Earth Day 2026: climate change and academic notes

Greetings from Earth Day 2026.  The holiday was first celebrated fifty-six years ago, back in 1970.

I wanted to share some general thoughts at the global level, then some reflections on what this might mean for the academy.

First, a vision of the Earth from the Artemis II mission earlier this month:

From NASA: “Artemis II Captures the Terminator Line art002e000190 (April 2, 2026) – A view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman from one of the Orion spacecraft’s four windows after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026.”

Does that give you a touch of the overview effect?

Right now, it seems that the state of the Earth system and humanity within it is, at best, mixed, or rather learning towards dangerously bad.  Overall, we’ve crossed 7 of 9 of Rockström’s planetary boundaries.  To pick one of the lot, ocean acidification is getting worse with no signs of slowing down.

Climate change is worsening via just about every measure.  For example, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published its latest State of the Global Climate report.  The findings are, sadly, unsurprising. Global warming continues. Oceans soak up a lot of the heat.  The polar cryosphere is degrading and arctic rivers increasingly rusting.

We could examine recent temperatures and find that in the United States this past March was the second-highest on record (since the 1850s) and the fourth-highest worldwide.  In India, Delhi is nearly 3 degrees warmer than it was in 2015. In the American west, winter was so dry and hot – “nine states had their hottest winter ever and five their second-hottest,” according to Scientific American – that spring, summer, and fall are under intensive drought conditions and fire warnings.  Meanwhile, a big El Niño-Southern Oscillation looks increasingly likely, which would boost temperatures still further.  The thing might mount up into a super El Niño.

That’s in the short term, the next few months.  Looking further out, the AMOC seems to be less stable than once thought.  (Please see the essential Bill McKibben’s excellent newsletter.)

And yet nearly nobody is talking about this.  Mainstream news rarely touches on the Earth system’s crises. Many politicians around the world are silent.  In America Earth Day as a holiday is getting just a little more attention than Arbor Day.

And that’s on the natural, Earth systems side. On the more human side, the Iran war continues to spasm along, dragging the global economy for a ride. Shortages of fossil fuels, fertilizer, helium, and more are starting to impact various parts of the world.  The European Union is scrambling to avert fuel shortages.  Other nations, like Myanmar, are bracing for a double whammy of fuel and food problems.  Jet fuel prices are soaring, which might ground flights and aviation firms.  Fuel hoarding is rising. Even if the US, Iran, and Israel agree to a real peace soon, which seems like a serious “if,” there’s a lot of damage working through the global economy.  Not to mention the other wars grinding along in Sudan, Russia/Ukraine, Afghanistan/Pakistan, Gaza, Lebanon, etc.

Connecting the geopolitical and Earth system stresses yields some interesting dynamics.  China continues to push for Xi’s model of ecological civilization.  Its new Five Year Plan called for continued decarbonization. In contrast the American government is plunging rapidly into a fossil fuel mode, rendering us into being another petrostate.  The Trump administration even paid a company one billion dollars to *not* build a wind farm.

Those who still take climate change seriously might view the Persian Gulf war as a goad to move to renewables, including nuclear, to get away from what increasingly appears as a complex, fragile, and chaotic fossil fuel system. In contrast, others might double down on fossil fuels and try to secure supplies, seeing themselves as not having built out sufficient solar, hydro, wind, and storage ecosystems.

The Berggruen Institute’s Nils Gilman argues that we’re seeing a new type of global war unfolding, one pitting petrostates (Russia, Iran, the US) against electrostates (China, the EU).  Attitudes and policies about the climate crisis now drive alliances and inter-state competition in this view.  Alternatively we might be wading more deeply into a more conventionally understood World War III:

we are now in an interconnected world that has a number of shooting wars going on (e.g., the Ukraine-Russia- Europe- U.S. war; the Israel-Gaza-Lebanon-Syria war; the Yemen-Sudan-Saudi Arabia-UAE war that also involves Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and other related countries; and the U.S-Israel-GCC-Iran war). Most of these wars involve major nuclear powers, and there are also significant non-shooting wars (i.e., trade, economic, capital, technology, and geopolitical influence wars) that most countries are in. Together, these conflicts make up a very classic world war that is analogous to past “world wars.”

(I hope to post on these two models soon) Yet up above I had the temerity to refer to the situation as possibly “mixed.”  The reader might wonder what I’m smoking, given what I’ve just said, but I can add some reasons for optimism.

On the climate front, consumer demand and commercial supply for solar power continues to build.  Solar farms, home installations, balcony solar keep growing around the world. Battery and wind technologies and installations are growing. Electric vehicles are still a going concern, with some nations, notably China, producing and improving them.  There are plans afoot for geoengineering (for example). While leaders like Trump try to haul nations back in time, popular and elite demand looks like it’s propelling us forward.

There might be a political opening here.  As McKibben wrote today, building on the American Democratic party’s current focus on affordability:

All you have to say is: a quick move to clean energy drives down prices. If I were preparing ads for congresspeople, I’d definitely have one about how a solarized Australia will, in June, start providing electricity free for three hours every afternoon to all its citizens. Talk about affordability!

On the geopolitical side of things, there’s the possibility that both Washington and Tehran have strong incentives to each declare victory and settle this war soon.  Each is being hit in terms of reputation, war making capacity, and, more importantly, finances.  Allies are pressuring each nation as well, fearing chaos and economic damage. Both leaderships are also grimly determined, yes, but each has a lot to gain by settling.

So why does all of this matter for higher education?

Let’s focus on global warming for now. I’ve published a model outlining the ways climate change impacts the academy, and how academics might respond.  Briefly, the intersections include the physical campus, teaching and learning, research, town/gown relations, and colleges and universities in the world.

For years I’ve been making the case for the importance of this relationship and the active role the academy can play in the civilizational, Earth system crisis, and still do. Consider how the worsening crisis increasingly impacts our campuses and populations, for starters.

Since the last Earth Day I’ve seen very little climate action and less discussion about it within the academic space. The reasons are fairly clear, and some are longstanding: faculty, staff, and students feeling overwhelmed; burnout; a sense of powerlessness; fear of political blowback; having other priorities.  I think the Democratic party’s decision to soft pedal the topic also has some impact.

Yet there is work going on.  Quietly, campuses which made presidential pledges to reduce carbon footprints continue to do so. Individual buildings designed for the climate era go up. Scholars do their global warming research across the curriculum, from the natural sciences to the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Faculty continue to teach the topic also across the disciplines.

There are examples, if we look.  Here’s one report of a West Los Angeles College professor adding climate change to their English 101 class.  (Hechinger has done solid climate reporting; I’m a big fan and they deserve your support.)  Grand Valley State University faculty, staff, and students walked out to demand that institution take more climate action steps. In March a bunch of us taught and held events together in the Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Month:

On a personal level, I continue my climate research, teaching, and action. Climate change appears in all of the classes I teach at Georgetown University, from geoengineering in my technology seminar to global warming games in my gaming class.  Climate appeared in a big chapter in my newest book, Peak Higher Ed (Johns Hopkins University Press: 2026). I continue to research the intersections between climate and AI.

The New American Colleges & Universities interviewed me on the subject for their podcast, then reran the show this very Earth Day:

In my life, progress has been uneven. I continue to eat a vegan diet, which is the most pro-planetary one available.  I bike around town and take trains whenever possible.  But America’s rail system is, to put it kindly, a mess, and I end up having to fly or drive far too often when Amtrak falls short. We still haven’t bought an EV because our fossil fuel burner is still running strong.  We didn’t install solar yet because of tricky finances, but hope to set up balcony solar.  Like I said: uneven but active.

I speak on climate change wherever I go professionally and politically. This rarely elicits pushback these days, but instead tends to quiet whichever room I’m in.  I persist, though, and connect with person after person, networking and building for the future.

Persistence, epochal danger, hope, darkness, and networking – happy Earth Day, everyone.  Let’s work for a better one in 2027.

(thanks to Brian Deyo and Ruben Puentedura; Earth image from Artemis II)