Photo by Ernie Journeys on Unsplash.
Writing for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (December 8, 2022), NCSE's Deputy Director Glenn Branch addresses the handful of political party platforms that contain planks on climate change education.
"At the state level, only two political party platforms contain statements hostile to climate change education: those of the Republican parties in Oklahoma and Texas," he writes, while the state Democratic parties of California, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington (as well as the national Democratic party) endorse climate change education.
"While state legislators, members of state boards of education, and superintendents of education are not strictly bound by their party platforms, they are surely susceptible to the same political influences that produce their planks," Branch observes, citing recent episodes in which partisan politics seem to have influenced climate change education for good or for ill.
Public support for climate change education is nevertheless high, he remarks. "And that's why it's important to let politicians and policymakers everywhere know that a healthy majority of Americans support, expect, and demand climate change education."
