What if climate education was part of the problem?

What if climate education contributed to the problem of ecological breakdown? What if it just delayed the inevitable? What if it was fool’s gold?

This is a call for education is service of Life, not lifestyle.

Climate change as a term itself is a euphemism for what promises to be physical and biological devastation. It’s more than change, it’s collapse. But collapse for whom, species-wise? After all, life will adapt even if temperatures rise by 3, 5, 15C over the next two hundred years. 

Around 250 million years ago, “The Great Dying,” was the mass extinction that led to the death of approximately 96–99% of all marine species and about 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. The primary cause was massive volcanic activity in Siberia, which released vast amounts of CO₂ and methane into the atmosphere. This led to extreme global warming (an increase of 8-10C), ocean acidification, and oxygen loss, creating conditions lethal to most life forms. This was the third mass extinction.

And now? The difference between that mass extinction (the third) and the one we are currently experiencing (the sixth) is that this one is taking place 100x faster. But that isn’t to say that over the very long run, life won’t adapt and some species will flourish. 

Humans probably won’t be one of those species, and this is where climate education comes in. We want to survive…well, more than survive.

How often do we confront the reality in schools that we will no longer be able to live with our comforts (in the Global North, at least)? How ready are we to address the question of radical change? How many times have we asked ourselves what might we need to let go of, to sacrifice?

Climate education perpetuates human-centered thinking, because we want to make sure that we can maintain our current standards of living. 

We learn how to reduce gas emissions, recycle paper, compost, use renewable energy…. This is all great, but these are changes in behavior patterns driven by technological shifts. We develop “solutions” to reduce our carbon footprint, but, other than buying less fast fashion, we still try to live on as close to normally as we can. Maybe if I carbon-offset, it’ll be ok to pave over this patch of land. My solar panels power my TV.

Consider the urgency of keeping global heating below 1.5C. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy promises to reduce emissions without threatening our comfortable lifestyles. We substitute one form of energy (dirty) for another (cleaner), and if we scale it fast and affordably enough, we get to carry on.

We can still power our city lights.

We can still trade across oceans.

We can still cut forests down, so long as we carbon offset somewhere else.

Never mind the rare earth minerals someone in a country we’ve never heard of has to dig up.

Never mind that livestock are the world’s largest source of anthropogenic (human-caused) methane.

Never mind that the global economy depends on endless consumption.

What matters is that we reach carbon zero.

So we can keep going.

Of course, the way we produce-transport-consume is critical, but why is biodiversity loss (the sixth mass extinction in which we find ourselves) so seldom discussed in schools?

If we responded to the conditions that have brought about the die-off of 70% of vertebrates since 1970, we might begin to heal our relationships with our other-than-human kin. We might reconsider the destruction of habitats, not in order to make sure that we curb climate change so that we may continue to live in comfort, but rather out of empathy for all the life that lives there. We might change our perspectives that humans are the master species. 

By reconsidering how our relationships within the bio-collective—all life that shares an interest in the healthfulness of the planet—we might participate differently as a species within the web of life. 

This means learning about our own locality, our bioregion, and all its inhabitants. This means community-building to include other-than-human creatures. This means centralizing relationships in order to nourish biodiversity.

This means education in service of Life, not lifestyle 

It’s not that we stop learning about climate breakdown, it’s that we understand that it’s a symptom not an illness. It’s that we see rising temperatures as the result of our perceived separation from all other species, not as something yearning for a solution. 

Climate education exacerbates the problem when it teaches us that we look for solutions so that we can keep going as is. It becomes part of the response when we recognize it as one of many nodes in the web of life.

Let’s centralize biodiversity education, life systems education, life-centered education, within which we talk about climate, rather than considering climate education as the end goal. 

Only then can we begin to reimagine place, and our place within it.