The Rising Temperature Of Climate Change Politics

Canberra Times - Jack Waterford*

It is not yet clear to me whether Scott Morrison is slavishly following the urgers from News.com or it's the other way around. Perhaps given the way The Australian is barracking for the Abbott-Dutton tendency within the party, he should be very careful.
In any event, commentators from the Murdoch soviet have been unanimous in independently concluding that it is upon the costings of Bill Shorten's climate control policies that responsible people should vote. Liberal. From Monday's debate in Perth, Scott Morrison has followed the cues.
But it is hard to think it is going to do any great harm to the Labor campaign. It allows Labor to segue into the need for serious concerted action on climate change - something on which the majority of the electorate and the science community agree, and to hammer the argument that whatever passes for a Coalition climate change policy is not a fair dinkum policy at all.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud throw hay to feed cattle on Eumungerie Farm. Picture: AAP

That is because the Liberal and National parties are still full of climate change deniers, many of whom are prepared to split the party if there is anything more than a cosmetic policy.
Morrison can argue until he is blue in the face that the very limited measures he is taking represent just the right balance between maintaining a healthy economy and doing something. But this is a subject on which he is largely talking to himself.
His distraction tactics - of arguing either that the Shorten policy will bankrupt the economy, or has been so hopelessly costed that it shows Shorten, and Labor, to be too naive, reckless and silly to be trusted with the reins of government - only serve the purpose of reminding everyone that Labor has a policy and he does not.
Morrison claims the election is not a referendum on the need to do something about climate change. He says he agrees something should be done. The Coalition was taking action and would continue to do so. The question was whether the exciting, positive and good (and, no doubt, agile and flexible) measures the government was taking were appropriate, or whether we should have the reckless 45 per cent emission reduction target Labor was proposing, which would force Australians to choose between the economy and the environment. But it has been only belatedly that Morrison has seen any need to be on the side of history in the matter, and many voters, outside his own bubble, will remember him for the stunt promoting the use of coal.
Labor starts with the advantage that a majority of the population, along with the scientific community, national and international, and a good deal of industry, agree on the need to take effective action on world temperature increases and enormous local environmental damage.
Tony Abbott's political arguments against carbon pricing - and his argument that Australia should not get ahead of international action - may once have helped stall concerted action to put prices on activities contributing to emissions. But Coalition measures have not been based on the science, but on the determination of a significant rump in the party that nothing be done that inhibits coal extraction - from which substantial donations come to the party.
Putting out the projections of partisan economists, and effectively denying there will be serious costs to the Australian economy, and Australian governments, if Australia does nothing is not, of itself, enough to prove bigger targets for reducing emissions will ruin the economy. Indeed many sober people - not given to apocalyptic panic - fear disaster for our economy and our environment if Australia does nothing or so little that it has no impact on world emissions. The fear increases as effective action is delayed.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Mark Butler talk to Wilson Burns at the Southern Sustainable Electric solar farm in Whyalla, South Australia. Picture: AAP

Labor may have once, care of Kevin Rudd, proclaimed climate change as the moral issue of our time. For many voters, it remains that. But Labor is not promoting the issue as a moral imperative so much as the sensible and sound reaction to the scientific evidence of what is occurring, including evidence of more unpredictable weather. It's not panicky, or ideologically driven by advocates opposed to any form of mineral extraction or private enterprise. Rather it is in accord with the consensus of scientists, economists and industry and public policy experts all around the world, even if almost every continent has a significant denier standing in the way of sensible action.
Hysteria and refusal to believe in climate change, or to countenance any change are now rather more in the domain of the conservatives. Worst-case scenarios, even assuming the assumptions that have been fed into the models, are presented as the likely outcome. The misrepresentation does the Morrison government little credit, even in an election context. Morrison is perfectly entitled to seek to score points from some Shorten faltering on cost matters, but for most voters the debate belongs inside what Morrison would normally call "the Canberra bubble" - intricate detail for policy wonks, or, alternatively, matters that Morrison does not want to answer questions about.
But while Labor has shown some courage in making climate change one of the significant points of difference between itself and the Coalition, it can hardly be said, so far, that Labor has succeeded in making this the climate change election. It is merely one among five pillars of a Labor platform, and Labor has, as yet, to get out and positively sell it. It acts as if there is some doubt that it really is a plus for the party, even if it represents a consensus of all but a few reactionary unionists, focused only on short-term job security and sceptical about jobs for their members in an economy focused on emission reduction. Beyond being popular generally in the party, having a policy with some teeth is, or ought to be, a selling point in taking first preference votes from the Greens.
Labor policy is not as comprehensive as the Greens, but is perhaps better crafted for political reality. The Greens' history of letting their demand for perfection stand in the way of significant advances over the status quo has not been forgotten.
Labor has not shrunk from defending its policies, or the virtues of doing something, while it has been under attack over claims that it will act as a wrecking ball on the economy. But it should be doing more in mobilising support for itself around its policies, and in accepting and agreeing that the policies mean business. Opinion polls show that this is exactly what people want.

Labor policy is not as comprehensive as the Greens, but is perhaps better crafted for political reality.

As it happens, others are doing their best to keep the issue to the forefront. In most of the contests in which high profile independents are running against sitting Coalition members, climate change has been the chief issue used to differentiate the candidate from the incumbent. These have not been challenges the incumbents, such as Tony Abbott, have been keen to accept. He has himself moved significantly from his denialist positions, at the same time arguing that a vote for his opponent, Zali Steggall, is effectively a vote for Labor. The others - in Wentworth, Kerryn Phelps is campaigning to retain the seat won at a by-election when Malcolm Turnbull was a victim of the determined opposition within the Coalition to effective climate change action, and Helen Haines is running for Indi to replace the popular independent, Cathy McGowan.

Kerryn Phelps and Zali Steggall, the two indie candidates for Wentworth and Warringah. Picture: Edwina Pickles.

These are candidates who describe themselves as likely to support the Liberal Party particularly on economic issues. But they have made the need for action on climate change the central point of their platforms, and the prime point of differentiation from their Coalition opponents. It is the attention given to these contests that has the issue front and centre.
Also helping keep the issue to the fore, perhaps particularly in NSW, is the distress of many in the rural sector that the National Party, and the Coalition, seem more focused on supporting extractive industries, including coal and gas, than agriculture. In more closely settled areas, the argument has been about fracking, and the loss of valuable pastoral land by farmers. More widely, it has been about water mining, about abuses with irrigation water, particularly by big scale cotton farmers upstream of the Darling (or Barwon) river. Large scale fish kills and prolonged drought brought cries of cronyism, favouritism, a failure to enforce the law.
It's not, as usual, a picture much helped by reports of sales, under policies pioneered by Barnaby Joyce, in which tens of millions have been paid for non-existent water, the money in question disappearing to tax havens overseas. Only a month ago, National Party incumbents in the state election lost seats to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party, primarily over perceptions that the National Party was not serving the interests of rural people. Rural people do understand climate change; it has been a reality for years. Many are frustrated that so little is being done about it, primarily because of the active opposition of National members. While the threat to the very continuance of the National Party is obvious enough, and there is ample evidence of their being warned about the risks, it is far from clear that the party leadership (and alternative leadership, in the form of Barnaby Joyce) are addressing the problem.

For Labor, climate change should be a crusade, in both positive and negative terms.

To draw attention to Independents, or the bad example of the Nationals in the face of serious climate change is not to diminish Labor (or Green) activity on policies to combat climate change. But it is time that Shorten, and Labor, went positive and attacking on the issue, rather than defensive, seeming a little worried by the way Morrison has been focusing on it as a weakness. Shorten has been calm and unapologetic as he has been under assault. He is not usually at his best in dealing with forecasts, baited assumptions, and suggestions that he is withholding something from the community. Under immediate assault, it may be hard to change the subject. But if he is leading with the need for, and the value of the policy, he has a wider capacity to focus on the general case.
For Labor, climate change should be a crusade, in both positive and negative terms. It represents what citizens, as well as the research (and much of industry) community think is needed. But it also underlines the shambles of Coalition government, with three prime ministers over two terms because of prolonged brawls about whether there is to be any serious action taken. Action to deal with the effects of changes to the environment with the capacity to hurt Australia more than any of our neighbours.
The crusade cannot, or should not, be a series of actions by government remote from the effects that they have in different communities. In much the same manner that Paul Keating took the electorate along with economic reforms in the 1980s, concerted action should be part of a continuous dialogue with the wider community, in which the situation is repeatedly explained, new and emerging science is publicly seen to be brought to bear, and benefits and trade-offs, for example in relation to energy prices and the electricity market, to work to restore environments, are explained along with explanation for any adverse action.
It could also lead to some revised ways of organising climate change action. A propaganda point against action, for example, has been the suggestion that dour scientists, or pointy-headed intellectuals, will be seeking to take control of the lives of people working in productive industries. It would be a better sell, and easier on able and committed scientists, if what was described was a new sense of partnership, in which scientific skill and knowledge was added to the existing expertise of, say, farmers, who were acknowledged for work they had already done to improve the sustainability of their land and efficiencies with hydrocarbons, water consumption and tree control.
We know from the experience with the carbon tax that there are many in industry, and mining, who will adapt their behaviour, and significantly reduce emissions with clear price signals and transitional support. Many do it because they themselves see the problem and the imperative for action, rather than because they feel coerced. Many see the potential for economic benefits in the shifts to sustainable energy.
Labor is still the favourite to win this election, even as polls show some softening of support. This represents some success in efforts by Morrison to scare voters about risks to the economy if the dreaded socialists win. Labor has to give people reasons for voting for it, as much as it reminds people of the reasons why its opponents should be thrown it. It should own and embrace its policies, not dive for cover.

*Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times

Links

• Coalition Is To Blame For Uncertainty Over Climate Costs
• Tim Winton: Our Leaders Are Ignoring Global Warming To The Point Of Criminal Negligence. It's Unforgivable
• Support For Action Surges, As Majority Say We Face Climate Emergency
• Australia’s Election Is A Chance To Regain Our Leadership On Climate Change
• Both Parties Still In Climate Policy Black Hole
• A Climate Reckoning Is Coming To Our Political Hothouse
• Experts Find 'Integrity Issues' With Coalition's Direct Action Policy
• The Next Reckoning: Capitalism And Climate Change
• The Carbon Brief Profile: Australia
• Climate change link to global droughts goes back a century, study finds
• The thirsty giants killing our rivers
• 'Very close': cost of some electric cars to match petrol ones by 2020
• New modelling to unleash explosive row over climate change costings

Coalition Is To Blame For Uncertainty Over Climate Costs

SMH - Editorial

For the fifth election in a row, Australia is facing a campaign in which the Coalition is demanding the ALP come clean about the cost of its policies to fight climate change. Yet it is the Coalition which should be under pressure to explain why, after six years in government, it has no plan at all.
The esoteric debate over the minutiae of macroeconomic modelling of climate policy has resurfaced this week after a former executive director of the Australian Bureau of Resources and Agricultural Economics, Brian Fisher, now a consultant, published a 23-page document comparing the economic impacts of the ALP's target of cutting emissions to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and the Coalition's plan to only cut by 26 per cent.

Climate change protesters outside Scott Morrison's office. Credit: John Veage

The rather unsurprising conclusion was that the ALP's more ambitious target will probably cost more.
Economic modelling has a place but it can be confusing. While the estimate of the cumulative cost over 11 years of a particular climate change policy may sound like a very big number, often it turns out to be more like a rounding error compared to Australia's $1.9 trillion annual economic output.
Former Reserve Bank of Australia board member Warwick McKibbin, who is just as handy with a model as Dr Fisher, has said the costs would only be a "small fraction" of the economy.
In any case the forecasts of such a complicated decade-long transformation are no more accurate than other long-term economic predictions  and the results will depend entirely on the assumptions put into the modelling machine, which are highly controversial.
One major criticism of Dr Fisher's model is that it assumes that renewable energy is still far more expensive than coal-fired power. That was true a decade ago but technology and mass production have leapt ahead and the cost advantage for coal over a combination of renewables and battery storage has narrowed and on some estimates has even disappeared.
The other crucial omission in Dr Fisher's work is that it fails to attach any economic cost to allowing climate change to go unchecked.  It refers to numerous economic studies but not to the landmark United Nations International Panel on Climate Change report last year, based on thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers, which predicted that, unless the rise in global temperatures is kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the coral of the Great Barrier Reef will die by the end of the century. That would destroy an asset worth about $1 trillion to the economy, not to mention a natural wonder that defines Australia.
Voters will have to choose whether they want the ALP's more ambitious target for reducing emissions or the Coalition's but it is the Coalition which should be ashamed of failing to come clean on the costs of its policies.
For the past six years it has used double speak about the cost of taking action and rising power prices as an excuse for doing nothing at all. It has been paralysed by fear of stirring up the embers of the hostility between its climate denialist right wing and centrists who accept the scientific consensus.
While Prime Minister Scott Morrison has had the chutzpah to accuse the ALP of failing to come clean on the costs of its policies, despite his control of all the bean-counting resources of Treasury to crunch numbers, Mr Morrison has failed to make public a coherent, costed climate policy himself.
After killing off the ALP's carbon tax and then its own National Energy Guarantee plan which enjoyed widespread backing last year, the Coalition belatedly announced a Clayton's climate change policy just before calling the election. The centrepiece is an Emissions Reductions Fund of $2.6 billion over 15 years which would pay for things such as growing trees to absorb carbon. But it is barely more than a thought bubble and there is no modelling or detail.
Mr Morrison continues to claim that Australia will meet its commitments for emissions cuts under the Paris climate treaty "at a canter" even though on official government figures emissions are currently rising. Modelling would provide a reality check on whether the paltry $170 million a year Mr Morrison has allocated in the budget to the ERF will come close to what is required to compensate for that growth and then reduce Australia's emissions down to the required 26 per cent reduction.
Rather than spreading a smokescreen of false rigour to mask its own incoherent policy, the Coalition should explain in detail how its plan will hit the Paris targets and what that will cost. Without that,  Australia could face a sixth election where the same tedious claims about economic modelling take up valuable time that could be better used solving the real problem.

Links

• Tim Winton: Our Leaders Are Ignoring Global Warming To The Point Of Criminal Negligence. It's Unforgivable
• Support For Action Surges, As Majority Say We Face Climate Emergency
• Australia’s Election Is A Chance To Regain Our Leadership On Climate Change
• Both Parties Still In Climate Policy Black Hole
• A Climate Reckoning Is Coming To Our Political Hothouse
• Experts Find 'Integrity Issues' With Coalition's Direct Action Policy
• The Next Reckoning: Capitalism And Climate Change
• The Carbon Brief Profile: Australia
• Climate change link to global droughts goes back a century, study finds
• The thirsty giants killing our rivers
• 'Very close': cost of some electric cars to match petrol ones by 2020
• New modelling to unleash explosive row over climate change costings

UK Parliament Declares Climate Change Emergency

BBC

Reuters

MPs have approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency.

This proposal, which demonstrates the will of the Commons on the issue but does not legally compel the government to act, was approved without a vote.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who tabled the motion, said it was "a huge step forward".
Environment Secretary Michael Gove acknowledged there was a climate "emergency" but did not back Labour's demands to declare one.
The declaration of an emergency was one of the key demands put to the government by environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, in a series of protests over recent weeks.
Addressing climate protesters from the top of a fire engine in Parliament Square earlier, Mr Corbyn said: "This can set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe.
"We pledge to work as closely as possible with countries that are serious about ending the climate catastrophe and make clear to US President Donald Trump that he cannot ignore international agreements and action on the climate crisis."

What is a climate emergency?

Thousands of Scottish school pupils took part in climate protests last month. Getty Images

Dozens of towns and cities across the UK have already declared "a climate emergency".
There is no single definition of what that means but many local areas say they want to be carbon-neutral by 2030.
Some councils have promised to introduce electric car hubs or build sustainable homes to try to achieve that goal.
It's a much more ambitious target than the UK government's, which is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2050.
Labour's motion also calls on the government to aim to achieve net-zero emissions before 2050 and for ministers to outline urgent proposals to restore the UK's natural environment and deliver a "zero waste economy" within the next six months.
The Welsh and Scottish governments have both already declared a climate emergency, along with dozens of towns and cities, including Manchester and London.

Links

• What is a climate emergency?
• Climate change: 'UK should be on 'war footing'
• Corbyn: UK must declare a climate emergency
• 'Climate emergency' declared in Wales
• Signs of faster melt in largest ice shelf
• Meet the schoolgirl climate warriors

Tears Outside PM's Office As Students Skip School To Demand Climate Action Again

ABC News - Paige Cockburn


'What's going to happen to the whole world?': Sydney student (ABC News)

Key points: Many of the speakers at events around Australia railed against the proposed Adani coal mine In Melbourne about 1,000 people attended a rally in the CBD and police blocked a section of Exhibition Street Former prime minister Tony Abbott's office in Sydney was also a hot spot

There were tears outside Scott Morrison's office in Sydney's south, but the biggest crowds were in Melbourne where thousands of students skipped school to demand action on climate change.
About 70 demonstrations were held around Australia — hundreds turned out at the Prime Minister's office in Cronulla, although most in the crowd there were older than school age.
Stella Brazier, 14, burst into tears when asked about her decision to attend.
"It just upsets me so much because I just don't now if they [politicians] are going to do anything," she said.
"What's going to happen to humankind, what's going to happen to the whole world?"
Former prime minister Tony Abbott's office in Warringah was also a hot spot.
Students held signs with slogans such as "denial is not a policy" and "what we stand for is what we stand on" while chanting "time up's Tony".

Anthony Albanese's office in Marrickville was a hot spot for protesters. (ABC News: Jamie Toomey)

Keish Davis, 15, said her family fully supported her choice to leave school for the day to attend the protest.
"We would be in school if the politicians were doing their job," she said.
"I don't believe Australia's Prime Minister is doing a good enough job securing my future and the future of all generations to come."

Biggest crowds in Melbourne
Many of the speakers in capital cities railed against the Adani coal mine, in central Queensland, and demanded Australia increase its take-up of renewable energy.
In Melbourne, Exhibition Street was closed and the roller door pulled down on Liberal headquarters as 1,000 school strikers turned up the heat.

Police blocked a section of Exhibition Street for the protests in Melbourne. (ABC News: Daryl Torpy)

Emma Demarchi, 17, said this was indicative of the Government's approach to young people.
"This shows us just how scared this Government is of the power of young people," she said.

"Shutting streets and roller doors in the face of peaceful student rallies is not something the Liberal Party can be proud of."

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said students were giving an education to politicians.
"They are teaching them what is important, and what is important, is their future and taking strong action on climate change," he said.
"Tony Abbott's the problem here ... he has been arrogant and dismissive of the voices of young people."

Hundreds of people marched to Exchange Plaza in Perth as part of the protest. (ABC News: David Weber)

In Perth, a crowd of about 300 people marched to Exchange Plaza in the CBD to make their voices heard.
Meanwhile, in Adelaide, more than 100 protestors gathered at Boothby Liberal candidate Nicolle Flint's office.
Holding signs and chanting, the group criticised Ms Flint's record on the environment, particularly her support of pro-coal group Monash Forum.
Primary school student Nikolai Patrick said it was time for politicians to listen to young people.
"I would probably say they need to turn their minds around and think slightly differently about the environment and what that can do to us," she said.

Links

• Students defy Premier and skip class to attend Sydney climate change rally
• Top Sydney schools back students skipping class for climate change rally
• Young people won’t accept inaction on climate change, and they’ll be voting in droves
• School climate strikes: why adults no longer have the right to object to their children taking radical action
• Students striking for climate action are showing the exact skills employers look for
• Greta Thunberg at Davos: why Gen Z has real power to influence business on climate change
• Marriage survey: two-thirds of new voters are aged 18-24
• We Underestimate Young People Because It's Convenient
• Climate Change Spurs Shannon Loughnane's 700km Cross-Country Protest Hike
• The Young Minds Solving Climate Change
• The Rise Of Students Against Climate Change
• Climate Strike: Greta Thunberg Calls For ‘System Change Not Climate Change’ – Here’s What That Could Look Like
• Students Worldwide Skip School To Demand Tough Action On Climate Change
• Climate Change Strikes Across Australia See Student Protesters Defy Calls To Stay In School

8 Ways To Teach Climate Change In Almost Any Classroom

NPR - Anya Kamenetz

Angela Hsieh/NPR

NPR/Ipsos conducted a national poll recently and found that more than 8 in 10 teachers — and a similar majority of parents — support teaching kids about climate change.
But in reality, it's not always happening: Fewer than half of K-12 teachers told us that they talk about climate change with their children or students. Again, parents were about the same.

---

EDUCATION

Most Teachers Don't Teach Climate Change;
4 In 5 Parents Wish They Did

---

The top reason that teachers gave in our poll for not covering climate change? "It's not related to the subjects I teach," 65% said.
Yet at the same time, we also heard from teachers and education organizations who are introducing the topic in subjects from social studies to math to English language arts, and at every grade level, from preschool on up.
That raises the question: Where does climate change belong in the curriculum, anyway?
The "reality of human-caused climate change" is mentioned in at least 36 state standards, according to an analysis done for NPR Ed by Glenn Branch, the deputy director at the National Center for Science Education. But it typically appears only briefly — and most likely just in earth science classes in middle and high school. And, Branch says, that doesn't even mean that every student in those states learns about it: Only two states require students to take earth or environmental science classes to graduate from high school.
Joseph Henderson teaches in the environmental studies department at Paul Smith's College in upstate New York. He studies how climate change is taught in schools and believes it needs to be taught across many subjects.
"For so long this has been seen as an issue that is solely within the domain of science," he says. "There needs to be a greater engagement across disciplines, particularly looking at the social dimensions," such as the displacement of populations by natural disasters.

Reasons Teachers Don’t Teach Climate Change

Source: NPR/Ipsos polls of 505 teachers conducted March 21-29. The credibility interval for the overall sample is 5 percentage points. This question was asked of the 55% of teachers who said that they do not teach climate change. Respondents could select up to three answers. “Other” and “Don’t know” responses not shown.

Credit: Alyson Hurt/NPR

At the same time, there's a tension in pushing more educators to take this on. "I worry a lot about asking schools to solve yet another problem that society refuses to deal with."
As a potential response to this criticism, the nonprofit Ten Strands follows an "incremental infusion" model in California. In other words, environmental literacy becomes part of subjects and activities that are already in the curriculum instead of, the organization says, "burdening educators" with another stand-alone and complex area to cover.

---

NPR ED

Why Science Teachers Are Struggling 
With Climate Change

---

We also heard from teachers who say they are searching for more ideas and resources to take on the topic of climate change. Here are some thoughts about how to broach the subject with students, no matter what subject you teach:

1. Do a lab.
Lab activities can be one of the most effective ways to show children how global warming works on an accessible scale.
Ellie Schaffer is a sixth-grader at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, D.C. In science class, she has done simulations on greenhouse effects, using plastic wrap to trap the sun's heat. And she has used charcoal to see how black carbon from air pollution can speed the melting of ice.
These lessons have raised her awareness — and concern. "We've ignored climate change for a long time and now it's getting to be, like, a real problem, so we've gotta do something."
Many teachers we talked with mentioned NASA as a resource for labs and activities. The ones in this outline can be done with everyday materials such as ice, tinfoil, plastic bottles, rubber, light bulbs and a thermometer.
On the Earth Science Week website, there's a list of activities and lesson plans aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. They range from simple to elaborate.

2. Show a movie.
Susan Fisher, a seventh-grade science teacher at South Woods Middle School in Syosset, N.Y., showed her students the 2016 documentary Before the Flood, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio journeying to five continents and the Arctic to see the effects of climate change. "It is our intention to make our students engaged citizens," Fisher says.

---

NPR ED

Teaching Middle-Schoolers Climate Change 
Without Terrifying Them

---

Before the Flood has an action page and an associated curriculum. Common Sense Media has a list of climate change-related movies for all ages.
The 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth and its 2017 sequel, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power, have curricular materials created in partnership with the National Wildlife Federation.

3. Assign a novel.
Rebecca Meyer is an eighth-grade English language arts teacher at Bronx Park Middle School in New York City.
She assigned her students a 2013 novel by Mindy McGinnis called Not a Drop to Drink.
"As we read the novel, kids made connections between what is happening today and the novel," Meyer says. "At the end of the unit, as a culminating project, students chose groups, researched current solutions for physical and economic water scarcity and created PSA videos using iMovie about the problem and how their solution could help to combat the issue."
She described the unit as a success. "They were very engaged; they loved it," she explains. "A lot of them shared this information with their families. When parents came in for parent-teacher conferences, they mentioned their kids had been talking to them about conserving water."
Not A Drop To Drink belongs to a subgenre of science fiction known as "cli-fi" (climate fiction) or sometimes eco-fiction. You can find lists of similar books at websites like Dragonfly.eco or at the Chicago Review of Books, which has a monthly Burning Worlds column about this kind of literature.
Looking for English topics for younger students? EL Education covers environmental topics, including water conservation and the impact of natural disasters, in its K-5 English language arts curriculum.

---

NPR ED

Educators On A Hot Topic: Global Warming 101

---

4. Do citizen science.
Terry Reed is the self-proclaimed "science guru" for seventh-graders at Prince David Kawananakoa Middle School in Honolulu. He has also spent a year sailing the Caribbean, and on his way, he collected water samples on behalf of a group called Adventure Scientists, to be tested for microplastics. (Spoiler: Even on remote, pristine beaches, all the samples had some.)
He has assigned his students to collect water samples from beaches near their homes to submit for the same project. He also has them take pictures of cloud formations and measure temperatures, to see changes in weather patterns over time. "One thing I stress to them, that in the next few years, they become the voting public," he says. "They need to be aware of the science."

5. Assign a research project, multimedia presentation or speech.
Gay Collins teaches public speaking at Waterford High School in Waterford, Conn. She is interested in "civil discourse" as a tool for problem-solving, so she encourages her students "to shape their speeches around critical topics, like the use of plastics, minimalism, and other environmental issues.

6. Talk about your personal experience.
Pamela Tarango teaches third grade at the Downtown Elementary School in Bakersfield, Calif. She tells her students about how the weather has changed there in her lifetime, getting hotter and drier: "In our Central Valley California city of Bakersfield, there has been a change in the winter climate. I told them about how, when I was growing up in the 1970s, we often had several two-and-three-hour delays to school starting because of dense tule fog, which affected visibility. We really never have those delays in the metropolitan area. It is only the outlying areas, which still have two-and-three-hour dense fog delays, and they are rare even for the rural areas."
(Although the Central Valley winter has indeed become hotter and drier because of climate change, recently a University of California, Berkeley study has attributed the reduction in tule fog specifically to declines in air pollution.)

---

Environment And Energy Collaborative

Skipping School Around The World 
To Push For Action On Climate Change

---

7. Do a service project.
"I teach preschoolers and use the environment and our natural resources to highlight our everyday life," says Mercy Peña-Alevizos, who teaches at Holy Trinity Academy in Phoenix. "I stress the importance of appreciation and eliminating waste. My students understand and have fantastic ideas. We recycle and pick up around our neighborhood."
Environmental service projects can be simple, elaborate or just for fun. Check out the #trashtag challenge on social media, for example.

8. Start or work in a school garden.
Mairs Ryan teaches science at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School in San Diego. "The sixth-graders oversee the school garden, as well as our vermin composting bin, christened the 'Worm Hotel'. The garden is their lab and the students 'live and learn' soil carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture. Our school's compost bin is evidence that alternatives exist to methane-producing landfills. In looking for more solutions to reduce methane, students debate food reuse practices around the world."
Check out ThePermacultureStudent.com for resources on building school gardens with rainwater capture and compost systems to regenerate the soil. There are local and regional resources such as the Collective School Garden Network in California and Growing Minds in North Carolina, which offer basic plans for a school garden as well as lesson plans that connect gardening to Common Core standards.

Links

• Alliance for Climate Education has a multimedia resource called Our Climate Our Future, plus more resources for educators and several action programs for youth.
• The American Association of Geographers has free online professional development resources for teachers.
• American Reading Co. sells an English Language Arts curriculum called ARCCore that includes climate change themes.
• Biointeractive, created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has hundreds of free online education resources, including many on education and the environment, and it offers professional development for teachers.
• Climate Generation offers professional development for educators nationwide and a youth network in Minnesota.
• CLEAN (Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network) has a collection of resources organized in part by the Next Generation Science Standard it is aligned with.
• Global Oneness Project offers lesson plans that come with films and videos of climate impacts around the world.
• Google offers free online environmental sustainability lesson plans for grades 5-8.
• The Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility has a group of 19 lessons for K-12.
• "We believe that the social and emotional skills we help strengthen in young people and adults are sorely needed to combat the fear and avoidance we and students experience around climate change," spokesperson Laura McClure told NPR.
• The National Center for Science Education has free climate change lessons that focus on combating misinformation. They also have a "scientist in the classroom" program.
• The National Science Teachers Association has a comprehensive curriculum.
• The Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y., has a book called the Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change.
• Ripple Effect "creates STEM curriculum" for K-6 "about real people and places impacted by climate change," starting with New Orleans.
• Ten Strands offers professional learning to educators in California in partnership with the state's recycling authority and an outdoor-education program, among others.
• Think Earth offers 9 environmental education units from preschool through middle school.
• The Zinn Education Project (based on the work of Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History Of The United States) has launched a group of 18 lessons aimed specifically at climate justice. Some are drawn from this book: A People's Curriculum For The Earth: Teaching Climate Change And The Environmental Crisis.

Young People Won’t Accept Inaction On Climate Change, And They’ll Be Voting In Droves

The Conversation - Hannah Feldman

School students take part in the global #ClimateStrike rally in Melbourne, Friday, March 16, 2019. AAP Image/Ellen Smith

Young Australians have hit the streets for the second Climate Strike of 2019.
Youths are often brushed off as being politically disengaged, but the Australian Electoral Commission has reported record high numbers of youth enrolment, and climate change will be at the forefront of their minds when many take to the polls for the first time.
But unlike older generations, who develop and stick to lifelong party allegiances, we’re seeing dramatic shifts in the way young people vote, choosing sides based on issues and specific policies instead.
Slowly, we’re beginning see governments respond to climate change protests. Yesterday the UK Parliament declared a climate emergency, one of the demands from the Extinction Rebellion group who marched for ten days across London.

IMAGE Article link

But there’s still much more to do. And the youth Climate Strike movement shows us loud and clear that young people not only care about climate change, but that it needs to be brought to the table to cement their vote.

Changing of the guard on party politics
The classification of “political engagement” around the world has traditionally had a strong citizenry focus: campaigning for a political party, joining unions, writing letters to MPs, and many other activities that would seem positively archaic to youth today.

Students at Brisbane’s Climate Strike in March, 2019. AAP Image/Dan Peled

Generation Z doesn’t need a town hall meeting or front bar at the Union Pub to get up to date information on their communities. Online communities mean they can find their tribe and pinpoint the political issues they care about, like climate change.
As a result, they’re more likely to focus their political attention on specific causes. For those voting for the first time on May 18, being politically active can mean product boycotts or endorsements, signing petitions and, as with Climate Strike, protest movements.
While protests are an ancient tradition, Climate Strike is being led entirely by school students. Greta Thunberg, now aged 16, began the School Strike for Climate movement after attracting press to a then solitary protest at Swedish parliament in 2018.
By March 15, 2019, the movement had grown to over 1.4 million students in more than 300 cities worldwide.

Greta Thunberg

This movement forces adults to acknowledge climate change is not only impacting the futures of an unknown, unborn generation, but also of those protesting here and now.
Climate change, then, is not only an important issue for under 24-year-olds, but also a deeply personal one. Discussion of climate change often elicits intense emotions like fear and anxiety for their futures.
In a speech earlier this year in Davos, Switzerland, Thunberg said:

adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

But despite their concern and focus on climate change as a political issue, very few young people have felt they could influence anything on a large scale. With Climate Strike, this may be changing.

Today’s issues, tomorrow’s voters
Young Australians have felt helpless and frustrated when it comes to curtailing climate change for several decades. This has flow-on effects that see youth hesitant to take action, especially considering no one likes to get involved in political issues they don’t feel like they can affect.

Climate change is the future for young Australians, and they won’t wait until they’re older to take action. Dean Lewins/AAP

What’s more, Millennials and Generation Z are often labelled “lazy” or “entitled” free loaders in public discourse. This leads to a further retreat from political issues, and young people living up to the low expectation already set for them. It’s a cruel cycle.
But in 2017, young people were presented with a perfect opportunity to effect change in on a single issue: the same-sex marriage postal survey.
During this time, 100,000 Australians registered to vote for the first time, with 65% under the age of 24. These newly enrolled voters will also be stepping up to their first federal election in 2019, and they’re now feeling empowered to bring climate change to the table.
High profile protest movements such as Climate Strike don’t just help to make changes in the political arena. Participants are left feeling confident about the change they can make to a cause.
The result: we have a young generation more engaged with climate change policy than ever before.
After 150,000 young Australians attended Climate Strike in March 2019, one can’t help but to sit up and take notice of this vocal group of people.
As with any demographic, there will be those who continue to vote impulsively, without much consideration for their choice. But there will also be a considerable portion that vote on the issues that matter to them.
All told, climate change needs to be addressed in a real and meaningful way to win over these new voters. Those who can’t vote this election will soon be charging at the next.

Links

• School climate strikes: why adults no longer have the right to object to their children taking radical action
• Students striking for climate action are showing the exact skills employers look for
• Greta Thunberg at Davos: why Gen Z has real power to influence business on climate change
• Marriage survey: two-thirds of new voters are aged 18-24

Climate Change Forced These Fijian Communities To Move – And With 80 More At Risk, Here’s What They Learned

The Conversation - Annah Piggott-McKellar |  Karen Elizabeth McNamara | Patrick D. Nunn

Many houses were flattened after Tropical Cyclone Evan, leading to the partial relocation of the Fijian viillage Denimanu. Rowena Harbridge/AusAID, CC BY-SA

The original Fijian village of Vunidogoloa is abandoned. Houses, now dilapidated, remain overgrown with vegetation. Remnants of an old seawall built to protect the village is a stark reminder of what climate change can do to a community’s home.
Vunidogoloa is one of four Fijian communities that have been forced to relocate from the effects of climate change. And more than 80 communities have been earmarked by the Fiji government for potential future relocation.
Low lying coastal communities like these are especially vulnerable to threats of sea-level rise, inundation of tides, increased intensity of storm surges and coastal erosion. Extreme, sudden weather events such as cyclones can also force communities to move, particularly in the tropics.
But relocating communities involves much more than simply rebuilding houses in a safer location.
It involves providing the right conditions for people to rebuild the lives they knew, such as equitable access to resources and services, social capital and community infrastructure.
Our research documents the experiences and outcomes of relocation for two of these Fijian communities – Vunidogoloa and Denimanu.

The relocated villages
My colleagues and I visited Vunidogoloa and Denimanu, villages in Fiji’s Northern Islands, at the end of 2017 and spoke to village leaders and community members to learn how they felt about the relocation process.
All 153 residents of Vunidogoloa and roughly half of the 170 people in Denimanu moved away from their climate ravaged homes.

Map of Fiji showing the two case study sites. Author provided

Flooding in Vunidogoloa
Vunidogoloa is a classic example of the slow creep of climate change. For a number of decades the residents have fought coastal flooding, salt-water intrusion and shoreline erosion. The village leaders approached the Fijian government, asking to be relocated to safer ground.
The relocation was originally set for 2012 but, after delays, the entire village moved roughly 1.5 kilometres inland two years later. This is often recognised as the first ever village in Fiji to relocate from climate change.

The new village relocation site of Vunidogoloa.

Cyclone in Denimanu
In contrast to Vunidogoloa, Denimanu experienced sudden onset effects of climate change.
While the village had been experiencing encroaching shorelines for years, it was Tropical Cyclone Evan, which hit in 2012 destroying 19 houses closest to the shoreline, that prompted relocation.
These homes were rebuilt roughly 500 metres from the original site on a hill slope. With the remaining houses still standing on the original site, the village was only partially moved.

The new village relocation site of Denimanu. Author provided

Was relocation a success?
The relocation was a success in Vunidogoloa, and residents said they now feel much safer from climate change hazards. One villager told us:

We were so fearful because of the tides living at the old site. We were happy to move away from that fear.

But in Denimanu, where the relocated villagers live on a slope, fears of coastal threats have now been replaced by a fear of potential landslides. This is especially concerning as the village’s primary school was recently destroyed by a nearby landslide.
A relocated Denimanu local said:

We were delighted with the move to the new houses, but we were still worried about the landslide because the houses were on the hill and we know this place.

The landslide that destroyed the primary school in Denimanu village.

Ultimately, residents in both villages were happy with many aspects of the relocation process.
For example, they were provided solar power, rainwater tanks, and household facilities that weren’t available in the original villages. Vunidogoloa also received pineapple plants, cattle, and fish ponds, which have helped reestablish their livelihoods.
But it’s not all good news. While new housing was built for the community, they were built to a poor standard, with leaking through the doors and walls, especially in periods of high rainfall. Fiji is located in the tropics, so these infrastructure problems are likely to get worse.
And moving the Vunidogoloa villagers away from the ocean might damage their livelihoods, as fishing is one of their dominant sources of food. The ocean also provides an important spiritual connection for local people.
The impacts of climate change are set to rise, especially if global action to halt greenhouse gas emissions stagnates. More vulnerable communities will need to move away from their current homes.
While relocating communities to safer, less exposed areas is one option to help people manage climate hazards, it’s not a viable solution for all those affected.
Our research shows relocation must be done in a manner that accounts for the rebuilding of local livelihoods, with sustainable adaptation solutions that put local priorities at the centre of this process.
And we need them before more coastal villages are impacted by both slow and sudden onset climate impacts, putting more people in danger.

Links

• For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence
• Sidelining God: why secular climate projects in the Pacific Islands are failing
• Don't give up on Pacific Island nations yet
• Pacific Shames PM On Climate Policy
• PM Morrison Says Australia Climate Target To Remain Unchanged, Despite Fiji's Criticism
• Climate Change Is 'No Laughing Matter', Fiji's PM Frank Bainimarama Tells Australia During Scott Morrison's Pacific Trip
• Pacific Nations Under Climate Threat Urge Australia To Abandon Coal Within 12 Years
• Australia Only Nation To Join US At Pro-Coal Event At COP24 Climate Talks
• Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga Says Australia's Climate Change Inaction Undermines Its 'Pacific Pivot'
• Vanuatu Says It May Sue Fossil Fuel Companies And Other Countries Over Climate Change
• Indigenous Poets Read Urgent Climate Message On A Melting Glacier
• Climate Change: Nauru’s Life On The Frontlines
• Global inequality is 25% higher than it would have been in a climate-stable world
• The value of trees: 4 essential reads