.

Why it’s been targeted

In November 2023, the Texas State Board of Education rejected seven of twelve proposed middle-school science textbooks, citing either climate-policy content or the publishers’ ESG (environmental, social, governance) commitments; the Texas Tribune and Scientific American documented the votes. In 2024, the Florida Department of Education required publishers to remove climate-change content from science textbooks as a condition of state approval. The NCSE’s 2020 report identifies softened or removed climate-change standards in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Ohio, and West Virginia.