Welcome to the Climate in the Curriculum resource page.
Here, you can find our reading lists helpfully organised by subject. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Archaeology
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Archaeology provides a window into the past; this can include a window to observe interactions between humans and the environment at times of different atmospheric conditions. Archeology can identify resilience and adaptation to varying climate conditions of the past - it can then allow us to apply knowledge of the past to the present. Archeology can allow our knowledge of climate change to encompass cultural diversity and bring messages from times when different cultures, people or nations may have been present or dominant. Importantly, while archeology can enrich our understanding of changing climates the changing climate and increasing extreme weather events themselves threaten archeological sites and the development of new excavation and preservation techniques are needed.
Anthropology
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Anthropology is the study of humanity, as climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity there is much anthropology can offer. Anthropology can offer insights on why political action to address climate change may be ineffective or inefficient, it can offer frameworks and knowledge on resilience and adaptation, renewable energy, climate activism, as well as knowledge and discourses about climate change.
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
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The aim of Asian and Middle Eastern studies is to introduce students to non-western civilizations, this aim is just as relevant in the context of climate change. Each society faces unique consequences from climate change. Ensuring that the understandings, contributions and lived experiences of all cultures are understood and utilized in the fight against climate change is essential.
Biology
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The links between climate change and biology are possibly more apparent than any other subject and most biology degrees include mandatory courses on conservation and ecology which naturally touch on climate change. However, inclusion of climate in the curriculum is still lacking. One study of biology textbooks from 1970-2019 found that inclusion of climate change peaked in the 1990s and content on climate change is moving further back in textbooks rather than being given a prominent position. While we hope than most biology students are already exposed to a rudimentary understanding of the relationship between biology and climate change this reading list serves to further underscore this significance and provide additional general resources. We have also included some not strictly academic texts that can demonstrate to student the ways in which biologists are working to address climate change and hopefully inspire them to pursue similar work and research.
Business Studies
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There are many features of climate change that uniquely impact businesses including threats to supply chains, natural materials and energy costs, stricter regulation of greenwashing, increasing pressures from consumers and risks of litigation. Business studies students and graduates are experts in business transformation – businesses need to transform in response to the effects of climate change and transform their contributions to climate change. Businesses are also captured by a variety of soft law mechanisms such as the OECD guidelines for responsible business conduct and UN Business and Human Rights frameworks that increasingly include reference to climate change.
Chemistry
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Chemistry can help develop clean fuels, ideate solutions to break down landfill waste and take advantage of chemicals that are harmful to the climate – like carbon dioxide. Chemistry can both improve its current practice to be more sustainable and contribute positive solutions for the climate crisis. Chemicals, especially chemical waste, can be extremely harmful to the environment - ‘green chemistry’ is focused on creating chemicals or products from those chemicals that are less harmful to the environment. Additionally, the chemical industry is a large consumer of both oil and gas and creating chemicals is energy intensive – finding more sustainable ways to produce and process chemicals that makes better use of these materials is part of the climate solution.
Classics
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Classics can help us to contextualize current environmental concerns by providing examples and points of comparison to the landscapes and human experience of the classical world. We can look to the classical world and how people lived and responded to a changing climate, such as the deforestation experienced in Rome, for both inspiration and warning. This field of study is emerging but growing quickly and demonstrated by the recently launched Centre of Ancient Environmental Studies specifically dedicated to this subject.
Computer Science
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Computer science can improve and expand the collection and analysis of climate data especially big data to better understand climate change, better predict serious weather events, understand human behaviour and other key features of dealing with climate change. Computer scientists can develop climate models and simulations to both identify potential problems and solutions resulting from the climate crisis. Finally, computer scientists can ideate sustainable energy solutions thought advanced algorithms and software developments.
Economics
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Climate change will have a variety of economic effects. Those effects are not felt equally, and low-income countries face greater economic and human costs as a result of climate change. Global economics must account for this inequality. The uncertainty posed by climate change will impact economic modelling and macroeconomic policies that will need to be re-calibrated to accommodate more frequent weather shocks. Both physical and regulatory risks pose economic challenges for businesses. Climate finance, shareholder activism, climate-related disclosures, incorporating economic principles into climate policies and demonstrating the ineffectiveness of unregulated market forces in addressing climate change are just some of the climate issues that economists are engaging with.
Education
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Addressing climate change requires action from all sections and levels of society which means all sections and levels of society must have access to and understand information regarding climate change. Thinking about climate education raises questions like: How do we educate people about climate change? What methods are most effective? What information is most pressing? What is the content of climate education as it stands today? Additionally, education systems and institutions must respond to the climate crisis – this prompts questions like: As anxiety, especially among young people in the face of the climate crisis and adaptation raises how can school systems support them? How can schools be climate change resilient? How do we provide education to communities affected by climate migration or extreme weather events? Education researchers can help to address these critical questions, some of the literature included below asks and begins to answer these questions.
Engineering
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Many engineering activities are key drivers of climate change with engineers designing and building machines, structures and components that contribute to a large portion of carbon emissions. Despite this, a recent student of the climate education received that engineers receive, found that most courses make no reference to mitigation and adaptation to climate change and literature more generally has evidenced a dissociation of engineering education and the climate reality. Engineering in one form or another pervades every industry so engineers can be a powerful force for change, it is important that students learn the impact of the profession and gain knowledge to minimize climate impacts in their work.
English, Literature, and Creative Writing
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There is evidence that including depictions of climate change in creative writing and literature can have a positive impact on societal attitudes to climate change – especially when authors include not only dystopian but positive and hopeful depictions of the future. The value of such writing may inspire readers to take more positive climate actions. Writing can also deliver inspiration of pro environmental behaviors such as shopping in a charity shop rather than a high street store. The mobilisation of people at all levels of society is essential to address climate change, literature and creative writing has the power to intimately reach individuals that may not be reached or moved by other initiatives such as education, advertising, or government programmes. Literature can humanise abstract data, events and policies and communicate effectively about climate change and its solutions.
Film Studies
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The ripple effects created by the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth or David Attenborough’s 2021 A Life on Our Planet show us the impact of film and television for engaging people in climate change both to learn and spur action. Film studies can further this understanding. Recent studies have shown possible positive effects from consuming media that discusses climate change such as short term heightened awareness and motivation to engage with climate change. Yet, most research and analysis has focused on news media even though this is only a small port of the media landscape. Film and television researchers who are committed to understanding representations of climate change within media and their impact on viewers are needed now more than ever.
Finance
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Responding to the climate crisis is an expensive task that requires a large amount of complex and carefully considered financing. Significant investment is required, particularly in new energy systems and infrastructure that can withstand more extreme weather events. International cooperation and additional provision of financial resourcing is needed for developing countries who may be less equipped for the green transition - obligations to financial assistance for the more vulnerable is inscribed into key climate change frameworks like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
Fine Art
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The strength of the connection between art and climate change has been recognized by large institutions as demonstrated by a partnership announced in early 2024 between UN Climate Change and the Global Visual Arts Sector to increase climate action. There are many artists engaging in activism, education and awareness of climate through their art. Scholarship on art and climate asks questions like “why and how do art and visual culture, and their ethics and values, matter with regard to a world increasingly shaped by climate breakdown?” There is also emerging scholarship into the sustainability of the art industry itself, the ability of climate visualization to bridge political divides, and risks to the art industry in light of climate change including for example the cost of insuring and preserving fine art.
Geography and Earth Sciences
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The links between climate change and geography and earth sciences are possibly more apparent than any other subject and most geography degrees include mandatory courses on environmental geography and earth systems which naturally touch on climate change. Courses dedicated to climate change however often remain optional. While we hope than most geography students are already exposed to a rudimentary understanding of the relationship between geography and climate change this reading list serves to further underscore this significance and provide additional general resources.
History
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Humans have always developed societies around climate patterns – they shape where we live, what we eat and how our societies function. Throughout history changes in the climate can be viewed as a catalyst for historical changes in human societies. Although the major climate events of the past such as flooding, drought or volcanic eruptions are not cause by man-made climate change the way people responded to these dramatic changes in climate can still give us insights in how to respond to man-made climate change. History in particular can tell us about the human aspects of climate change, such as economic inequality following these events. History can also help us understand the intellectual and scientific roots of climate change itself and its presence and treatment as a concept in our societies.
International Relations and Global Governance
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The main regime and framework for addressing climate change is a system of international agreements, protocols and political tools - international relations and global governance can offer extremely valuable insight into the functioning and improvement of these systems. As climate catastrophes increase, land becomes scarcer, and many other effects of climate change manifest expert predict great risk of war and conflict. International relations has been at the forefront of war, peace and security studies and understanding how these manifest in response to climate change will be crucial in years to come. Ultimately, climate change is a global issue and needs global solutions. The contributions of a discipline that seeks to understand how states work together (or don’t) cannot be understated.
Law
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Law and climate change intersect in a myriad of ways including climate justice, climate litigation, international law, trade and migration. There are a variety of fundamental climate law frameworks and related mechanisms that exist at international law such as the Paris Agreement. Climate change and intersect with strict and technical trade law requirements and migration with recent discussions focusing on the proposal of ‘climate visas’ and how the law should cater to ‘climate refugees’.
Maths
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The ways which our climate changes are complex and interconnected. Mathematics lets us understand, measure and model our climate, understanding changes across many scales. From the growth of bacterial populations, changing ocean currents and bird migrations to the global impacts on migration, supply chains and food security, mathematical models underpin many of the tools and solutions we look towards to address our changing climate. Many mathematical results can be used to improve our ability to model the climate, collect and manage the large datasets to measure our changing world and understand the complex implications of policy and environmental changes on the economy and society. Alongside these contributions, mathematicians work directly on understanding the climate, as part of interdisciplinary teams. The articles in this reading list aim to give an overview of some of this work, describe the limitations of these models and help provide insight into the role which mathematics plays in this complex issue.
Modern Languages and Linguistics
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The way we talk about climate change can both reveal and shape our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Ecolinguistics is the study of the kinds of language we tend to use to frame and discuss environmental issues. Behind the language we use can be helpful insights about our beliefs and assumptions, for example, we use personalized and humanized pronouns for humans but dehumanize other living things by using words like ‘it’, we refer to water, air and tress as ‘resources’ and use mass nonspecific nouns which makes them appear unlimited. While our language can affect how we think about and therefore what we do about climate change – climate change and the natural environment at large can shape our language. Researchers have found a strong correlation between biodiversity and linguist diversity; accordingly, the loss of biodiversity may impact our linguistic diversity. Because of this close connection, language can also give us insights into natural environments. For example, studying folk taxonomies especially of different indigenous groups can show which have relationships to each other or work together? Which are grouped together linguistically because they are toxic or because they are edible? The pluralistic relationship between language and the environment is both rich and delicate.
Music
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Music and climate change intersect in a number of interesting ways. Music psychology tells us that music is a powerful instrument to influence behaviour, it can for example be used to encourage people to be altruistic and it can equally make people feel less generous – such insights can be used in shaping climate action for the better. Music, like art in general, can allow us to share representations and understandings of climate change in creative ways. Music has always been a site of activism and education and the issue of climate change is no different. Literature on eco-musicology can be found since the early 2010s and more recently popular discourse has emerged concerning the sustainability of the music industry itself including for example climate emissions from travel and waste at concerts.
Philosophy
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Thinking about how we want to realize global wellbeing, distribute resources, or shape the future of society in light of the challenges posed by climate change- is a form of moral philosophy. The question of who is most affected by climate change and who has the most power to change it and what obligations arise as a result are all philosophical questions that have very practical implications for how we respond to climate change. What ethical obligations do states who have built economic prosperity through using fossil fuels owe to developing countries who are only now doing the same? How do people experience climate change as a phenomenon – and why is it a phenomenon some people don’t “experience” because they do not believe it exists? These are just a few of the questions that climate change raises, and which philosophy can help us answer and engage with.
Medicine
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The understanding of the relationship between medicine and climate change is a relative new but rapidly growing field. However, this paucity of research is not necessarily reflected in training of medical doctors and medical students. Recently the United Nations recognised the right to a healthy environment and the right to health as part of fundamental human rights that are being negatively impacted by climate change. Climate change impacts health in a multitude of ways, for example air pollution creating respiratory issues, mental distress resulting from experiencing extreme weather events or feeling hopeless in the face of the climate crisis, or the emergence of new viruses as animals cohabitate in new ways due to habitat destruction. The WHO estimates that 23% of all global deaths can be attributed to environmental factors and that this will increase by 250,000 additional deaths annually by 2030. Having doctors who are equipped to recognise and treat these emerging illness as well as research solution for their treatment and causes is a crucial aspect of reducing human suffering resulting from climate change.
Politics
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It’s no secret that a large portion of climate action depends on political action. Climate change is an interdisciplinary issue needing interdisciplinary responses – while climate change may be classified primarily as a scientific process it is also a political one. Politics and climate change intersect in a multitude of ways. Governments are responsible for establishing climate policies such as ensuring infrastructure is resilient to extreme weather, strengthening links between activities of the public and private sectors, and putting climate science into practice among other things. Politics also includes understanding political engagement with civil society, protesters, youth climate movements and climate justice movements. Political science can offer insights into political opinions of the public and ‘knowledge politics’ surrounding climate change.
Psychology
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Climate impacts our health – both physically and mentally. Many scientists predict that mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression and PTSD will increase as the effects of climate change manifest. Such conditions may increase due to experiencing a climate catastrophe like losing a home in a wildfire or flood, or a sense of helplessness concerning the threats posed by climate change. Psychology can contribute by giving individuals and communities tools to deal with these unique manifestations of psychological distress. As a changing climate may lead to displacement and relocation, increase socio-economic or racial disparities and even lead to violence - negative social and inter-personal relations can affect our psychological wellbeing and psychology can provide valuable insights into how to respond to such threats. Additionally, as a discipline, psychology is concerned with individual behavior and influences on that behavior – this may inform policy preferences or positively shape behavioral choices to be less harmful to the environment.
Religious Studies
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Literature on the relationship between religion and climate change is still emerging. However, there is a long history of religious thinking on the role of humans as keepers of the environment and the relationships between the divine and nature. Religion has long tried to make sense of human experiences – climate change is no different. Understanding religious attitudes to climate change is a relevant aspect of understanding social and cultural aspects of climate change and how we respond to it.
Physics
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Physics is integral to combating the climate crisis, from providing the initial evidence to support the claim that our carbon emissions were causing global warming, to now where we use complex computer models to model our atmosphere on various scales. The more evidence and predictions we have, the more pressure we can put on governments to introduce policy. Physics can help debunk myths and misinformation, for example CO2 lasts for hundreds more years in the atmosphere than methane, leading to very different impacts. In wider research, physicists are developing technologies such as the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, solar cells and nuclear fusion, which could be key to a swift transition to a green energy mix
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
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Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies can contribute to the fight against climate change in several regards. The impacts of climate changes vary across different social groups. For example, violence against women and LGBTQI+ communities can increase in the aftermath of climate changes and disasters. Our gender and sexuality can inform how we perceive climate change and what we do about it. Understanding these differences means we can better mobilise different social groups to address climate change. For example, some research has shown that individual of gender and sexuality minority groups are more aware of the perverse impacts of climate change and therefore express higher agreement with climate change beliefs, identify climate change as a greater threat, and worry more about climate change when compared to to cis gender and heterosexual counterparts. Pro-environmental behaviours such as recycling have been seen as feminine and others as masculine affecting the way in which men and women engage with climate solutions. Groups such as the UN note that women are able to make unique contributions to fighting climate change because their “responsibilities in households and communities, as stewards of natural and household resources, positions them well to contribute to livelihood strategies adapted to changing environmental realities”.
Statistics and Data Science
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We know that our climate is changing, but intimately understanding exactly how, to what degree and why is an essential part of addressing it – this is something statisticians and data scientists can help with. Statisticians and data scientists who analyze environmental and climate data can identify patterns and anomalies and try to identify causes and effects that can improve our response to climate change. Increasing amounts of data are available about the climate from humidity levels to air pollution to levels of Co2 statisticians that can understand and develop methods to properly analyze and understand this data are needed. The contribution of statisticians doesn’t stop there, all of these changes in the climate have flow on effects to food and livelihood, health and other aspects of our lives – statisticians and data sciences can also contribute to how we understand and analyze the data related to these issues and their relationships to climate change. Statisticians and data scientists can also contribute to the improvement of the data we collect and methods to analyze it. As some of the articles on the reading list acknowledge there are still some gaps in the data, and as new types of data begin to be captured, new methods need to be developed.