. . .calling on all institutions and elected leaders to respond to the threat of climate change.

Thank you for breaking the climate silence, San Mateo County Educational leaders. This makes 3 county offices of education (Sonoma, Marin, San Mateo), 20 local school boards, and 2 charter school boards in California, Colorado, and New York that have spoken up for climate justice to protect students. No school leader or school board should be a silent witness to 3 decades of Congressional climate neglect which harms our students and will devastate future generations. 

Tomorrow, the UN will release a report which says we can still avoid climate chaos, but only if there is "unprecedented change" in how we organize ourselves. "Without a radical course change, we are headed for an unliveable 3C or 4C hike." 

Continued "polite" silence by educational leaders about the national imperative to address climate change to protect students is no longer tenable by any mainstream moral or ethical framework. From the moment kids enter kindergarten, we teach them to speak up for what is right, to look out for other kids who are having trouble, to work together to solve problems, to use scientific-thinking to make sense of the world. Educational leaders should model these core values themselves by speaking up for climate justice for young people. The non-partisan voices of educational leaders will help prevent risk and harm to current and future students. Their silence on this issue undermines much of what we work for in schools. 

Fortunately, it costs educational leaders nothing to speak up in a non-partisan climate action resolution. They essentially just need to make 3 simple assertions:

• Climate change is bad for students.
• Climate inaction is unfair to current and future students. 
• Congress should act quickly to pass commonsense climate policies to protect students. 

If the CA State Board of Education, the California School Boards Association, and the National School Boards Association pass resolutions making these three simple assertions, thousands of local school boards across the country will likely follow. This will make a huge difference in the effort to get Congress to end their 3 decades of climate neglect and finally deal with the greatest problem facing our young people and future generations.

Passing these resolutions, or even discussing them, may alienate a minority of school board members who are so disassociated from mainstream science and values that they minimize, obfuscate, or deny the threat of climate change. These school board members are part of the reason educational organizations like the CSBA and the NSBA are climate silent in the first place. When the CSBA and the NSBA begin discussing a climate action resolution, school board members in this minority will respond to social cues and re-evaluate their own perceptual filters and scientific understandings related to climate change. Some may decide to recognize climate change's threat to young people and advocate for action. Some will self-censor and no longer expect the broader organization to be silent because they are personally made uncomfortable by talk of climate change. It seems so much more fair that these climate-disengaged school board members experience discomfort than educational leaders in general don't do everything in their power to help prevent the climate disaster that our current national policies entail. The discomfort most students experience already due to climate inaction and climate silence by their elders is signficant and it is only going to get much worse. 

Here's another perspective on the UN report: Stopping Climate Change is Hopeless. Let's Do It.

Thanks for reading. Please keep spreading this link. Please engage your local, county, and state boards of education. 

Thanks,

Park Guthrie

6th Grade Teacher and Lead Volunteer of Schools for Climate Action