Just as Florida recently removed references to “DEI” and “critical race theory” from public school textbooks, its newest effort to indoctrinate students with conservative ideology centers on one the largest existential threats the state’s residents currently face: climate change.
According to Savvas, a science textbook publisher, the Florida Department of Education insisted on removing a 90-page section describing the causes and effects of climate change from a high school chemistry book. Likewise, state officials demanded that the author of a middle school biology textbook cut references to climate change as well as a passage urging government action to combat it because it constituted a “political statement.”
This was not the first time Florida censored or revised textbooks to eliminate perceived liberal policy prescriptions. In 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis rejected 41% of the state’s math books for “including the incorporation of prohibited topics like critical race theory.” When pressed on how high school math books incorporated graduate-level concepts on race, Governor DeSantis refused to provide examples.
Removing references to climate change is just the latest statewide effort to deny the danger it poses to the state. In May of 2024, Governor DeSantis signed a bill that reversed 16 years of precedence by deleting the phrase “climate change” from most of Florida law.
Florida remains one of the most at-risk states in the country to climate change. According to a National Climate Assessment report, extreme weather such as heat waves and hurricanes associated with climate change cost Florida $90 billion between 2018 and 2022. The state is projected to lose at least an additional $619 billion in the assessed values of property due to increased flooding by the end of the century. Instead of preparing future generations to meet this threat, the governor is instead focused on denying its existence.
