Climate Literacy Handbook: Guiding Principle for informed climate decision
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Guiding Principle for informed climate decision Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts. |
The seven Essential Principles of Climate Literacy are framed by this guiding principle, which relates to the crucially important social, economic, and environmental solutions required to meet the climate challenges we and future generations face.
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter was motivated in part to run for Governor because of his frustration with the lack of progress around climate change issues. On the campaign trail he didn’t speak in much detail about climate change or global warming, emphasizing instead the concept of the “New Energy Economy.”
He was recently asked “How important is climate literacy, understanding climate change to developing the new energy economy and a sustainable future?” He replied:
I think that we as a country need to lead the rest of the world in order for us to do this right. Leaders can act out of fear or they can act out of opportunity, and so it is important for us to have climate literacy but I think the conversations should absolutely include the opportunity for us to develop an economy around it. It’s really a mixture of things. This boat I was on in the Arctic is called the Endeavor, so we were playing with words about how we could come out with a statement that was really endorsed by people, Republicans and Democrats alike, about climate change and where we were on it.
So what we came up with was this notion that we should endeavor to act, and for five different reasons, all that begin with “E”. That we need a different energy future: that was the first E. That we can build an economy around it. That it was environmentally the right thing to do.
That we needed to educate people in order for us to do it and do it right, and to make it part of our mission to educate people. And the fifth was really about equity. That energy policy that we develop over time cannot be energy policy written on the backs of the poor. And quite frankly, if we do nothing, if we do nothing, it is the world’s poor that will be impacted most severely first because there are so many hundreds of millions of poor who live in places where they’ll become what we call climate refugees. So it is important to have this dialogue about climate and to educate people about climate, but at the same time it is also for us here in America, we respond very well with that it’s about building opportunities and a way of moving forward that’s really hopeful.
I’ll just tell you one last story, and then I think my time is up. So I go on this boat, right, and I mean we were focused on climate and energy. We had great tours, walking tours in the Arctic, we were our on sea kayaks. We had three or four discussions a day on this boat and people were panel presenters.
I was there presenting about Colorado’s success with the new energy economy. A lot of other people presented over time these fantastic discussions with very thoughtful people. So I came home and my sleep patterns were disturbed. So I wake up at two in the morning the first night I was home and my wife said “Are you OK? You’re awake at two in the morning!” I said “I’m awake because I have four children and none of them are thinking about climate change right now. It may be two in the morning but this is an important subject….They should be here, at home, thinking about climate change.”
So, that’s a long answer to the question, but it is important for everyone to understand it.
I think the dialogue has to include opportunity.
October 14, 2008, "Perspective on Colorado Energy", presented at Colorado’s New Energy Economy Conference
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Concept GPA. Climate information can be used to reduce vulnerabilities or enhance the resilience of communities and ecosystems affected by climate change. Continuing to improve scientific understanding of the climate system and the quality of reports to policy and decision-makers is crucial. |
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Concept GPB. Reducing human vulnerability to the impacts of climate change depends not only upon our ability to understand climate science, but also upon our ability to integrate that knowledge into human society. Decisions that involve Earth’s climate must be made with an understanding of the complex interconnections among the physical and biological components of the Earth system as well as the consequences of such decisions on social, economic, and cultural systems. |
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Concept GPC. The impacts of climate change may affect the security of nations. Reduced availability of water, food, and land can lead to competition and conflict among humans, potentially resulting in large groups of climate refugees. |
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Concept GPD. Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations through processes that move carbon out of the atmosphere or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. |
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Concept GPE. A combination of strategies is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most immediate strategy is conservation of oil, gas, and coal, which we rely on as fuels for most of our transportation, heating, cooling, agriculture, and electricity. Short-term strategies involve switching from carbon-intensive to renewable energy sources, which also requires building new infrastructure for alternative energy sources. Long-term strategies involve innovative research and a fundamental change in the way humans use energy. |
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Concept GPF. Humans can adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its impacts. Actions such as moving to higher ground to avoid rising sea levels, planting new crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, or using new building technologies represent adaptation strategies. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced research, technology, and infrastructure. |
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Concept GPG. Actions taken by individuals, communities, states, and countries all influence climate. Practices and policies followed in homes, schools, businesses, and governments can affect climate. Climate-related decisions made by one generation can provide opportunities as well as limit the range of possibilities open to the next generation. Steps toward reducing the impact of climate change may influence the present generation by providing other benefits such as improved public health infrastructure and sustainable built environments. |
Articles in Depth:
Teaching Aids and External Resources:
- Lesson: Global Nations International Climate SummitIn this lesson, students engage in a forum to discuss decision-making at an international level. Part of the Keystone Center's curriculum website CSI: Climate Status Investigations, which has over 65 lessons developed to introduce middle and high school teachers and their students to the topic of climate change and to provide new ways of thinking about the problem and potential solutions.
- Climate Action Toolkit- Clean Air, Cool PlanetThis website offers instructions for making colleges more climate-friendly. Useful tools include a carbon emissions calculation tool and detailed methods for establishing and meeting a carbon emissions target.
- Embodied Energy DatabaseEvery purchasing decision you make has consequences - energy goes into gathering the materials, manufacturing the stuff you buy and use, shipping the products to you, using the products, and then disposing of them. This tool estimates the embodied energy of consumer items. From Wattzon.com.
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