Climate Science Belongs in the Classroom

It seems like such a simple question: How hot is Earth going to get? Yet for 40 years, climate scientists have repeated the same unsatisfying answer: If humans double atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) from preindustrial levels, the planet will eventually warm between 1.5°C and 4.5°C—a temperature range that encompasses everything from a merely troubling rise to a catastrophic one.

In recent years, another uncertainty in the climate future has also narrowed: Global emissions seem unlikely to reach the worst-case scenarios IPCC helped craft 15 years ago, ruling out some forecasts of extreme warming. “We’re light-years ahead of where we were in 1979,” says Reto Knutti, a co-author and climate scientist at ETH Zurich.

Unfortunately, the years of work needed to attain that certainty came with a cost: 4 decades of additional emissions and global warming, unabated.

TELL YOUR STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: CLIMATE SCIENCE BELONGS IN SCHOOLS

You too can take action and demand comprehensive, scientifically accurate, and standards-based climate science curricula for K–12 instruction in your state.