In his poem The Right to Dream (1995), the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano imagines “what the world will be like in 2025”. He dreams of a better future where there is respect for nature, equality and peace.
Unfortunately, 2025 is coming and we are no closer to realizing Galeano’s dream. In fact, we increasingly find ourselves in a situation where the survival of human civilization is at stake. This year alone, millions of people around the world have experienced extreme weather conditions, low temperatures, genocide, and deadly exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution that lead to massive deaths, injuries, displacement, poverty, and trauma.
Although the near future seems bleak, our education systems are close to providing children with the right tools and knowledge to help them understand.
Schools continue to be a battleground for building communities, and education can be used to support the status quo or create a just and sustainable future. Around the world, right-wing and authoritarian regimes are constantly attacking access to public education, literature, racial and gender history, and more.
Even in places where this is not possible, education programs are not enough to prepare the new generations to live in an era of climate change and take action on it.
In a country where climate disasters disrupt access to education, where environmental concerns are growing among young people, and where pollution affects the lives of millions of children, we must ensure that young people are equipped to deal with the climate crisis.
The Global Education Monitoring Report at UNESCO and the latest world map of the MECCE Project showed that the world scored only 50 percent in a test of how much education systems cover climate change in their teaching and learning. It also showed that much of the content related to climate change is still taught only in science classes and is not taught in other subjects.
Attending public schools in Texas, I saw this play out in practice. I saw how climate change was briefly mentioned and framed only as an upcoming issue that would affect polar bears. The solutions presented did not go beyond recycling and reducing one’s carbon footprint.
It wasn’t until I studied at the Young Scholars for Justice (YSJ) program, founded by the women-led organization People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources (PODER), that the pieces began to fall into place. The YSJ curriculum focuses on environmental justice programming, the history of movements led by people of color, local Indigenous cultures, and critical analysis of social and political structures.
Through various courses, art and poetry workshops, guest speakers, and organizing events, I was able to put words to describe the what, why, and how of the inequality I experienced and saw around me.
It was the first time I realized that indigenous knowledge is an important part of climate solutions. The cosmological stories of plants, tree spirits, bodhisattva etc passed down to me from my Hakka ancestors and the natives of Taiwan were full of wisdom. The cultural knowledge I had grown up with was important outside of my home.
In the years that followed, I became involved in many campaigns, from fighting the petrochemical industry and access to clean and affordable water, to advocating for fossil fuels and increasing impact policies.
The climate justice education I received at PODER, in my mother’s stories, in my community, in my passionate professors, and in organizing allowed me to turn despair into action. I see education as a practice of freedom, as an opportunity to reclaim culture, rewrite history, and rethink our world.
I believe it is important for all school students to have access to a comprehensive climate education, focused on the environment, justice, critical awareness, emotional learning, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) and practice. This is what led me to put together environmental justice studies and programs with other people of color.
Despite book bans, attacks on various histories and climate science, we must continue to work to ensure that communities have access to essential education. This is especially important now, as a new anti-climate government will soon take power in the United States.
We must go beyond awareness of the climate crisis to understand its social and political causes and solutions. That is why I support the call for action signed by young people and supported by UNESCO to adapt climate education so that we can all be powerful changemakers.
We owe it to the next generation to give them the tools and knowledge needed to tackle the climate crisis and systemic oppression. Only then can we imagine and build a different world – and I sincerely hope that our future generations will continue to dream. Who knows, maybe in 2055 Galeano’s dream will come true.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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