By Bill Bigelow   

Co-director of the Zinn Education Project and curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools

The most dangerous substance in the world is barely mentioned in the school curriculum. Coal.

Burning coal creates more greenhouse gases than any other source----including oil. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and arguably the world's foremost climatologist, has called coal "the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on the planet."

So when you think about Superstorm Sandy, melting ice caps, wildfires in Australia, drought in the Southwest, floods in Pakistan, climate refugees from Bangladesh, dying polar bears and species you've never heard of, increased rates of asthma, and farmland that can no longer be farmed----think coal.

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"The Poison We Never Talk About in School" is the newest article  in the  

Zinn Education Project's column called If We Knew Our History posted on

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Related resources at the Zinn Education Project website

	'Don't Take Our Voices Away': A Role Play on the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change. Teaching Activity PDF. By Julie Treick O'Neill and Tim Swinehart. A role play on the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change that asks students to develop a list of demands to present to the rest of the world at the U.N. climate change treaty meeting.
	Got Coal? Teaching About the Most Dangerous Rock in America. Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. A lesson examining the motives, goals, and environmental consequences of the coal mining industry.
	Scholastic Inc. - Pushing Coal: A 4th-grade Curriculum Lies through Omission. Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Volume 25 - Issue 4, Summer 2011.
	Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. Book - Non-Fiction. By Jeff Biggers. The untold history of coal mining in the U.S. through the lens of race, labor, and the environment.
	The Last Mountain. Film. Directed by Bill Haney. Documentary on the consequences of mining and burning coal, with a focus on mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.
	Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future. Film. Produced by Peter Bull, Justin Weinstein, Alex Gibney. A feature documentary that addresses the questions: Can coal be made clean? Can renewables and efficiency happen on a scale large enough to replace coal?