(Photocredit: EniScuola)
“This oil company teaches kids about how environmental disasters can be good for tourism,” writes Michael Segalov of VICE News.
Though there’s a tendency for multinational energy corporations to invest in good causes (see: oil gargantuan BP’s longstanding deal with the Tate Galleries or Shell’s controversial climate change exhibition at the London Science Museum), Eni, Italy’s largest energy company, per Segalov, has taken a more skewed approach at reaching the masses.
According to Segalov, the energy behemoth runs an education program aiming to teach children about science called Eniscuola, or Eni schools. These programs are aimed not only for use at home, but also for teachers in the classroom.
“Educational materials from Eni include pieces of work designed for teachers explain how manmade objects like oil rigs and mining platforms have a positive impact on the environment and wildlife, basically arguing that Eni’s fossil fuel gluttony is basically doing us all a favor. A section translated from Italian as ‘life platform’ (‘vita in piattaforma‘) ‘aims to inform students on the richness of biodiversity in the Adriatic Sea, and the habitats that are created around the mining platforms‘” (per Segalov).
Unfortunately, Eni neglects to mention the harmful–often catastrophic–effects of offshore oil rigs and mining platforms in their controversial claims (see: the WWF, ORDC, and Ocean Conservation Research Center’s “Don’t Be A Buckethead” initiative).
Read more of Eni’s controversial claims from the original article here (http://www.vice.com/read/oil-company-educating-kids-about-climate-change-457).
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