How can I teach my students how to live in an unlivable world?

The day I dreaded had arrived. The class topic: calculating the scary math of global warming.

As my students turned their curious gazes toward me, I reflected on the fact that some of them had young children. Children who might inherit a burned and blistering landscape, where only the most resilient, most canny and most adaptable would survive. But now I would be asking their parents to confront the hard reality of chemistry and physics that ruthlessly dictates that as CO2 levels increase, so does global temperature.

Why me? I asked myself. How have I become the bearer of such bad news knowing that as the numbers begin to reveal their dark story, it will become clear to my young charges that world livability, already marginal to many, will in the absence of meaningful remediation, deteriorate further, likely resulting in mass chaos and dissolution? The math: at the current rate of  annual CO2 emissions, 2020 CO2 levels of 413 ppm (parts per million) and a global temp increase of 1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution could soar to 550-650 ppm and easily surpass 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, just 30 years hence. The math further suggests that when my student’s children reach their 80s, they could be battling to survive in a world with 1,000 ppm CO2 levels and a 5-6 degree Celsius temperature increase. Living conditions in such a world would likely force humanity to live underground, in space, or under climate-controlled domes.

As my students scribe the simple numbers on the white board and perform the telling calculation, the inevitable knowing begins to descend upon the classroom. Denial, rejection and silent gloom are common responses to the unthinkable.

I wish it could be different. I have no desire to burden these sparkly and bright young men and women, eager to make their mark on the world, with a canceled future. Yet, as an educator who values scientific accuracy and wishes only to equip my students with the most truthful knowledge base, how can I not advise them of the peril that lies ahead?

While serving as the Director of the Alternative Fuels Program and Biofuels Center of Excellence at a community college in New Mexico, I had designed a curriculum to demonstrate how no or low carbon fuel sources i.e. solar, wind and biofuels are preferable to fossil fuels and how a rapid transition to these renewable fuel sources could slow global warming. In addition, I designed a curriculum to teach students how to grow certain kinds of algae to produce fuel for vehicles and provide a viable, affordable protein alternative to industrial meat production.

Studies show that industrial livestock production results in 15 to 20% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and is the leading cause of species loss and water pollution. Transitioning to a plant-based diet is something everyone can do and is perhaps the most powerful act one can take to help reduce the impacts of climate change. Albert Einstein expressed this fact most notably when he said: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

These options thrill my students who feel hopeful that increasing deployment of renewable energy and large-scale algae production coupled with a massive shift to a plant-based diet just might help turn the tide. Consequently, some find their life-purpose in pursuing the skills necessary to help bring these innovative solutions into the mainstream.

As the realization that humanity is entering uncharted water sinks into my students, I feel a deep responsibility to offer some kind of guidepost, some beacon of empowerment. I ask them to consider Scorsese’s beloved movie “Hugo”, where the boy who lives alone in the Paris railroad station and maintains the station’s clock is reminded that every part in the clock is critically necessary for the clock as a whole to work correctly. “Perhaps it is the same with people,” I say, “that each and every one of us has a necessary role to play, in some mysterious clockwork way, for civilization, however challenged, to function properly. And that role is critical to creating a transition to something greater or serving faithfully in this final human drama of life on Planet Earth.”

Of course, the great earth clock will keep on running without us, as it has done so quite successfully for billions of years. But if we’re to keep the human and other-than-human timepiece in good order, we’ll need to undertake some major repairs and skillful refurbishment. This then, is the task that lies ahead.