Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change

This is the accepted manuscript of an entry in the Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation published by Springer.

Citation: Karp, A. (2022). Educating for Climate Activism, Autonomy, and System Change. In: Peters, M.A., Heraud, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2262-4_268-1

This article ties together the literacy domains explored in the Climate Activism Curriculum series:

1. Ecological and Energy Literacy
2. Economic Literacy
3. Power Literacy
4. Social Change Literacy

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Introduction

Humanity faces an ecological emergency. Wealthy countries have pushed rates of resource use and pollution to levels that threaten to make much of the planet uninhabitable. To significantly reduce the demands placed on the natural world, each nation must transition to a society of sustainable consumption. The changes to economies, political systems, cultures, and lifestyles are likely to be substantial. A lot is known about these problems and possible solutions, but many details have yet to be determined. The transition will rely on dedicated participants who can successfully navigate the many uncertainties, emotional challenges, and power struggles involved. It is the task of education systems to develop a generation of effective navigators.

Though the climate crisis receives the most attention of today’s many ecological issues, climate curriculums remain a work in progress. Those who follow research on climate education often acknowledge that there is no firmly established set of guidelines for the field, and that content can vary widely. With increasing recognition of the systemic nature of the problem, however, there are growing calls for shifting away from models that emphasize individual action as the solution and towards those that center an exploration of system change. It has become clear that if climate breakdown is to be addressed, a core goal of climate education must be to create committed activists who can think strategically about the interconnected systems at its root. How best can educators meet this need, and what sort of framework can help prepare students to drive a transformation of society?

A comprehensive climate curriculum would spend most of the time covering topics besides climate science. The model described below highlights various disciplines and a few key texts that can contribute to a well-rounded understanding of the complexities of the climate crisis and encourage efforts to change systems.

Holistic Climate Curriculum Content

This curriculum model contains five content areas that aim to analyze the major forces that give rise to today’s existential problems and their solutions: ecological systems, energy sources and technology, economic institutions, power structures and politics, and social movement-driven societal change. It envisions the development of literacy in each area and an understanding of the connections between them. This model could be used to guide curriculum development for current educators as well as courses in teacher education.

Ecological literacy: The natural world provides the resources and waste absorption capacity that communities use to meet their needs. The stability of ecosystems is essential for the survival of humanity and all other species, so it’s where the curriculum begins. Because each content area involves systems, and students will need to work towards systemic change, it is important to explore systems thinking early in this section. Introducing students to the tools used in the field of foresight, which incorporates systems thinking, can also encourage critical reflection and a recognition of the uncertainties involved in the transition to a sustainable society. Climate science is of course a component of this section, but it should be studied in the context of Earth System Science and planetary boundaries. The Limits to Growth, first published in 1972 yet still the best-selling environmental book in history, describes the basic components of today’s ecological issues: the ecological limits inherent in a finite planet, exponential growth of the economy and human population, ecological overshoot (when growth exceeds limits, triggering crises of resource depletion and pollution), technological solutions and their constraints, non-technological solutions (such as changes to economies and lifestyles), delays in returning below the limits, and the ensuing threat of societal collapse. Students should recognize that climate change is a symptom of the overarching process of ecological overshoot alongside other issues like freshwater depletion, topsoil erosion, and biodiversity loss. This broader view highlights the need for a comprehensive approach that sees humanity reduce its demands to what ecosystems can sustainably provide. To fully assess these problems, learners must also examine the profoundly inequitable levels of resource consumption between higher-income and lower-income countries, which establish different responsibilities for making deeper changes. A primary message in this section is that ecological limits are inescapable—technology allows us to exceed them for a while, but we must ultimately learn to live within them.

Technological/Energy literacy: Technology can be used in ways that either increase resource consumption and ecosystem damage or reduce them. Technological innovations thus heavily influence humanity’s interactions with the natural world, particularly those that allow us to capture and utilize energy. Energy is the capacity to do work; the types of economic activity we can undertake and their overall scale are constrained by the quality and quantity of energy available. Technological solutions are often regarded as sufficiently capable of addressing every ecological issue, making fundamental economic and lifestyle changes unnecessary. Students must be able to critically evaluate the validity of this perspective. Perhaps the most obvious aspect of the response to the climate crisis is the need for society to transition its primary source of energy from fossil fuels to renewable resources like solar and wind power, which don’t emit carbon. Two crucial questions that students should consider are what the transition process may look like and how an all-renewable society might operate. Many researchers modeling energy futures suggest that a world powered mainly by wind and sunlight will be reasonably similar to today’s, and anticipate a fairly straightforward (though massive) energy transition. However, other researchers highlight obstacles that could result in lower energy availability in the medium term (i.e. during the transition) or the long term (i.e. an all-renewable society may turn out to be less energy abundant). If energy limits do arise, they would necessitate various changes to lifestyles. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley’s book Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy provides a look at some of these possible challenges. Thorough vetting of researchers’ models and our expectations around technological solutions is vital for anticipating how society may need to change economically, politically, and culturally in order to respect both ecological and energy limits.

Economic literacy: Like technology, the structure of the economy shapes humanity’s impact on the environment. Economic institutions that promote high-consumption lifestyles tend to destabilize natural systems over time. As it becomes clear that models of a sustainable future rely overwhelmingly on technologies that may or may not live up to expectations, the next step is to investigate ideas for creating an economy that facilitates lower-consumption lifestyles. There is significant risk that explorations of economic issues connected to climate change will take the mainstream or “neoclassical” perspective that often claims to be value-free while tacitly endorsing unimpeded economic growth, anti-redistributive political views, and a conception of human nature as inherently greedy. This can quietly reinforce many ideas used to justify the current economy that students must be encouraged to question. The climate crisis should instead be explored from the perspective of ecological economics, which unlike other economic disciplines takes the reality of ecological and energy limits as a defining condition to which economies must adapt. Policy prescriptions arising from ecological economists offer potential answers to the question of how to reconcile human needs with the limits of a finite planet. Many point out, for example, that achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth could allow society to better meet basic human needs while reducing resource use. Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill’s book Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources highlights several of these ideas. Exposure to other heterodox economic thinkers is also essential for deepening students’ critique of the existing economy and instilling a sense of its malleability. Beyond the policy solutions arising from diverse schools of economic thought, the main messages this section would convey are that the economy is a human construct that we can collectively reorganize, and that many “economic laws” are simply a reflection of the current structure of economic institutions and the power systems that protect them.

Power literacy: There can be no discussion about how to create a sustainable economy without examining the power disparities in society. Social power can be defined as the ability to influence the actions or beliefs of others. The economy can only change if those who want to change it build more power than those who prefer to keep it the same. In a self-reinforcing loop, the current economy delivers extreme wealth to a small fraction of the population. This wealth then provides disproportionate political and cultural power that the superrich can use to block attempts to transform the economic institutions that benefit them. Change requires struggle. Students must critically evaluate notions of politics that equate democracy with elections while ignoring the political system’s reliance on money; such ideas obscure the reality of plutocracy. Groundbreaking political science research has shown that elections, while a necessary part of democracy, do not on their own allow citizens to exert meaningful control over policy decisions (Gilens & Page, 2014). Those with concentrated wealth are afforded various means of influencing political decision-makers and public opinion, and as a result legislation tends to align with the preferences of the superrich. The answer to such power disparities is for everyday people to engage in collective political action to combine their power and create a government responsive to public interests. In other words, in order to create a sustainable society, students must strive to create a more democratic society. The primary disciplines covered in this section are political economy and history, and the content should explore sources of power, how power is used, and past examples of elite opposition to social change. Because power in freer countries is exerted mainly through ideas and cultural values rather than through force, learners should thoroughly examine how propaganda has been used to sow hatred, doubt, and confusion over political issues and to shape culture in a way that legitimizes the status quo.

Social change literacy: With ideas about how a sustainable economy would operate and greater clarity about the political struggle that may be involved in creating it, students should then investigate ways to generate people power and democratize society. This entails learning about the theory and practice of democracy. What are the pillars of a democratic society, and how can we build them or strengthen existing ones? It also entails learning about activist movements, which have historically acted as a vehicle for everyday people to achieve economic, political, and cultural change. This section would explore the history of mass movements, providing inspiration and distilling lessons for students. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, a book by Lawrence Goodwyn on perhaps the largest democratic uprising in US history, illuminates the movement-building process through which millions of people organized themselves into a widespread political force. This section would also examine the cultural norms of thought and behavior that define the current society, trace their historical origins, and envision alternatives. Examples include notions of freedom, progress, consumerism, individualism, the role of government, and patterns of mass political (dis)engagement. Both economies and power structures shape culture and are shaped by it, thus the struggle to achieve fundamental change is cultural. Students should reflect on the sorts of cultural characteristics that might define a sustainable and democratic society, and those that help build the resilience needed for a challenging energy transition, and examine ways to shift culture in that direction.

The concept of justice is essential and relevant to each of these areas and should be discussed throughout the analysis. A few topics include the uneven responsibility for and impacts of ecological issues, the implications of proposed technological solutions for different groups of people, the extremely inequitable wealth distribution within the current economy, the repressive effects of concentrated economic and political power, and how cultural values affect our perception of what justice entails. The potential tradeoffs that accompany different perspectives on justice—within nations, between nations, between humans and other animals, and between present and future generations—should also be discussed to develop more nuanced views of ethical issues.

Cultivating Students’ Autonomy

Helping students to develop holistic knowledge about the climate crisis is an essential part of preparing them to lead an unprecedented transition to a sustainable society. Informed decision-making is impossible without it. However, it is also vital to cultivate the sorts of abilities and traits that will be utilized throughout the transition process, including self-confidence, critical and nuanced thinking skills, an orientation towards collective action, and the resilience needed to sustain engagement for the long term. Combining deep understanding with these skills can position students to become dedicated and strategic activists.

Qualities that enable an active and effective approach to today’s problems can be thought of as building blocks of autonomy. Instilling a sense of intellectual self-confidence, interest, and commitment will motivate students to continue refining their own analysis of the problem landscape over time. Sharpening the critical thinking skills needed to thoroughly evaluate evidence will enable them to arrive at more solid conclusions. Inspiring an orientation towards collective action encourages students to combine their efforts and develop the power needed for large-scale social change. Cultivating their willingness and ability to explore the challenging emotions arising from this curriculum builds the resilience needed for ongoing engagement with society’s toughest problems. Deconstructing the cultural values and assumptions that influence the decisions we make can help students to consciously choose their own path rather than remaining bound to the norms of the present.

Educators can support the development of those sorts of qualities by, for example, making it routine for students to identify implicit assumptions and collectively evaluate all evidence presented when encountering divergent views in the research, asking questions that reveal the cultural values shaping public discourse, and by providing a supportive environment for emotions to be worked through rather than ignored.

Educators are likelier to advance the transition if they’re fully aware of the dual nature of education: it can be a force for the transformation of society or simply reproduce the way things currently are. For too long, education has primarily operated to preserve the present order. Educators have a significant responsibility to try to make their work liberating and avoid reinforcing limits to social change. For example, it is difficult to see how a sustainable society will be realized if students learn

• They should take individual actions rather than work collectively to change systems.
• The crises we face are so severe as to seem impossible to address (i.e. there is insufficient discussion of solutions and the potential power of social movements).
• Technology alone can sufficiently reduce humanity’s impact on the environment, making it unnecessary to discuss and prepare for any significant changes to lifestyles.
• Economic growth is an unquestionable social good.
• Markets self-regulate and naturally solve any problems that originate from their operation.
• Our society is thoroughly democratic, thus average citizens already exert meaningful control over government policy.
• “Great men” at the forefront of movements are the main reason why social change occurs, rather than the rank-and-file participants themselves.

Each example expresses a way of seeing the world that can lead students to focus on marginal changes to society, feel powerless to make a difference, or wait for someone else to solve today’s crises. However, there are plenty of information sources (including some that are authoritative) that convey those perspectives. It is very possible for educators to discuss ecological systems, energy sources, economic institutions, power structures, and social change in ways that create or reinforce limits to societal transformation. The outcome depends on the quality of the analysis that educators explore with students.

And yet there are many obstacles to forming a high-quality analysis. Educators must sift through lots of information to find the most accurate perspectives across the many disciplines relevant to the climate crisis, which is a huge challenge. Certain details of the problem landscape will also change over time, requiring a reevaluation of possible solutions. As social movements grow stronger, propaganda aimed at sowing confusion and doubt from those who seek to block the sustainability transition will also increase, further muddying the waters.

Given all of these challenges, educators cannot be expected to arrange a perfect discussion of the causes of and solutions to the climate crisis. Even as they aim for liberation, in all likelihood certain barriers to change will be reproduced in the course of education. This need not be as significant of an issue if the curriculum focuses primarily on cultivating learners’ autonomy over any particular interpretation of the evidence. If students come to see that knowledge is power and they have the tools to decode reality for themselves (particularly if they are inclined to work with others to share the time investment required), they will be more likely to explore the topics beyond the classroom. Any shortcomings of the curriculum may therefore matter less.

In the quest to realize a sustainable society, students will only go as far as their collective efforts take them. Along the way, many questions will arise. Various courses of action will be called possible or impossible, and students must have the ability to form their own conclusions. It is vital that they possess the skills needed to handle the demands and uncertainty involved in this unprecedented transition process with a mix of assertiveness and flexibility.

A Few Pedagogical Considerations

Presenting incisive curriculum content is only part of the task of creating activists. Pedagogical approaches also play a significant role in shaping learning outcomes.

Beyond teaching social movement history and elements of strategy, there are other creative ways of building students’ interest in joining or starting a movement. Modern political and economic systems encourage atomization, and collective action feels unfamiliar and difficult to many people. Activities that get students frequently working in groups to build their comfort level and collaboration skills should be part of a curriculum aimed at system change. Bringing in local activists to share their stories and facilitate connections with existing movements could also help students to take the first step towards their own activist journey.

The personal approach taken by each educator also acts as an important model for learners. In response to the challenges of formulating a liberating climate curriculum, educators may be inclined to overstate their confidence with the material in order to maintain their authority in the eyes of students. If educators instead explain that they are co-learning many things with their students, that transparency can establish a more empowering learning environment. Students could more easily recognize that their views matter and will influence everyone’s takeaways, that learning never stops, and that they are capable participants in the analytical process. The result could be a stronger sense of intellectual initiative and self-confidence in each student.

Given that there is currently no singularly agreed upon climate curriculum, all educators are experimenting to find the best way to inform and empower new generations of activists. This means that it could be useful for educators to attempt to measure learners’ sense of empowerment and intent to join social movements, and adjust as needed. Sharing these insights with other educators could also accelerate the development of effective climate curriculums and help them become more widely implemented.

Activists as Educators, Social Movements as Education Systems

The idea that only formally trained educators have the ability and responsibility to help others develop an action-oriented understanding of the climate crisis is a major barrier to social change. Intellectual rigor, dedication, empathy, and humility are needed, but these qualities aren’t possessed exclusively by those with an advanced degree from a university. Most people who care deeply about addressing today’s ecological issues could take on the role of educator.

Furthermore, the task of scaling up this holistic climate curriculum is the very sort of campaign that movements can and should lead. Activists could work to create the pressure needed for schools to adopt this type of curriculum. Movement-organized education and discussion groups that meet frequently in communities and in online spaces could also be a cornerstone of societal transformation. Those employed as teachers should consciously aim to create activists who recognize that they are completely capable of becoming educators themselves.

Conclusion

To meet growing calls for system change, climate curriculums need to synthesize several disciplines. The broad literacies described above provide a foundation that can help students grasp the multiple dimensions of the climate crisis. By remaining focused on the goal of cultivating autonomy, educators can prepare students to become activists who are capable of reshaping the interconnected systems at the root of the problem.

References

Dietz, R., & O’Neill, D. W. (2013). Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources (First Edition). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Gilens, M., & Page, B. I. (2014). Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564–581. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595

Goodwyn, L. (1978). The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (Abridged edition). Oxford University Press.

Heinberg, R., & Fridley, D. (2016). Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy. Island Press.

Meadows, D. H., Randers, J., & Meadows, D. L. (2004). The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green Publishing Company.