Climate Age

There are underlying stories in our culture that deeply affect perceptions of the climate crisis. Many of us grew up learning about the vastness of the Earth and how insignificant we are, as humans, given its immense scale. Many were also taught that the Earth can always heal itself and its resources are resilient and inexhaustible. Our education also contained lessons on ancient natural cycles in weather and climate. These are among dozens of underlying stories that many Americans live by as given truths.  But are they really true?

A persistent challenge to advancing climate change education and related policy sits in how deeply global warming denial is woven into our culture.  Classroom education is particularly exposed to such cultural influences because public instruction depends on an array of politicians and other political decisionmakers. Indeed, U.S. education is largely a public enterprise. Taxpayers front over $1 trillion per year for our K-12 schools, community college systems and public universities. This means that public funding, education laws, agency policies and more sustainable public facilities are crucial to American education and so are likewise vital to education on climate science, solutions and the staggering costs of ignoring climate change.

The harsh reality, however, is there is not nearly enough climate instruction offered in American education to effectively equip the next generation with the knowledge and skills they will need to address the worsening climate crisis. It will impact their lives in so many ways including dangerous weather, more persistent pollution, less reliable food and water availability, housing safety, transportation shifts, more volatile insurance and finance, challenging child-rearing and more. We are handing an entire generation an enormous problem while simultaneously failing to prepare them with even a basic understanding of what they will face. 

Nonetheless, some members of the U.S. Congress and state legislators simply hear the word climate and leap from their seats declaring it is a hoax. They get away with this despite climate education in our schools having broad parental support (about 86%). Instead of listening to most of their constituents, however, they listen to a few and exert an outsized influence on what actually makes it into in America’s classrooms regarding climate instruction. It is not unlike how a few parents can get books banned in schools. Climate deniers help make schoolboards, principals and teachers timid about teaching climate curricula and they frequently push for restrictive policies and funding cuts to make sure the subject does not become widespread. Some conservative legislatures go so far as to propose outright bans on classroom instruction about climate change.

Many of us think that providing scientifically grounded facts about the climate crisis should be enough. After all, there is a mountain of evidence and a vast scientific consensus on the reality of climate change.  But simply providing the facts, what some describe as the “information deficit model,” seldom works especially when the subject has deeper, even fallacious cultural underpinnings that tend to challenge the science.

A pair of education experts in literacy and culture have studied this problem and recommend that educators stop relying on the information deficit model or trying to work around climate denial and approach it through a new framework. They propose the widespread adoption of a structured Climate Denial Inquiry Model (CDIM) as reflected in their book, How to Confront Climate Denial. This model employs the often-overlooked disciplines of literacy and social studies. The model infuses curricula with inquiry-based learning to help students ask good questions and identify climate denial narratives that are designed to misinform the public and foster distrust of established science. From a legislative and funding standpoint, these denial narratives erode evidence-based policy making and the collective pursuit of sound solutions. Just some of examples of broad narratives that people mistakenly live by include: humans have a right to dominate nature, economic growth is all that matters, and we can adapt to any problem through a combination of hard work and technology.

These authors help us see there are actually two types of climate change denial: the first attacks climate science and the very existence of the climate crisis. These narratives falsely claim, for example, that CO2 is not increasing in the atmosphere, that CO2 has no impact on planetary warming, or that climate change today is part of an age-old natural process. The second attacks active solutions to the climate crisis asserting, for example, that electric vehicles are unreliable, there is not enough land for solar panels, or that windmills are inordinately dangerous to wildlife.

The authors point out that the underlying philosophies of these denial narratives run so deep they have become stories we live by and they need to be replaced by stories we should live by or what they call counter-narration.  Consider:  

“(1) treating all life with respect, care, and responsibility, especially our most vulnerable populations and species;

(2) recognizing that society’s long-term wellbeing comes with a recognition of the Earth’s limits; and

(3) civic engagement for the common good is necessary for just and meaningful lives and futures.”

Their proposed teaching approach asks students to develop true literacy skills by understanding biases in climate change narratives and by looking at who might be promoting these narratives and why. It is all about asking good questions.  An Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) summary of their book explains that it features: “(1) An innovative model to help educators address climate science denial and climate action denial; (2) Clear examples of how to integrate critical literacies designed specifically for climate denial; (3) Concrete climate and inquiry-based teaching and learning pathways in literacy and social studies with much potential for connections across other content areas; and (4) A path from destructive stories steeped in climate denial to more just and sustainable futures.”

Federal legislation to support climate change education has largely focused on agencies that have strong scientific orientations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Climate Denial Inquiry Model points directly at the U.S. Department of Education and both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act as avenues for funding and developmental support at the federal level. Moreover, many states have been advancing climate-based professional development funding for educators that, likewise, mostly focused on getting the science right. These professional development programs and even standards-based programs, at the state level, need a harder look at how the disciplines of social studies and literacy can lead to a real counter movement to climate denial and its ability to keep young people in the dark about climate science and solutions.