Why is the course powerful?

1.        Authority and trust  

This course is rooted in scientific figures that are supported for communication by the world’s most eminent climate scientists, such as Dr Jim Skea (Chair IPCC), Dr Jian Liu (Chief Scientist UNEP), Dr Pavel Kabat (Chief Scientist WMO), Prof Kevin Anderson and many others. These fundamentally important numbers can be found here: the CUTx Index) and they are explained fully in Chapter 7.

Every scientific term in the 360° Student Book is plugged into the “#climate semantics” encyclopedia. Prof Peter Murray-Rust (Cambridge), Dr Gitanjali Yadav and their team have added clickable links to each scientific word, and if you had any further questions about the science, they have also designed a reliable bot that can guide you to answers that only search the web in trustworthy places.

This collaboration between The Climate Academy and #climate semantics is founded in the shared conviction that science should be made open to everyone & is explained in

• 2.        Education is transformative

Although schools and the media frequently talk about climate change, there is little clarity and depth to it. We have a global climate illiteracy problem.

The good news is that leveraging this understanding to a systems level can be done very rapidly. This course has some “threshold concepts”. Moments of understanding that flip the way in which all the other details are understood. These concepts are easy to understand, and once they are grasped, they cannot be unseen.

Imagine if schools would clearly inform all their students about the danger and proximity of the planetary boundaries that we are facing. Imagine if the media would frame their coverage of the crisis, informed by tipping points. The existing 89% percent consensus on doing more about the climate crisis would be transformed into something so much sharper and effective.

This course is massively scalable.

It is the first part of The Climate Academy programme. It can be taken up by any student in any school in the world. It can be taken up by any individual. The rest of the programme provides you with the tools and framework to disseminate the key insights to your wider community; either in school or in the wider world.

You will have skills and interests that can be developed and mobilised in this active part of the programme.

In line with the “3.5% rule” (Chenoweth, Harvard University) we agree with the thought expressed by Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”.

What we are doing to the planet is currently bonkers. It is suicidal.

Flipping the narrative is not only fun, it is also fundamentally important.