Climate education in and beyond the classroom

Perspectives

Climate education in and beyond the classroom

Serik Tokbolat
New York—23 Jul 2015

Intergovernmental processes such as those shaping the Post-2015 development agenda often focus on policy concerns and global agenda-setting. But success in the realm of climate change depends in large part on the choices of countless individuals and communities – on people, in numerous places and living in widely varying circumstances, embracing goals as their own and taking ownership for their achievement.

Environmental efforts must therefore build ownership not only in capitals and at the UN, but also among the wider public. And this calls for education – scientific and academic, but ethical and spiritual as well. 

In terms of formal schooling, curricula will need to address students’ relationship with the natural world, the uses and limits of the resources their lifestyles depend on, and the long-term impact their cumulative choices have on the environment.

Ecological considerations will need to be mainstreamed so as to inform thinking on a wide range of subjects, from health and world history to governance, social studies, and home economics. Educational materials similarly need to go beyond dire warnings and sobering statistics, to facilitate increasingly sophisticated reflection on the qualities and arrangements needed to build a dynamic world civilization prospering in harmony with its natural environment. Faced with challenges that seem both distant and overwhelming, it is important to focus on positive values and practical actions.

But climate education must reach beyond students and textbooks if new patterns of thought and behavior are to be constructed. The global body politic, upon whose commitment the implementation of international agreements will ultimately depend, must be engaged as well. For only to the degree that a population understands the nature of a challenge facing it – and sees the advantages of the changes required – can the motivation required to address that problem be generated. 

Understanding of the physical processes driving climate change will need to expand, as will appreciation of the human consequences involved. But information alone will not automatically transform ingrained habits and patterns of personal choice. The often-noted example of physicians who smoke or struggle with obesity illustrates the frequent disconnect between knowledge and behavior.

Climate education therefore needs to address normative issues of values and priorities as robustly as technical matters like fuels for cookfires or systems of public transportation. Campaigns of public information need to not only explain multilateral agreements in simple and understandable terms, but also justify them according to clear ethical and moral criteria.

What is the purpose of the agreements adopted at COP 21 and similar processes? What makes them just and equitable for all, materially rich and poor alike? Why are they deserving of personal support and dedication? How can the Sustainable Development Goals go beyond global aspirations to become part of the vision of each inhabitant of the planet for a better life and a united community?

Questions such as these lie at the heart of motivation and answering them will greatly strengthen public commitment to measures that may well call for change and sacrifice.

Decisions coming out of New York in September and Paris in December will impact humanity’s relationship with the natural environment for decades to come. Wide-ranging public education, addressing both the scientific and the ethical dimensions of climate change, and implemented in schools, in the media, and at the grassroots will be critical to ensuring that this relationship develops as productively and sustainably as possible. 

- By Serik Tokbolat, representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations