Climate Literacy Fosters Effective Climate Action
Ensuring people adequately understand climate change solutions is as important as the solutions themselves
The slow progress of education and obstacles to improving climate literacy
For all the talk of climate solutions, they won’t be nearly as effective or implemented on the large scales necessary to avert global warming of 1.5°C and adapt to future climate change scenarios if people don’t understand the solutions and why they’re necessary. Yet, the idea of climate education receives almost no attention in the media or from politicians.
Before delving into the importance of improving climate literacy here in the United States and abroad, we first need to understand why climate education isn’t already a core topic in K-12 education and the obstacles that must be overcome for it to become part of mainstream education curricula.
Ever since the New England colonies were first established in the 17th century, we’ve had a public education system in the US. Since then, the public education system has undergone a number of reforms to its structure, inclusiveness, requirements, standards, and emphasis on what skills and knowledge should be taught. Despite such reforms…
