From the Newsstands: This story appeared in The Eagle's April 2024 print edition. You can find the digital version here.
Climate change holds a prominent and permanent place in the environmental policy conversation — especially for college students and young people.
“My biggest concern about climate change as I become an adult is watching the world fall apart,” Kelsey Mackert, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said in an email interview. “At this point, we are headed for a two-degree increase in global temperatures which climate scientists have warned will cause irreversible effects.”
The impacts of climate change include increased severity of storms, global water scarcity and industrial disruption. These effects are felt daily at increasing magnitudes, furthering partisan divides between candidates, parties and nations on an issue that ultimately impacts everyone.
“I know that the reality of climate change is somewhat difficult for people who haven’t necessarily experienced it, or who aren’t going to experience the worst effects of it before they pass,” Kat Raiano, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the 2023 Academic Achievement Award for Environmental Activism, wrote in an email interview. “And I know some people don’t believe in it out of denial or mistrust of the scientific community or don’t see it as a realistic policy issue.”
Jeffrey Bennett, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the University of California at San Diego and an MS and PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, has worked extensively in scientific fields throughout his career.
His past endeavors have included — but are not limited to — positions at NASA and the Voyage Scale Model Solar System installment on the National Mall in collaboration with the National Air and Space Museum. Bennett also contributed to Story Time From Space, which facilitates children’s book readings recorded from the International Space Station.
Bennett attributes his dual interest in astronomy and climatology to his studies of weather patterns on Venus, which he says are strikingly similar to those on Earth. These similarities make understanding climate change “a really natural thing for astronomers” according to Bennett.
Bennett sees education as a vital catalyst for understanding the relationship between human intellectual advancement and the environment, which he believes is the best way to work towards a solution.
He has spoken at multiple academic institutions to promote and garner a holistic understanding of a variety of his works, namely for his widely-reviewed “A Global Warming Primer: Answering Your Questions About the Science, the Consequences, and the Solutions,” originally published in 2016.
Bennett also founded Relativity and Global Warming Demystified Tours and Big Kid Science, Co., which provide kid-friendly curricula on physics and astronomy, making science and climate education accessible. Occasionally, Bennett covers his travel expenses to national venues.
“I like to say that the sooner we educate everyone and stop making the problem worse, the better off we will be,” Bennett said in a phone interview.
Bennett also acknowledges partisanship and political ideology as an element in the climate change conversation, saying that, “The polls show whether you’re conservative or liberal, almost everybody understands that this is real.”
A collection of surveys done by the Yale Climate Communications Center found that about 70 percent of all Americans are at least somewhat concerned about political action regarding climate change. The surveys also found that every state — even those that tend to vote Republican — has at least 50 percent of voters who say climate change concerns them.
As many college students and young adults know, however, the clash of partisan perspectives on the magnitude of climate change between political ideologies has detrimental impacts, even within families. Bennett takes a unique perspective on this problem, and advises advocates to frame the issue through a familial lens.
“Tell your [relatives] that this is the world [Generation Z] is growing up in, and climate change will become an issue of the wellness of young people in the future,” Bennett said. “For young people, I think this is a really important message to get across.”
Mackert, who has had many of these conversations with her older relatives, echoes Bennett’s sentiment in her approach.
“I would get personal and explain how climate change is affecting me and how it will affect me in the future, explaining my worries, fears, and tangible things that will happen if we don’t act now,” she said.
Bennett continued by discussing how, even if people don’t necessarily support an environmentalist political ideology, they should naturally want the best for their children and grandchildren, meaning they would at least support climate action in that sense.
“They care about you, they want what’s best for you, and if that means supporting notions that climate change exists as a major problem, they will begin to support or at least accept it as something real,” he said.
Bennett said that as children see the days getting hotter, specifically winters, or even see their parents’ jobs and livelihoods become impacted, they will grow curious and become acutely aware of climate change’s implications. This would propel the conversation further into the future, beyond any current denial.
“I don't think you have to have mandates [for in-school climate change education],” he said. “But I think you have to have people deciding that they care enough about it to come up with the policy changes that will move the needle.”
Bennett’s goal is to promote a more optimistic outlook on a “post-global warming future” that starts with a universal understanding of environmental education, human rights and partnerships between the public and private sectors, among other topics.
As more people become educated, he hopes, as stated on his website, for “a future in which today’s children will someday be able to talk about global warming as a once-serious problem that we found a way to solve.”
A list of his upcoming events, along with two recorded events, can be found on his website.
This article was edited by Clair Sapilewski, Sara Winick and Abigail Pritchard. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Isabelle Kravis, Sarah Clayton and Ariana Kavoossi.
