Why is it important to educate ourselves about the climate crisis?: World Environmental Education Day
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On 26 January, the United Nations designated World Environmental Education Day in 1972, and it was further established during the Belgrade Conference in 1975. This initiative emerged in response to population and economic growth, highlighting the inadequacy of natural resources to regenerate. The threat of a collapse in both lifestyle and production, as well as in the environment, became evident if the same path was continued
Today, World Environmental Education Day is essential because it stimulates debate and everyone's participation in the search for solutions and transformation of the system. It also allows the focus of public policies and the interests of civil society to be directed towards preserving the environment and biodiversity.
Recently, in Latin America, significant measures related to environmental education have been taken, such as the modification of Law 19.300 of Environmental Basis in Chile in 2015 that drives the instruction of educators in Environmental Education ( EE) so that ecology and the transformation of transversal values are gradually included in school curricula; the projects of modification of Environmental Culture in education in some municipalities of Colombia in 2016 carried out by non-governmental organizations and municipalities or the realization of the Regional Conference of Higher Education (CRES+5) from 13 March to 15 of this year that convenes young students to participate in regional educational governance and where the educational challenges and needs of the region will be discussed that will touch on the theme of EE and sustainable development.
The participation and socio-cultural transformation of the whole society is necessary, as it is the only way for public and private agendas to change in order to stop the current climate crisis, prepare populations for the effects of the climate crisis and its mitigation, as well as to act towards a sustainable and harmonious approach to the environment.
The Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) has worked tirelessly to produce knowledge on global change and to promote transdisciplinary education to prepare professionals in different fields and to be able to pass on the information they produce to civil society and decision-makers to make action more expeditious and informed.
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