An organization called Balanced Education for Everyone has gathered hundreds of signatures in support of a movement to ban the teaching of global warming in classrooms in Mesa County.
The signatures were presented at District 51's school board meeting Tuesday night by 40 people who dismissed global warming as "junk science." The petition is aimed at preventing teachers from imparting their "personal, political views in the classroom," Rose Pugliese, author of the petition, told the Grand Junction Sentinel.
Pugliese, who is described by the Denver Post as an "activist in Tea Party and conservative Republican groups," insists that there is "no evidence" to support global warming. Supporters of the petition say that, if global warming continues to be taught, "the other side" of the global warming issue should be presented as well.
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council--in a 2008 joint study--found that "the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it."
School board members accepted the petition, but took no action. Proponents of the measure promised to check back at a later date, and threatened that failure to act on the petition would result in consequences at the next school board election.