What is the role of education in informing people about the climate crisis?

DOHA KHAN

Doha Khan is the co-founder of the South Australian branch of the School Strike 4 Climate movement, and in her final year of high school at Marden Senior College, in Adelaide. She has been involved in organising the Climate Strikes since November 2019 and has helped build and empower an expansive network of student activists. To learn more about School Strike 4 Climate, visit: www.schoolstrike4climate.com

The climate crisis is the greatest threat facing humanity. (1) This label is not given lightly: while the climate crisis is sometimes mistaken as just an environmental issue, its far-reaching social, economic, and political impacts highlight that it is anything but.

On our current trajectory, we can expect to see between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels within the century. (2) The repercussions of this cannot be overstated. Experts predict that the increase in temperature will result in the collapse of ecosystems, the extinction of millions of species, the loss of glaciers, and the submersion of land relied upon by countless communities. (3) Estimates suggest that 25 million to 1 billion people could be displaced as environmental migrants by 2050, having to either move within their countries or across borders, as a result of climate impacts.

The future looks bleak. However, scientists have highlighted that the worst of the climate crisis can still be averted by taking drastic action to cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030. (4) While various commitments (5) have been made by countries to keep the global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, many governments have demonstrated a lack of political will to fulfil their obligations. (6) However, as information on the climate crisis and its political context is being promoted and made accessible, millions of people across the world have stepped up to take part in large-scale mobilisations such as the #ClimateStrikes to demand action. These events most recently turned out over 300,000 school children, (7) workers and supporters in Australia, and over 4 million people world-wide in September of 2019. (8)

Inspired by Greta Thunberg, (9) School Strike 4 Climate is a student-led movement which exists to pressure world governments to implement policies to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming. (10)

It confronts authority figures with a question: ‘why should any young person be made to study for a future, when no one is doing enough to save that future?’. The role of education in empowering and enabling students to join the climate movement cannot be overstated.

Photo: ©Fernando M. Gonçalves

The stories of many activists within School Strike 4 Climate feature moments in which the severity of the climate crisis became clear to them – whether in the middle of a school lesson, or whilst doing research online – and they subsequently developed an awareness of the lack of political action being undertaken to address it. (11) Many eventually became involved in this movement out of a desire to do something, in the face of a government that is largely doing nothing.

More broadly, education has changed the face of the climate change debate in Australia. The annual Climate of the Nation report, (12) which tracks Australia’s attitudes towards climate change and energy, recently found that Australians are increasingly concerned about climate change and increasingly accepting of the science behind it. From droughts to the recent floods that have ravaged Australia, the impacts of the climate crisis are increasingly being recognised as such. It has allowed the debate to become more informed and shrunk the portion of society which ‘disbelieves’ or is ‘not sure’ on the issue. (13)

Education will continue to play an integral role in not only informing people of the climate crisis, but also empowering them to act on it. While the fear of this has resulted in various news sources actively attempting to combat its effect by propagating disinformation, (14) people from all walks of life are recognising the climate crisis for what it is, a crisis, and joining the campaign to demand climate action.

1. Meyer, R. (2019, August 8). This Land Is the Only Land There Is. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/ science/archive/2019/08/how-think-about-dire-new-ipccclimate-report/595705/.

2. Reuters. (2018, November 29). Global temperatures on track for 3-5 degree rise by 2100: UN. Thomson Reuters Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/ article/us-climate-change-un/global-temperatures-on-trackfor-3-5-degree-rise-by-2100-u-n-idUSKCN1NY186.

3. Vince, G. (2019, May, 19). The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2019/may/18/climate-crisis-heat-is-on-globalheating-four-degrees-2100-change-way-we-live.

4. The Climate Reality Project. (2019, March 18). Why is 1.5 Degrees the Danger Line for Global Warming? [Web blog post]. Retrieved from: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/ blog/why-15-degrees-danger-line-global-warming.

5. United Nations Climate Change. (2018). What is the Paris Agreement? Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/process-andmeetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement.

6. Stock, P. (2018, December 21). Let’s Get Something Straight- Australia is Not on Track To Meet Its Paris Climate Target. Climate Council. Retrieved from: https://www. climatecouncil.org.au/australia-not-on-track-to-meetclimate-targets/.

7. ABC. (2019, September 21). Global climate strike sees ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Australians rally across the country. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/schoolstrike-for-climate-draws-thousands-to-australianrallies/11531612.

8. Barclay, E. & Resnick, B. (2019, September 22). How big was the global climate strike? 4 million people, activists estimate. Vox. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/energyand-environment/2019/9/20/20876143/climate-strike-2019- september-20-crowd-estimate.

9. BBC. (2020, January 28). Who is Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate change activist? BBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49918719.

10. Fridays for Future. (2018). About #FridaysForFuture. Retrieved from: https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/about.

11. Williams, T. (2019, March 13). Adelaide School Strike 4 Climate coincides with National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence. The Advertiser. Retrieved from: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/ adelaide-school-strike-4-climate-coincides-with-nationalday-of-action-against-bullying-and-violence/news-story/72a 01e22ed5882dc9edb74de4291fa24.

12. Merzian, R., Quicke, A., Bennett, E., Campbell, R. & Swann, T. (2019). Climate of the Nation 2019. The Australia Institute. Retrieved from: https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/ Climate%20of%20the%20Nation%202019%20 %5BWEB%5D.pdf.

13. Kilvert, N. (2019, September 10). Climate change survey shows Australians want action on emissions, but are divided on nuclear. ABC Science. Retrieved from: https://www.abc. net.au/news/science/2019-09-10/climate-of-nationaustralia-attitudes/11484690.

14. Bolt, A. (2020, January 26). The truth that warmists continue to dodge. Herald Sun. Retrieved from: https://www. heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-boltthe-truth-that-warmists-continue-to-dodge/news-story/097a81d4783b2d0bfa73d72d4d9421f9.