Climate Change Changes Everything and so Could Inquiry

Education has the potential to play a significant role in addressing the climate crisis. However, current approaches to teaching this issue are often superficial and typically fall short of inspiring action and change. In pursuit of climate justice and a more equitable and sustainable future, educators need to deepen their own understanding of the climate crisis, and afford space in their classrooms for critical dialogue, exploration, and student-led activism through inquiry-based learning.

Current Approaches to the Climate Crisis
Current approaches and proposed solutions to addressing the climate crisis both in schoolsand in larger society tend to center individual actions such as responsible waste disposal oradopting more “eco-friendly” consumer habits. Recycling and reusing are among the most popular examples of individual climate change solutions performed in schools today. However, these approaches are feel-good, low-effort actions that have little significant impact (Goldman et al., 2021); they also ignore the most important “R” which is to reduce consumption. Instead, the emphasis on recycling initiatives in schools reinforces consumer culture and distracts from the increasing need to reduce large scale production and consumption. Driven by profit, the goal of mass production and consumption is to meet the needs of the system even if this threatens the environment and human wellbeing (Bell, 2015). This can lead to the exploitation of nature and vulnerable populations in the form of unsustainable extraction, increased emissions, irresponsible handling of waste, disproportionate funding, and forced displacement. When climate change solutions rely heavily on individual action, they have minimal global impact and fail to address the systemic conditions that perpetuate climate injustice. Moreover, this individualized approach serves as a distraction from the substantive government, corporate, and systemic changes that the climate crisis requires.

With efficiency, competition, and economic growth at its core, neoliberalism emphasizes the value of the free market which promotes privatization, minimal government intervention, and reduced government expenditure on public and social services, thereby placing the onus solely on individuals to provide their own needs and to better the environment (Hursh et al., 2015). For example, the promotion of “ecofriendly” products and practices on individual consumers, such as recycling initiatives, continue to justify consumerism and encourage large corporations to continue mass producing as long as consumers are the ones to dispose of their waste “responsibly.” In addition, increased production also increases the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels whose harmful emissions are known to be a primary cause of the ever-changing climate. Further, the harmful effects of climate change, such as rising temperatures and sea levels have disproportionately impacted underserved populations and marginalized communities by means of inequitable funding, lack of resources, and forced displacement (Faber & Schlegel, 2017). Neoliberalism assumes that the market, driven by profitability, can be relied upon to make all decisions, including decisions concerning the climate crisis (Hursh et al.,2015). This diverts the responsibility onto individual consumers to adjust their own lifestyles accordingly. However, these individualistic neoliberal approaches have not only failed in terms of adequately addressing environmental issues such as reducing pollution and carbon emissions, but continue to perpetuate and exacerbate the climate crisis due to the market’s demand for consistent growth and profit. This is evident in how corporations often turn environmental issues into “opportunities for entrepreneurialism and technological innovation, rather than a systematic political and cultural rethinking and reworking of our relationships with the environment” (Hursh et al., 2015, p. 308). When the main goal is profit, alternative means of addressing the climate crisis such as reducing consumption, regulating production, prohibiting harmful environmental practices, and redistributing wealth are seen as naïve and damaging to the neoliberal market (Bell, 2015; Tuck, 2014). When the needs of our increasingly neoliberal society overrule the needs and well-being of humanity and the environment, how then, can real change be enacted? Inspiring Change through Inquiry [Climate change] is a civilizational wakeup call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions . . . Telling us that we need to evolve.

When climate crisis solutions rely heavily on individual responsibility and are only discussed through a neoliberal capitalist lens, we fail to critique and transform the very systems that exacerbate climate injustice. In contrast, if we openly critique these current approaches by inviting students to question, explore, reflect on, and take action against the systems and structures that perpetuate these issues, then there is emancipatory potential to enact real change. More specifically, there is immense potential to enact change through inquiry. A Freirean approach to inquiry-based learning, informed by Paulo Freire’s (1968/2005) seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, emphasizes education as a practice of freedom through the processes of problem-posing, critical dialogue, consciousness-raising, naming the world, and praxis. This approach to inquiry prompts students to view the world through a critical lens in order to recognize and name the environmental inequities and injustices that exist, for the purpose of transforming themselves, others, and ultimately, the world. In order to transform the world, students must first be able to name the world (Freire, 1968/2005). Within a climate justice inquiry, this would involve the ability to name the injustices brought on by climate change, such as its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, and their associated causes. This can be facilitated through Freire’s practice of problem-posing. Problem-posing is a process that emphasizes critical thinking and dialogue by inviting students to challenge the existing structures and systems in which they are situated. While neoliberalism attempts to invisibilize these underlying structures and systems, problem-posing education strives to uncover and disrupt these realities. Problem-posing and critical dialogue are key components of inquiry-based learning which pose real-world problems, such as the climate crisis and its connection to capitalism, for students to engage with and explore in ways that are meaningful, relevant, authentic, and ultimately, transformative.

Once named, students can reflect and act on these climate injustices which leads to Freire’s (1968/2005) notion of praxis, or the recursive process of action and reflection. By naming and critiquing dominant systems and ideologies, such as neoliberalism, students can begin to critique current environmental approaches and explore alternative options. Ultimately, “we want students to come to see themselves as truth-tellers and change-makers. If we ask children to critique the world but then fail to encourage them to act, our classrooms can degenerate into factories for cynicism” (Au et al., 2007, p. xi). Through a Freirean lens, the interplay of reflection and action is an essential part of inquiry that is too often omitted, rushed, glossed over, or implemented in ways that are superficial or individualistic. Drawing on Indigenous ways of knowing and being, transformative climate inquiry and action requires a relational approach that focuses on restoring human connection through respect, relevance, responsibility, reciprocity, and reverence with and for the earth, land, nature, and each other (Pidgeon, 2019). In order to do this effectively, educators must extend inquiry beyond the classroom walls, outside into nature, and into the community. Through this collective learning and action centered on relational accountability, as opposed to placing all responsibility on the individual, students and communities can remain hopeful and empowered to act as positive change-makers.Educators play a vital role in affording opportunities for student inquiry and activism. Therefore, we must remain critically informed through the development of a greater understanding of the current climate crisis and its causes. From this place of informed understanding, a Freirean approach to inquiry based learning facilitated with and not for communities, holds immense emancipatory potential to invoke hope, inspire collective action, spark political resistance, and pursue transformative climate justice within an increasingly neoliberal society.

References

Au, W., Bigelow, B., & Karp, S. (Eds.). (2007). Rethinking our classrooms, volume 1: Teaching for equity and justice. Rethinking Schools.

Bell, K. (2015). Can the capitalist economic system deliver environmental justice? Environmental Research Letters, 10(12), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.108/1748-9326/10/12/125017 

Faber, D., & Schlegel, C. (2017). Give me shelter from the storm: Framing the climate refugee crisis in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 28(3), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2017.1356494

Farrell, A. J. (2022). What does it mean to educate in a world that is prepared to go on without us? In A. J. Farrell, Ecosophy and educational research for the Anthropocene: Rethinking research through relational psychoanalytic approaches (pp. 1-15). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003024873-1

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published in 1968).

Goldman, D., Alkaher, I., & Aram, I. (2021). “Looking garbage in the eyes”: From recycling to reducing consumerism- transformative environmental education at a waste treatment facility. The Journal of Environmental Education, 52(6), 398-416. https://doi.org /10.1080/00958964.2021.1952397

Hursh, D., Henderson, J., & Greenwood, D. (2015). Environmental education in a neoliberal climate. Environmental Education Research, 21(3), 299-318. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13504622.2015.1018141

Klein, N. (2014). This changes everything: Capitalism vs.the climate [eBook edition]. Alfred A. Knopf Canada. Manitoba Education and Youth. (2003). Kindergarten to grade 8 social studies: Manitoba curriculum framework of outcomes. Manitoba Education and Youth. https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/socstu/framework/k-8framework.pdf

Manitoba Sustainable Development. (2017). A made-inManitoba climate and green plan: Hearing from Manitobans. Manitoba Government. https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/climatechange/climategreenplandiscussionpaper.pdf

Pidgeon, M. (2019). Moving between theory and practice within an Indigenous research paradigm. Qualitative Research, 19(4), 418-436. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1 468794118781380

Tuck, E. (2014). Neoliberalism as nihilism? A commentary on educational accountability, teacher education, and school reform. Journal for Critical Education Policy

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