Convergent Liberal Education in the Era of Climate Crisis : Using Climate Science, Earth System Science/Environmental Science, Climate History as Cornerstones

Abstract

As Latour explicitly expressed it, climate acts across all of our modes of existence from the political to the moral. For this reason, the climate liberal education in our era of climate crisis should be a convergent liberal education based upon a pluralism of knowledge. Considering this special request of climate liberal education, this paper proposed to design a transdisciplinary course using climate science, earth system science/environmental science, and climate history as core modules. Each module can have a different weight, location, and relation depending on the character and interests of the instructors and students. First of all, climate science is taken as a fundamental knowledge, because understanding climate requires both a deep level of holistic thinking and at least a basic level of climate literacy. Secondly, earth system science and environmental science as an extensive knowledge is required in order to understand the current climate crisis in the more comprehensive context of the Anthropocene. Lastly, climate history is chosen as consilience knowledge in order to integrate climate science and earth system science/environmental science, and to encourage more ambitious climate action.