|
k
<br />BY CATHERINE RAMPELL
<br />BERLIN I'm in a different coun-
<br />try, but sometimes it feels like I'm on
<br />a different planet. I realize that's a
<br />cliche, but in a way it's true. The
<br />planet comes up in Germany a lot,
<br />and it doesn't sound anything like
<br />the one I live on in the United States.
<br />At home, our planet is doing more
<br />or less OK. And if it's not — if, in-
<br />stead, the climate is slowly changing
<br />— there's not much we can do about
<br />it. A third of Americans say that cli-
<br />mate change is not a serious problem
<br />or not a problem at all, according to a
<br />recent YouGov survey. Just one in 10
<br />Germans feels the same way.
<br />It's little wonder why.
<br />In the United States, where Re-
<br />publican politicians compete to out -
<br />doubt each other on the issue, we're
<br />still fighting over
<br />whether school-
<br />children can be
<br />taught that cli-
<br />mate change is
<br />real. In Germany,
<br />children have
<br />been learning
<br />about sustainabil-
<br />ity and climate
<br />change for years.
<br />And the efforts
<br />are only intensify-
<br />ing.
<br />Take Emmy-
<br />Noether- Schule,
<br />an 800 - student
<br />secondary school
<br />in East Berlin I visited recently. Edu-
<br />cators there consider climate change
<br />so pressing that they integrate it into
<br />just about every class you can think
<br />of (including, when the instructor is
<br />so inclined, Latin). About one -quar-
<br />ter of the content in the 10th -grade
<br />English textbook is about threats to
<br />planet Earth. That means when kids
<br />learn to use the conditional mood in
<br />English, their grammar exercises re-
<br />ly on sentences like this: "If we don't
<br />do something about global warming,
<br />more polar ice will start to melt."
<br />IE
<br />e change
<br />6/i //is Al-0
<br />plain the vast, vecaf network of con-
<br />spiracy theorists who believe that 97
<br />percent of climate scientists have
<br />been hoaxing the world — and who
<br />have created a parallel universe of
<br />pseudoscience to prove it.
<br />"That just seems unimaginable,"
<br />another student declared.
<br />It's easy to write off this reaction as
<br />unique to crunchy - granola East Berlin,
<br />which is kind of the Berkeley of Ger-
<br />many. But the textbook I mentioned
<br />is used throughout the country, and
<br />this summer German education min-
<br />isters will issue guidelines for teach-
<br />ing sustainability in English, French,
<br />Spanish, the visual arts, music, his-
<br />tory, mathematics, biology, chemis-
<br />try, physics and even phys -ed. And
<br />similar efforts are underway in devel-
<br />oping economies
<br />such as the Do-
<br />minican Republic,
<br />South Africa, Viet-
<br />nam, Kenya and
<br />Mauritius, ac-
<br />cording to Alexan-
<br />der Leicht, UNES-
<br />CO'S chief of the
<br />Education for Sus-
<br />tainable Develop-
<br />ment section.
<br />In France, as in
<br />Likewise, in an tlth -grade geography
<br />class dedicated entirely to sustainabil-
<br />ity, students write poetry about "kli-
<br />mawandel" (climate change). My fa-
<br />vorite couplet, from an ode by stu-
<br />dent Hannah Carsted: "The water
<br />level rises/ The fish are in a crisis."
<br />During my visit, Hannah and her
<br />classmates asked me about U.S.
<br />skepticism on an issue that, as far as
<br />the rest of the world is concerned,
<br />seems fairly settled. Why haven't
<br />Americans been chastened by ex-
<br />treme weather events, such as Super -
<br />storm Sandy or the California
<br />drought (yes, they knew about
<br />both), that are predicted to prolifer-
<br />ate if we do nothing to curb carbon
<br />emissions? Why don't we believe
<br />what scientists tell us? I tried to ex-
<br />Germany, course
<br />work on sustaina-
<br />bility and climate
<br />change has been
<br />part of most
<br />schools' curricula for a while — partly
<br />the result of a 1992 U.N. treaty that
<br />the United States also signed, then
<br />ignored. And as France gears up to
<br />host a major U.N. climate conference
<br />Nov. 30 -Dec. 11, education officials
<br />are exploring whether to require ev-
<br />ery French school to conduct its own
<br />model- U.N. -style simulated negotia-
<br />tion in which students play -act inter-
<br />national negotiations on emissions
<br />targets, then learn what happens to
<br />our (shared) planet as their efforts
<br />succeed. Or, perhaps more likely,
<br />stall.
<br />The American public seems a bit
<br />less interested in those U.N. pro-
<br />ceedings, let alone in simulating
<br />them in schools nationwide. The
<br />French foreign minister warned re-
<br />cently that the talks will be ham-
<br />strung by the toxicity of the issue in
<br />the United States. Which seems true
<br />enough; in that YouGov survey,
<br />which was conducted in 15 countries
<br />across four continents, Americans
<br />were not only most likely to express
<br />indifference about climate change,
<br />we were also most likely to say our
<br />own government was already "doing
<br />too much" to stop it.
<br />What intrusive government inter-
<br />ventions could these Americans pos-
<br />sibly be referring to? That, dear
<br />friends, remains unimaginable.
<br />WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP
<br />
|