Teaching Climate Change in Red States

Summary

Although scientific consensus was reached on the issue of human-made climate

change earlier this century, it continues to be a controversial subject in the public

sphere. Archaeologists, as scientists interested in a longue durée approach to human

society and the environment, have thus been thrust into another ideological battlefield

as hard-fought as the theory of evolution by natural selection, but with perhaps graver

consequences. As we move fully into the Capitalocene, it is of the utmost importance to

educate future professionals and politicians about the nature of climate change, its

impacts on almost every aspect of our lives and livelihoods, and possible solutions.

However, most archaeologists are working within the academy, already seen as a

bastion of liberalism, political correctness, and "un-American" viewpoints by many of

the people who have already been turned off to the message. The authors of this paper

are working in institutions of higher education in Missouri and Georgia, two typical "red

states" that are dominated by people who typically do not listen to the climate change

message, and they discuss the best strategies and curricula to open students’ minds to a

scientifically grounded perspective.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20734