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The stories most timelines tell about the climate crisis wrongly cast it as a product of the natural world — not as a consequence of human history, of choices, of systems through which profit and injustice flow. These accounts often focus on the steady atmospheric buildup of CO₂ and climbing temperatures. They pay little-to-no attention to the authors of global warming, movements to curb it, and populations that bear the brunt of its effects. They promote a sense of inevitability, fueling a dangerous mix of despair and inaction.
In K–12 history textbooks, “there are no climate change timelines at all. In most textbooks there is simply no recognition that the climate crisis has a history,” explain Mimi Eisen and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, who authored our new timeline. The phrase “climate change” only shows up in the final pages of textbooks, even as its causes — coal, oil, industrialization, military mobilization, “postwar prosperity” — appear throughout, celebrated and severed from the environmental emergencies they create.
The Zinn Education Project offers the Climate Crisis Timeline and classroom activities so that teachers and students can examine the choices and stakes that animate the climate crisis and work toward meaningful solutions.
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