Integrating the social sciences to enhance climate literacy

Abstract

The climate literacy movement aspires to help members of the general public understand the global climate system, locate and assess scientifically credible climatic information, communicate about climate change in an educated and objective manner, and make informed and responsible decisions in response to climate‐change impacts. When these goals are not met, society will likely be further imperiled by the effects of a changing climate. Climate literacy programs have traditionally promoted education on the biophysical science of the climate system but have largely failed to integrate relevant knowledge from the social sciences. We argue that understanding human behavior and the social drivers of climate change are essential for the public to fully appreciate the climate system, and that this knowledge can inform decision making related to climate‐change mitigation and adaptation. Teaching students to evaluate different forms of evidence will also improve climate literacy and lead them to ask how scientists know what they know. Finally, we suggest two new social science principles that could advance interdisciplinary climate literacy goals.

Untapped capacity for resilience in environmental law

“…This fact is perhaps most obvious in the limited international agreements to address climate change as both greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide continue to increase, and biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution, and ocean acidification also signal increasing needs for reform (1). As a result, subsidiary governments (e.g., US states, provinces, regions, cities) and other governance actors [e.g., private industry, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)] have become critical innovators (2). Nevertheless, rapidly accelerating environmental change demands further attention to national and international environmental law, particularly the need to identify and leverage the untapped capacity to enhance resilience that already exists in these laws.…”

The Impacts of a Climate Change SSI-STEAM Program on Junior High School Students’ Climate Literacy

“…Azevedo and Marques (2017) considered climate literacy 'to be a context of application in science literacy ' (p. 4). The definition of climate literacy in most previous studies has been constructed based on the statement of USGCRP (2009;Dupigny-Giroux, 2010;Park et al, 2010;Park, 2013;Shwom et al, 2017). This implied some agreement on the basic concept of climate literacy, even if some specific elements differed somewhat according to each study's unique context.…”

Introduction to Special Issue: Disciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change and Conflict

“…Additionally, as there is no common section to discuss the relationship between climate and conflict in AR6, there is an additional imperative to ensuring consistency in treatment across the chapters to avoid some of the issues encountered in AR5. 1 Here, the climate-conflict research community can provide especially valuable input by drawing on the social science efforts to improve the integration between the social and physical science disciplines [49] as well as the communication of climate policy [50] and general climate literacy [51].…”