Ignorance is not Bliss

In August of 2024, Illinois became the fifth state to mandate climate education as a part of public school curriculums, following CA, CT, NJ, and NY. This was a major step in a positive direction because right now such must-do education is minimal, even at the college level. One recent study found that just 17% of the top 100 universities and liberal arts colleges require it, and only 5% of U.S. public universities require the study of environmental literacy for graduation. Offered, but not necessarily required.In the U.S., the vast majority of teachers and parents want climate education to be mandated as a part of public school system course schedules at all levels. However, there is no national consensus about its importance, and therefore our nation does not support a national climate science standard for schools.

There is no chance for the next three and one-half years!

Here’s why….

Representative of its pro-fossil fuel ideology towards climate change in general, Congress, at the beginning of 2023, defeated two such climate education initiatives. Currently, with President Climate Denier in office, there will be no such effort entertained in the slightest. With his goal to eliminate the Dept. of Education, it is 100% left up to each state to determine what schools teach, and the required attention to the impact of climate change is not gaining a significant foothold. Progress is slow because this, the most critical subject for all of humanity, is deeply politicized in our nation while China and the European Union agree on what’s environmentally best for all species. To make matters worse, the limited amounts of U.S. textbooks that do address climate offer ambiguous words that don’t elaborate on the cause, much less the solutions, relating to global warming. To further the dilemma, very few teachers know enough about the subject to teach it.

Global climate education is the solution.

Thankfully, once America’s citizens decide to disengage from our leadership’s absence of climate caring, to focus on the rest of the world, they will observe that climate education is accelerating. It all starts with a major effort to promote climate action by the international community. The UNFCCC, the Paris Agreement, and the related Action for Climate Empowerment are energizing the importance of education and training to understand global warming. This objective is what UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, stands for. With its 195 member nations, this human kindness-oriented group serves to protect World Heritage sites while promoting environment science literacy. 

Examples of how the rest of the world is empowering themselves against polluters are found everywhere.

In 2019, Italy became the first country in the world to decree sustainability education as a part of its national classroom course schedule. Since then, Finland, Romania, Spain, and the U.K. have followed the Italian lead. As a result, almost 100% of all Europeans agree that climate change is not just a routine type of problem to solve, but a most serious one. Nearly one-half of Europe’s young people from ages 16-25 feel sadness, guilt, anger, and anxiety regarding the annual increase in environmental destruction caused by extreme weather events and drought conditions, and their leadership is paying close attention.

Then there is China. 

Its advanced level of climate intelligence is committed to the teaching of climate change by incorporating it into the national curriculum. China Youth Climate Action is a 2024 initiative born by UNICEF, the National Center For Climate Change Strategy, as well as the Chinese Meteorological Society, and is presently a part of schools throughout that vast country of 1.4 billion people. Children make up more than half of this country’s population and therefore, climate change is considered a Child’s Rights crisis.

The U.S. population is almost one-quarter that of China, and our citizens are drifting further and further behind this powerful leader in climate awareness. When considering our country has approx. 115,000 thousand schools of all levels vs. China’s nearly 500,000 such schools, and the fact we must wait until the 2028 election for any hope of federal climate action, America is being left in the polluting dust.

What is such a splendid accomplishment is that China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas and it recognizes the harm being done. By leading the world in renewable energy development, it is addressing the climate crisis faster than all other nations combined. The fourth largest country by land area is the number one example of how a large polluting nation can acknowledge its emission destruction while slowly doing everything possible to make reliance on dirty energy go away. This Asian leader spent the equivalent of $890 billion in 2023 on renewable energy research and development. America: just  $248 billion.

In regards to the goals of the Paris Agreement, it is guaranteed that America will be a four-year national embarrassment, yet we can be very proud of the number of U.S. universities joined in at the climate science hip. This highest level of education in our nation recognizes its global environmental responsibility and has embraced sustainability as a core principle. The U of Cal Berkeley leads the U.S. charge with a No. 3 ranking as determined by QS World University Ranking, right behind the U of Toronto and ETH Zurich. We have other schools that are a part the approx. 1800 from around the globe offering various degrees in Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, and Sustainability Studies.

It is too soon to tell if President Climate Denier’s attack on higher education will include defunding its climate science research or not.

Pray that our climate scientists are not forced to leave our nation in search of environment-friendly co-workers. I and many other scientists truly believe that this level of climate education will be Earth’s Savior. Regardless of how long America’s leadership intentionally ignores climate reality in favor of profits over people’s health and property, the majority of our local, county, and state governments, businesses, and the university sector are cognizant of a planet that is heating a little more each succeeding year.   

Evidence-based global warming disruption is the new norm and, sadly, the general populace of the United States is too preoccupied with the results of government chaos to pay attention. As our planet’s temperature becomes hotter and hotter, please equate it to a feverish disease for Earth - its global pandemic. A sickness that can be cured through climate education.