Pirate's Cove

The question not being asked in this article or any others is whether the programs and degrees will allow those who take the classes to earn money after graduation. Or, are they just creating little activists?

More universities are creating climate change programs to meet student demand

At 16, Katya Kondragunta has already lived through two disasters amped by climate change. First came wildfires in California in 2020. Ash and smoke forced her family to stay inside their home in the Bay Area city of Fremont, for weeks.

Then they moved to Prosper, Texas, where she dealt with record-setting heat last summer.

“We’ve had horrible heat waves and they’ve impacted my everyday life,” the high school junior said. “I’m in cross country. . . . I’m supposed to go outside and run every single day to get my mileage in.”

Wait, it gets hot in Texas in the summer? Who would have thought? And those wildfires? Mostly caused by arson, vehicles, power lines, campfires, and few lightning strikes. And incompetent and even malicious forestry methods. Not anthropogenic climate change.

Increasingly, U.S. colleges are creating climate change programs to meet demand from students who want to apply their firsthand experience to what they do after high school, and help find solutions.

It’s called “weather.”

“Lots of centers and departments have renamed themselves or been created around these climate issues, in part because they think it will attract students and faculty,” said Kathy Jacobs, director of the University of Arizona Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions. It launched a decade ago and connects several climate programs at the school in Tucson.

Other early movers that created programs, majors, minors, and certificates dedicated to climate change include the University of Washington, Yale University, Utah State University, the University of Montana, Northern Vermont University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Columbia, the private university in New York City, opened its Climate School in 2020 with a graduate degree in climate and society, and has related undergraduate programs in the works. (snip)

They dive into how to communicate about climate with the public, ethical and environmental justice aspects of climate solutions, and the roles lawmakers and businesses play in cutting greenhouse gases.

Students also cover disaster response and ways communities can prepare and adapt before climate change worsens. The offerings require biology, chemistry, physics, and social sciences faculty, among others.

So, they learn to be nags, all while living a high CO2 lifestyle, jetting around, going to climate conferences on the other side of the world. But, does the cult grift pay? Is there a long term career, or, will they graduate with a huge student loan debt which they cannot pay and demand that Other People wipe out their debt?

For Lucia Everist, a senior at Edina High School in Minnesota who is frustrated at her own lack of climate education so far, schools need to go deeper on the human impact of climate change. She cited disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income neighborhoods.

Funny how they always think that “minorities” are unable to take care of themselves, eh?