OPINION:
Climate education has become a performance. Schools teach students about melting ice caps, rising sea levels and extreme heat waves, framing awareness as both a duty and a solution. Thus, the younger generation learns to feel concerned and anxious but rarely engages with the systems shaping climate policy.
This disconnect reveals a deeper ethical issue. Learning about climate collapse without the power to act on it is not just a teaching shortcoming; it is a form of manipulation.
Students receive extensive information about climate science and are encouraged to reduce waste and consume thoughtfully. Yet they are not given tools to change the systems that cause environmental damage or govern its mitigation. Awareness without action creates a false sense of empowerment while ensuring real powerlessness.
This contradiction is especially visible in environmental education. As an educator, I work with students of different ages on climate patterns and environmental inequality. The goal is often to acknowledge their concern rather than empower them as active responders. Students learn how heat waves affect specific neighborhoods, but not how to apply that knowledge. Understanding that a city lacks adequate infrastructure does not equip them to take part in environmental decisions. They need to learn not only what is happening, but how change happens.
This failure reflects a broader flaw in the education system. Students are taught that meaningful action comes later, after they have established careers. Climate change, however, does not follow academic timelines. By the time students are deemed ready, many decisions affecting their futures will already have been made. The result is a generation deeply aware of the crisis yet unsure how to confront it.
Climate education therefore becomes one-sided. Information flows downward while authority remains centralized. Adults often argue that young people lack the expertise required for decision making, yet young people are expected to carry the emotional weight of climate collapse. They are considered mature enough to worry, but not capable enough to contribute solutions. This imbalance is not only ineffective; it is unethical.
For climate education to be ethical, it must include participation. Young people should have real roles in shaping school and local environmental decisions. Education should do more than explain the world they will inherit. It should empower them to shape it.
OLIVER MAK
New York, New York
