This past fall, at an event in New York City’s National Museum of the American Indian, a packed room of educators and federal employees applauded the release of a document titled “Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change.”
The 52-page document, released at Climate Week NYC, laid out principles for improving young people’s understanding of the science, skills and aptitudes required to address this fast-moving global challenge — including “hope” and “urgency.” Frank Niepold of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) told The Hechinger Report at the time that he hoped it would be widely adopted by states and even internationally. “We’re not just talking to classroom teachers,” he said. “This is for every kind of educator, every kind of communicator and all the decision makers.”
In April, the Trump administration defunded the lead federal program that put out the guide, the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Many of the other agencies that worked on it, including NOAA, have also been decimated by staffing cuts. And the guide itself has been taken down from its government URL, leaving nothing but an error message.
That same week, on April 8, the Department of Commerce argued in a press release announcing further cuts that federally funded climate research has promoted “exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.” The agency, which houses NOAA, said it would no longer fund educational initiatives for K-12 students.
Youth climate anxiety is real. But it’s likely not coming from knowing too much. In fact, climate anxiety coexists with widespread climate ignorance among America’s students. That’s according to a new national survey of teenagers released in April by EdWeek and the Aspen Institute’s This Is Planet Ed (where, disclosure, I’m an adviser):
- Just 12 percent of teens feel they know “a lot” about the causes of climate change.
- Only 54 percent of teens correctly identified greenhouse gas emissions from human activity as the biggest contributor to climate change.
- Only 42 percent of teens recognize that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Meanwhile, just over half, a majority, wrongly believe that scientists are divided 50-50 on the human role in climate change. This suggests a worryingly high level of exposure to climate denial and disinformation.
- 51 percent wrongly thought climate change was directly damaging the ozone layer.
- 57 percent of teens thought recycling would have a “large impact” on climate change, making it the most popular option. (In reality, according to the organization Drawdown, recycling is in the middle of the pack as far as climate solutions go, far behind ideas like reducing food waste or increasing solar power generation).
As the U.S. government steps back, and American teens struggle to master the basics, other countries are forging ahead. The PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), the prestigious international “report card” program, announced last fall that it will develop a new measure of climate literacy, to be administered as part of the 2029 test.