Climate change affects us all, but we still are not acting as quickly as we should to address its causes, mitigate the damage and adapt to its effects. Many people do not understand the risks climate change poses to global economic and social structures. And, sadly, many who do understand are dismissive of the far-reaching benefits a global shift to sustainability and clean energy would bring about.
According to a recent Pew study, seven out of 10 Americans classified as political independents were not very concerned that climate change would hurt them. Worse still, Yale University researchers recently found that 40 percent of adults worldwide have never even heard of climate change. In some developing countries, such as India, that figure climbs to 65 percent.
The figures are discouraging, but they can be improved.
The Yale study concluded that, “educational attainment tends to be the single strongest predictor of public awareness of climate change.”
By investing in quality education, we can set the next generation on the right path to addressing this global problem.
Education and climate action work together in three ways. For starters, education fills knowledge gaps. Understanding how climate change is already having an impact on one’s life can have practical benefits. This is especially true for poor populations that are most vulnerable to crop failures and natural disasters, such as landslides and floods, caused by climate change. Populations that must rebuild from scratch after each new catastrophe miss out on opportunities for rapid development.
By understanding that their world is changing — and that the likelihood of future disasters is increasing — these populations can build resilience and learn to adapt to the sudden and slow stresses of a changing climate.
Second, education challenges apathy. Knowing the measures available to address climate change can open up vast opportunities for economic growth. Glob al investors should be made to understand that sustainable solutions can increase wellbeing and create additional economic opportunities. To take one example, in Niger, education and improved farming techniques helped double real farm incomes for more than 1 million people, while restoring huge tracts of severely degraded land. In the US, as of 2014, there were more jobs that depended on solar energy than on coal mining.
Still, many people insist that implementing measures to mitigate the effects of climate change is too costly to our current way of life.
According to the Pew study, almost seven out of 10 people believe that, given the limitations of technology, they would have to make major lifestyle changes. This does not have to be the case and education can challenge the kind of skepticism that forecloses opportunities for climate-smart living.
Finally, education furnishes the technical knowledge needed to build a better future through innovation — one that includes clean and safe energy, sustainable agriculture, and smarter cities. Broadening access to education would lead to more homegrown innovation — entrepreneurs spotting opportunities to address local problems.
Globally, we cannot rely on knowledge centers such as Silicon Valley or Oxford to develop a silver bullet to the climate problem. Solutions might come from tech hubs, but they would also come from villages and developing cities, from farmers and manufactures with vastly different perspectives on the world around them. And this would create a virtuous cycle. It is easier for educated people to migrate and integrate into new societies, sharing the knowledge they have brought with them.
Fortunately, younger generations today are better educated and more committed to reducing their own carbon footprint than previous generations were. They are leading the way and forcing us all to reconsider our own actions. However, we must broaden the availability of education worldwide to ensure that their efforts are not in vain.
In recognition of education’s importance, the government of Norway, under the visionary leadership of Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, has established the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, of which I am a member. We met this week in Oslo, and it is my hope that we will confront the challenges of our time and act on the knowledge that education is the best problem-solving asset we possess.
Addressing the dangers of climate change is not only an existential imperative; it is also an opportunity to move toward a cleaner, more productive and fairer path of development. Only an educated global society can take the decisive action needed to get us there.
Felipe Calderon, a former president of Mexico, is chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in San Francisco on Tuesday last week said if she had not met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), she would have been “just a plain” and “even negligible” KMT chairperson, bluntly signaling the role she is playing in her visit to the US — Beijing’s messenger from Taiwan. Cheng and her delegation arrived in the US on Monday last week for a two-week visit across five major cities. Her party said the group is scheduled to meet with US lawmakers, officials, policy experts and businesspeople. Before departing, Cheng said her trip
RSS