We Need Critical Climate Education: a poem

(this poem is intended for a non-specialist audience, although it indirectly refers to Framings, Distributional/Procedural injustice and Climate Justice Movements, it was written with almost no technical jargon and is emotive in places for the purpose of making the reader interested in finding out more about CCE)

Climate Change, the face of our ever-indisputable, ever-looming reality.

Close associate of the dwellers of the South,

of the marginalised and impoverished and of children yet to come.

Almost sentient as it deals out consequences of swift, striking imparity.

 

Progress will not be made, and lives will remain unchanged.

For if the farmers remain rooted in their fields,

and people of colour forever trapped beneath the status quo,

and the children never taught their place, not at the fringes but at the forefront of this struggle.

Oh, how the ruling powers will delight! A short-sighted serpent of self-interest ready to erase all.

 

So let the Affected become the Arbiters, let their lived realities be heard,

let education stand to serve critical thought and collective action,

within and beyond the classroom walls, let it provoke, inspire and empower.

To take back all that’s at stake- not yours, not mine but a stable climate valued and shared.

 

(m.h.)

McGregor, C. and Christie, B., 2021. Towards climate justice education: Views from activists and educators in Scotland. Environmental Education Research, 27(5), pp.652-668.

Trott, C.D., Lam, S., Roncker, J., Gray, E.S., Courtney, R.H. and Even, T.L., 2023. Justice in climate change education: a systematic review. Environmental Education Research, 29(11), pp.1535-1572.

Svarstad, H., 2021. Critical climate education: Studying climate justice in time and space. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 30(1-2), pp.214-232.