Climate Education in the Crosshairs

We see increasing evidence daily that we live in a greenhouse gas-constrained world. As scientific evidence grows, we should no ask if individuals believe in climate change, but rather what don’t they understand about climate change. It has been established over decades that the causes of climatic changes, such as extreme weather events, are enhanced by emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from burning of fossil fuels. The results create or enhance catastrophic droughts and subsequent wildfires and freshwater water depletion, dramatic increases in precipitation causing massive and deadly floods, sweltering heat making certain populated area uninhabitable. These facts are at the core of teaching climate change in college and university courses, junior and high school classes, and informal education programs of an assortment of outdoor and environmental settings. There has been a tragic and growing mistrust, skepticism, and denial of STEM (scientific, technical, environmental, and medical) research and information that prompts professional science-oriented societies and associations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society to develop significant policy statements and programs to support scientists, researchers, and educators to address these issues to elected officials, business and industry leaders, and the general public at-large with an increased understanding of climate change research, forecasting, monitoring, and modeling across disciplines and lines of work. Unfortunately, while these facts are mounting as proof of a fossil-fuel driven cause of global climate change, a strong and growing socio-political agenda launched by the fossil fuel industries and their lobbyists exert immense financial influences on federal and state elected officials that threaten and undermine regulatory control of carbon emissions. This level of “fossil fuelist’s” influence also threatens the teaching and instruction about global climate change. Our country is undergoing a dramatic shift in the overall political spectrum with the emergence of major Conservative influence at federal and state levels. This political shift is focused on issues related to sexual orientation, asylum or immigrant status, and critical race theory. Several states already have banned or restricted teaching on these issues in public schools and universities and colleges. Climate change is being considered among the next topics to be eliminated or restricted. There is one political party that categorically denies the existence of global climate change and threatens future teaching on the subject. This presentation examines those threats to education, especially at state levels, where college and university, especially public institutions seeking state funding, and public schools’ curricula come under increased restrictions about what can and what cannot be taught about global climate change.