Secondary education in the face of the climate emergency

Abstract

The climate crisis poses the greatest challenge of the 21st century for human societies and life on the planet. The positions of scientific communities are conclusive - climate change is caused by human activities - and it does not appear that different nations of the world are committed to undertaking and accelerating the necessary actions to mitigate it and avoid the suffering of the most vulnerable and violated collectives. The possible lines of action to transition towards decarbonized and sustainable societies are diverse and complex, and education must be a fundamental pillar to undertake equitable and just ecosocial transitions from the local to the global level and from the triple perspective of social, environmental, and economic. However, it seems that the educational response to the climate crisis is also being precarious. It tends to ignore the social and ethical dimensions of the problem in order to focus most of the efforts on transposing scientific knowledge from positivist approaches. Approaches that inhibit or limit the required opportunities for action since they evade the ethical, social, and political dilemmas that need to be raised to promote truly transformative social actions.