Teaching global climate change

Abstract

Although there is strong consensus among scientists that global climate change is real and dangerous, and there is increasing belief of this among the general public, there still remains a significant gap between scientific opinion and that of the public. The academic environmental community, therefore, has a clear opportunity and responsibility to teach the facts of global climate change, particularly to non-environmental majors, those people who are the voters of the future. The article presents several ideas along these lines, and calls for a revitalized effort to teach climate change to undergraduate students.

Share and Cite:

McGowan, A. (2013) Teaching global climate change. Natural Science, 5, 120-123. doi: 10.4236/ns.2013.51A018.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. and Miller, H.L., Eds. (2007) Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
[2] Gerken, J. (2012) Pew climate change poll reveals that less than half of americans make anthropogenic connection.
[3] Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (2012) Extreme weather and climate change in the American mind. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven.
[4] Leiserowitz, A.A., Smith, N. and Marlon, J.R. (2010) Americans’ knowledge of climate change. Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication, New Haven.
[5] Hansen, J., Sato, M. and Ruedy, R. (2012) Perception of climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[6] Anonymous (2012) Recent heat waves caused by global warming, Hansen says. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-05/recent-heat-waves-caused-by-global-warming-hansen-says
[7] Srinivasan, U.T. (2012) James Hansen: Extreme heat events connected to climate change. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/08/james-hansen-extreme-heat-events-connected-to-climate-change.html
[8] Wright, R.T. and Boorse, D. (2011) Environmental science: Toward a sustainable future. Benjamin Cummings, Boston.
[9] McKibben, B. and Gore, A. (2008) American earth: Environmental writing since Thoreau. Penguin Putnam, New York.
[10] Bryant, B.I. (1995) Environmental justice: Issues, policies, and solutions. Island Press, Washington DC.
[11] Bullard, R.D. (1994) Unequal protection: Environmental justice and communities of color. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.
[12] Cutter, S.L. (1995) Race, class and environmental justice. Progress in Human Geography, 19, 111-122. doi:10.1177/030913259501900111
[13] Elliott, K. (2008) Biofuels and the food price crisis: A survey of the issues. Center for Global Development.
[14] Kates, R.W., Parris, T.M. and Leiserowitz, A.A. (2005) What is sustainable development goals, indicators, values, and practice. Environment, 47, 9-21.
[15] Kates, R. and Dasgupta, P. (2007) African poverty: A grand challenge for sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 194, 16747-16750. doi:10.1073/pnas.0708566104
[16] Holbrooke, R. (2008) The next president: Mastering a daunting agenda. Foreign Affairs, 87.
[17] Klare, M.T. (2001) Wealth, resources and power, in resource wars. Metropolitan Books, New York.
[18] Klare, M.T. (2004) The Carter Doctine goes global. The Progressive, 68.
[19] Liska, A.J. and Perrin, R.K. (2010) Securing foreign oil: A case for including military operations in the climate change impact of fuels, in environment. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia.
[20] Weart, S.R. (2003) The discovery of global warming. New histories of science, technology, and medicine. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
[21] Rhodes, R. (1986) The making of the atomic bomb. Simon & Schuster, New York.
[22] Hasegawa, T. (2005) Racing the enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the surrender of Japan. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
[23] Frank, R.B. (1999) Downfall: The end of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Random House, New York.
[24] Stern, L.N. (2005) Stern review: The economics of climate change executive summary. Office of Climate Change, London.
[25] Yohe, G.W. and Tol, R.S.J. (2007) The stern review: Implications for climate change. Environment, 49, 36-42. doi:10.3200/ENVT.49.2.36-43
[26] Risinin, R.A. and Kraushaar, J.P. (2006) Energy and the environment. 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
[27] Jacobson, M.Z. and Delucchi, M.A. (2009) A path to sustainable energy by 2030. Scientific American, 58-65. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1109-58
[28] Fran, O. (2012) Clean break: The story of Germany’s energy transformation and what American can learn from it. Kindle.
[29] Osha (2012) Clean break: The story of Germany’s energy transformation and what American can learn from it. Kindle.
[30] Bruffee, K.A. (1999) Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of knowledge. 2nd Edition, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
[31] Bransford, J. (2000) How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. National Academy Press, Washington DC.
[32] National Research Council (US), Committee on How People Learn a Targeted Report for Teachers, Donovan, S. and Bransford, J. (2005) How students learn: Mathematics in the classroom. National Academies Press, Washington DC.
[33] Gokhale, A.A. (1995) Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking. Journal of Technology Education, 7, 6.
[34] Stacey, E. (1999) Collaborative learning in an online environment. Journal of Distance Education, 14, 14-33

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.