Why I resigned from my tenured position teaching climate science in college

This First Person article is the experience of Heather Short, a scientist and educator who lives in the greater Montreal region. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I have enjoyed my nearly 15 years of teaching students about geology, earth systems science, climate literacy and the present human-caused climate and ecological crises in my time at John Abbott College on the island of Montreal. My interactions with them have by far been the most rewarding part of my job.

I will miss them, and miss seeing that spark of excitement when they've learned something new. However, it is clear to me now that teaching young people about these crises without a cohesive, science-informed institutional and cultural framework of climate-literate support does them more harm than good. Let me explain.

I arrived at this conclusion after many months of reflection, informed by teaching thousands of students about what the best available science predicts for their futures. Climate science consensus tells us that the world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent of 2010 levels by the year 2030 in order to have a 66 per cent chance of avoiding a cascade of extreme climate events that will be unstoppable within their lifetimes.

At present, countries have pledged to reduce emissions by a global total of 0.5 per cent by 2030.

We (privileged people in wealthy countries) have a very short window of opportunity to take decisive, systemic action to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown. Not only do our current emissions targets put us far behind where we need to be, our province's 50-year-old education system lacks the support our students need to face this reality.

Teaching this to an 18 year old is like telling them that they have cancer, then ushering them out the door, saying "sorry, good luck with that."