Teaching about climate change in the midst of ecological crisis: Responsibilities, challenges, and possibilities

Abstract

March 2023 saw the release of the official synthesis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2023). The synthesis reviews the state of knowledge on the science of climate change since the Fifth Assessment (in 2014). It is both bleak and stark. Headline statements in the report repeat and extend a series of warnings about the effects of climate change on every region on the planet, and their unequivocal cause: humans and their ways of living on this planet. The synthesis highlights many concerning trends, marked by statements signalling either ‘high confidence’ or ‘very high confidence’ among scientists about their findings on present and anticipated impacts, loss, damage, and escalating risk, for example: