ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ethical purpose of climate change education, specifically the ethics of educating for responding to climate change, concerns of advocacy and urgency, and the role of science as it is related to education about climate change. Ethics has a role in most forms of climate change education. If the purpose of climate change education is to advance the understanding of climate change as a physical and social phenomenon, then it must include ethical considerations, such as the harm it causes. First-order aims pose a problem for advocacy, as the intended aim is to accept a specific belief, idea or fact that has a reasonable alternative and is most likely contested. The Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC) recognizes this in its 2001 Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers: Natural, technical, and social sciences can provide essential information and evidence needed for decisions on what constitutes 'dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system'.
