The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions

RESEARCH ARTICLE The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions Eugene C. CorderoID1*, Diana Centeno1, Anne Marie Todd2 1 Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, San Jose´ State University, San Jose´ , California, United States of America, 2 Department of Communication Studies, San Jose´ State University, San Jose´, California, United States of America * eugene.cordero@sjsu.edu Abstract Strategies to mitigate climate change often center on clean technologies, such as electric vehicles and solar panels, while the mitigation potential of a quality educational experience is rarely discussed. In this paper, we investigate the long-term impact that an intensive one- year university course had on individual carbon emissions by surveying students at least five years after having taken the course. A majority of course graduates reported pro-envi- ronmental decisions (i.e., type of car to buy, food choices) that they attributed at least in part to experiences gained in the course. Furthermore, our carbon footprint analysis suggests that for the average course graduate, these decisions reduced their individual carbon emis- sions by 2.86 tons of CO2 per year. Surveys and focus group interviews identify that course graduates have developed a strong personal connection to climate change solutions, and this is realized in their daily behaviors and through their professional careers. The paper dis- cusses in more detail the specific components of the course that are believed to be most

impactful, and the uncertainties associated with this type of research design. Our analysis also demonstrates that if similar education programs were applied at scale, the potential reductions in carbon emissions would be of similar magnitude to other large-scale mitigation strategies, such as rooftop solar or electric vehicles. 1. Introduction In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) stated, “Education is an essential element for mounting an adequate global response to climate change” [1]. Few would argue against the importance of education in providing an informed response to environmental problems. Solutions to climate change tend to focus on mitigation and adaptation measures, and successful implementation of either strategy requires an informed and educated citizenry. Interest in education and climate change has increased in recent years [2] in part due to leadership efforts from organizations like the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that continue to advocate for educational efforts to respond to climate change [3]. Yet despite the notion of education’s importance in responding to climate change, education is rarely mentioned in discussions of PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266 February 4, 2020 1 / 23 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Cordero EC, Centeno D, Todd AM (2020) The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0206266. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0206266

Editor: Francesco S. R. Pausata, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, CANADA Received: October 5, 2018 Accepted: January 7, 2020 Published: February 4, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 Cordero et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Data are available at OSFHOME, and access to the data can be found at (https://osf.io/an4ht/), with this reference: DOI 10. 17605/OSF.IO/AN4HT. Funding: The National Science Foundation under grant 1513332 provided support for the partial salary of DC, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The commercial company Green Ninja did not provide