What will it take to create a transformation in human society to coexist with our human and more-than-human earth kin?”
– Journal of Sustainability Education call for papers 2021
The question of what it will take to induce societal transformation in the face of climate change is daunting to consider, intimidating to try and answer in the abstract, and potentially paralyzing to try and address through teaching, research, and practice. That is, in response to the JSE editors’ question, we may be tempted to simply curl up in a ball and rock back and forth in search of temporary comfort and escape.
Yet, in crafting the subtitle for this issue on climate change, JSE’s editorial team has pointed to multiple paths forward: resistance, recuperation, and resilience. Each of those terms have their roots in sustained action, with the Latin meaning of the ‘re’ prefix based in doing again and again (dictionary.com, 1995). The same implication is present with kindred concepts often used in the realm of grappling with climate change like regeneration, reparations, restoration, recentering, and renewal. Altogether the emphasis on sustained actions, with each term in its own way looking both backwards and forwards in time and knowledge, raises a very direct challenge for educators: how do we help students (and ourselves) prepare to engage in sustained action in the face of climate change and its root causes of extraction, inequity, racism and colonialism?
In this article, we describe our response to this question, admittedly very much a work in progress. We first elaborate on the conceptual and practical challenges in preparing students for sustained action to imagine and enact the future. Paramount among these challenges is acknowledging that climate change cannot be addressed in an equitable way without also addressing its roots in colonization, racism, sexism, and extractive capitalism. Next, we discuss our integrated teaching-research-engagement approach, developed as part of a US National Science Foundation CAREER award project aimed at examining the potential role of compassion as a transformative practice for reducing long-term risks from natural hazards and climate change. Then, we provide summaries of and reflections on a pair of courses taught in 2019 and 2020 that explored, respectively the inner personal dimensions and external relational dimensions of professional work to reduce climate risks. Finally, we detail some of the lessons we’ve learned in the processes of convening these courses and look to future opportunities for growth and sustained action as educators ourselves.
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Waking from Paralysis: Revitalizing Conceptions of Climate Knowledge and Justice for More Effective Climate Action
Despite decades of climate science research, existing climate actions have had limited impacts on mitigating climate change. Efforts to reduce emissions, for example, have yet to spur sufficient action to reduce the most severe effects of climate change. We draw from our experiences as Ojibwe knowledge holders and community members, scientists, and scholars to demonstrate how the lack of recognition of traditional knowledges (TK) within climate science constrains effective climate action and exacerbates climate injustice. Often unrecognized in science and policy arenas, TK generates insights into how justice-driven climate action, rooted in relational interdependencies between humans and older-than-human relatives, can provide new avenues for effectively addressing climate change. We conclude by arguing for a shift toward meaningful and respectful inclusion of plural knowledge systems in climate governance.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2044053
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10406460
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
- Volume:
- 700
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0002-7162
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 166 to 182
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This article is categorized under:
Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making
Highlight Attributing crises only to climate is inadequate from a mechanical, moral, and strategic policy points of view.
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World Climate, can help overcome these barriers.World Climate combines an engaging role‐play with an interactive computer model of the climate system. We examine pre‐ and post‐World Climate survey responses from 2,080 participants in the US and use a general linear mixed model approach to analyze interactions among participants' sociopolitical values and gains in climate change knowledge, affect, and intent to take action. As expected, prior to the simulation, participants holding individualist‐hierarchical values had lower levels of climate change knowledge, felt less urgency, and expressed lower intent to act than those holding communitarian‐egalitarian values. However, individualist‐hierarchs made significantly larger gains across all constructs, particularly urgency, than communitarian‐egalitarians. Participants' sociopolitical values also shifted: those with individualistic‐hierarchical values before the simulation showed a substantial, statistically significant shift toward a communitarian‐egalitarian worldview. Simulation‐based experiences likeWorld Climate may help reduce polarization and build consensus towards science‐based climate action. -
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Abstract Anthropogenic climate change threatens the structure and function of ecosystems throughout the globe, but many people are still skeptical of its existence. Traditional “knowledge deficit model” thinking has suggested that providing the public with more facts about climate change will assuage skepticism. However, presenting evidence contrary to prior beliefs can have the opposite effect and result in a strengthening of previously held beliefs, a phenomenon known as biased assimilation or a backfire effect. Given this, strategies for effectively communicating about socioscientific issues that are politically controversial need to be thoroughly investigated. We randomly assigned 184 undergraduates from an environmental science class to one of three experimental conditions in which we exposed them to short videos that employed different messaging strategies: (a) an engaging science lecture, (b) consensus messaging, and (c) elite cues. We measured changes in student perceptions of climate change across five constructs (content knowledge, acceptance of scientific consensus, perceived risk, support for action, and climate identity) before and after viewing videos. Consensus messaging outperformed the other two conditions in increasing student acceptance of the scientific consensus, perceived risk of climate change, and climate identity, suggesting this may be an effective strategy for communicating the gravity of anthropogenic climate change. Elite cues outperformed the engaging science lecture condition in increasing student support for action on climate, with politically conservative students driving this relationship, suggesting that the messenger is more important than the message if changing opinions about the necessity of action on climate change is the desired outcome. Relative to the other conditions, the engaging science lecture did not support change in students' perceptions on climate, but appealing to student respect for authority produced positive results. Notably, we observed no decline in students' acceptance of climate science, indicating that none of the conditions induced a backfire effect.
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221095495
