Essay by Eric Worrall
Yep that’s the problem with the world – not enough Pedagogy.
Why we need decolonial teaching to fight climate change
Shrika Madivanan
02 August 2026Climate colonialism “forces a re-embodiment and relocation of how, why and who is at fault/responsible. The climate is failing to change. It is being colonised and forced to alter, modify, and – as catastrophes indicate – it is rebelling and resisting the assault upon it” (Doreen Martínez, 2014).
Viewed through the lens of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on climate action, this quote is a critique of climate colonialism. Martínez is saying that responsibility for the climate crisis is being displaced onto the communities and countries that contributed least to the crisis, while Global North actors retain the authority to define both the problems and solutions.
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To change this, the global higher education sector must invest more in climate literacy through teaching and learning focused on decolonial climate pedagogy. This will allow for a comprehensive dialogue that can influence how current and future generations understand what climate solutions exist and how they can help those most affected.
Researching a decolonial approach
To better understand how decolonial climate pedagogy might be reflected in higher education, a research project was undertaken drawing on the International Association of Universities (IAU) SDG 13 Global Cluster, a network of lead and partner universities within the IAU Global Cluster on Higher Education and Research for Sustainable Development which collaborates on initiatives related to climate action.
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South-South connection
South-South connections are important because countries in the Global South often share related histories of unequal development and thus common goals. That said, these partnerships aren’t inherently decolonial and need to be examined for internal hierarchies.
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Ultimately, this research project emphasises the work needed within decolonial climate action through teaching and learning. This is a mechanism that is often neglected in SDG 13. However, it is the tool that best advances climate education by moving beyond interventions that reproduce the assault on our climate and help us toward solutions that respond to climate resistance.
Shrika Madivanan is studying for a Masters in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) through Erasmus Mundus and recently completed an internship at the International Association of Universities (IAU) with a focus on higher education and research for sustainable development.
Read more: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20260731190606869
I guess if you can teach students what words like “pedagogy” mean, this would improve their vocabulary and mastery of language skills.
But I’m not sure saying to a potential employer “I mastered decolonial pedagogy at school” would necessarily guarantee you a job. Unless maybe you were applying for a job with the United Nations.
And Shrika, you need to be a little less subtle with your more funding requests, it is traditional in these articles to be a bit more direct, by saying something like “more research is required”.
And walking on our heads will help us save money on shoes. Noted.
Walking on someone else’s head is so much more fun.
It’s when universities peddle drivel like this they explain the reasons that liberal arts faculties have become so irrelevant these days. SInce they have decided that they have to take a stand on shaping public opinion on unproved theories , students have been advised in increasing numbers to keep away from dead-end courses and studies and pursuing either science degrees or skilled trades apprenticeships or anything that has the potential to offer future employment, not leftist and unworkable attempts to convince people on how to conduct their lives supposedly to save the planet.
Well, I can confirm that most French people are asking for more plumbers, bakers, and bricklayers than socially conscious sociologists specializing in decolonial art and history. Strange!
Socially conscious = Reality unconscious.
So incredibly practical
Bad time to graduate with a STEM degree in USA,
The current well-established generation of rent-seekers are busy teaching the next generation of parasites. They seem not to realize that as soon as the next generation come of age they will quietly throw their teachers away as used condoms. I may only wish them the best of luck.
Amen. And WTF is “climate colonialism?” Using the word “climate” to modify “colonialism” is a true non-sequitur.
One more thing, how does one “assault our climate?” I get it, throw a punch at the climate. That will teach it.
“Liberal Arts” has taken on a whole new meaning.
Synonymous now with the “Dark Arts.”
Well, they’re definitely shoveling from the pile behind the barn.
More like “empty heads.”
It seems to have become the art of taking ridiculous liberty with language, adding a liberal amount of confusion.
I propose that the “teaching and learning focused on decolonial climate pedagogy” be performed strictly in pre-colonial academic settings – no electricity, no central plumbing or heating, only fireplaces for winter comfort, transport to and from class by walking or oxcart – you get the picture.
There. See you after class to discuss what you’ve learned.
Don’t forget the wild eyed savages.
Don’t forget the beheadings and burning witches at the stake.
Modern scholarly consensus estimates that 40,000 to 50,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe and the colonial Americas between the 15th and 17th centuries, with approximately 80% to 85% of those victims being women.
Modern Europe and North America are so much more civilised. Only 9 million unborn babies have been put to death in the UK since abortion was legalised. Estimates for the total number of abortions in the United States since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision range from approximately 63 million to 66 million. It’s even legal in the UK for a woman to gain an abortion for no better reason that she or her husband don’t like the sex of the baby. (When he was Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer refused to prosecute people carrying out sex-selection abortions.)
But in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries a baby was pretty safe in its mother’s womb.
Make sure the wood for the fire places is acquired exclusively with hand made stone axes.
No I think you need to ride ON the ox (or horse, or mule). A cart probably contains at least SOME METAL parts thereby requiring COAL use for smelting ores and shaping the iron. We can’t have THAT.
What is needed is a deconstructive pedagogy of the climate bafflegabular hierarchy.
If you have nothing to say, use less than 100 words.
If you have nothing to say, invent a whole new language to say it.
Phil R,
If you had been gifted with better pedagogy, you would have written more correctly “invent a new language to say it.”
A new language is whole. Geoff S
My education was in geology. I used to have a professor that liked to claim his classes were pedagogic. Not sure what I learned from him, though.
“Pedagogic” has to do with a style of teaching.
I noticed the word “logic” seems to be missing.
Higher education is in serious trouble.
The rumbling you hear is from the long deceased rolling elders in the college biology department where I worked in the longest. We had to deal with education departments taking away teaching from the subject departments. Lots of smart students who wanted to teach realized that they were not getting a proper education from their ‘education’ department. Among the etcetera are all these advocacy departments, title, degrees, etc. Community knowledge is often valuable, but they are telling them their (substance and justice) position to accept. “Masters in Research and Innovation in Higher Education ”sounds like we are so dumb that we never knew about the necessity of research, innovation, substance, or self-assessment! Are they Bigots–a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own position and prejudices?
From the link–“This can include various forms of Indigenous knowledge, local ecological knowledge, etcetera…It is important to note that the success of SDG 13 in teaching and learning is often assessed by UNESCO and other bodies primarily through institutional self-assessment and the presence of climate keywords rather than by pedagogical substance or justice orientation…”
Wow-what a serious load of crap! I’m old, my education-a very good one-is also old and alot out of date, but holy shit, Batman, what I see is absolutely bugshit crazy. We’re doomed…or did I miss something in my outrage?
Give the current crop of students a hit up behind the ear – mandate a single semester of Introductory Thermodynamics.
Throw in a dose of differential equations and PChem for good measure.
Pity your education didn’t teach you how to spell “a lot” correctly.a
Dialect, dipshit, local usage. A lot is a tract of land, generally surveyed. Alot means a whole bunch, or many, depending on specific usage. Which would you rather have-alot of gold nuggets, or an empty lot located in downtown bumfuck Arkansas? I know, its a difficult question requiring a minimum of thought-which I realize is difficult, but do try…and quit being trying (again, dialect)
Pity your education did not teach you how to check for typographical errors.
I think your crap recognition skills are still razor sharp.
Has been for some time.
You need to begin your sentence with the word “It”.
The Grammar Police
Marxists are nothing if not confusing (and confused).
Yeah, she said “The climate is not changing”. I thought that was the whole crisis.
” decolonial climate pedagogy” means that it’s OK to lie to your students in order to achieve your agenda.
What is a climate solution? It’s not exactly an oxymoron like jumbo-shrimp, its quite profound, but then again it’s all the things not profound.
I have the solution, determine the climate you most enjoy and then search for the location that provides it, then spend the rest of your life in your climate solution.
That’s assuming such a climate exists. Serious observation shows that some form of severe weather occurs in every climate region, and it seems that severe weather events never fail to wind up the alarmist cranks.
The trick is to have the resources to move, such as out of tornado alley when tornadoes are in season; off the US East Coast during hurricane season, and so on.
Or just build a house that will shrug off such weather events.
An ICF house, basically a steel reinforced concrete bunker of a structure, immediately comes to mind.
Or – worse – that the desired climate is in a place that is awful in so many other ways. San Diego, for example.
Until the social justice warriors fix the political system to thoroughly ruin your lifestyle, a la Southern California.
Maybe it is just me. But I am so sick of these pseudo-intellectuals trying to blame colonialism for today’s problems. India became independent in 1947, 79 years ago. Indonesia became independent in 1945, 81 years ago. The Congo became independent in 1960, 66 years ago. Nigeria became independent in 1961, 65 years ago. Haiti became independent in 1804, 222 years ago. Setting aside the debatable proposition that in many cases colonialism was probably an economic, political and social benefit to the colonized countries, at what point do these pseudo-intellectuals have to finally stop blaming colonialism for everything that they decide is wrong?
The democrat motto is, “don’t let a good crisis go to waste”. The corollary is, “if there isn’t a crisis, create one”.
Here here!
“79 years ago… 81 years ago… 66 years ago… 65 years ago…”
Time to let yesterday go and confront today.
Except the professors were born
“79 years ago… 81 years ago… 66 years ago… 65 years ago…”
As an aging person I resent ageism, but again and again I see baby boomer progress stop dead in its tracks because that generation (that invented, built and distributed so much, thanks guys) has entered the glide-phase without handing off control.
The famous quote is, “Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself,” spoken by feminist icon and activist Gloria Steinem.
To whom would we hand off control? There doesn’t appear to be anyone there with any interest in doing the hard work.
KevinM quotes airhead Gloria Steinem about power.
As an 85 y o successful scientist, I do not think in terms of handing over power.
Instead, I think about handing over useful knowledge.
Lately, watching how AI works, I divide Life’s learning material into two major parts, being that for which an answer can be calculated and that which has no known answer. To date, AI performs well on the former (useful knowledge) and poorly on the latter (ideas).
There is an excess of useful knowledge available to every person. I do not know of anyone who has learned all there is. There is a surplus of no-proof ideas, which tends to be so easy that it attracts Arts people. I class it as ‘gossip of Life’ that is available for all to take feast or famine – but it does not carry power. Nor does the hardest of Hard Science.
People like Steinem who glorify power are simply like the dog who chases car tyres, but would not know what to do with one if it succeeded. It is so easy for a female before a mirror to say “I am so beautiful that I can command power over those who want to have sex with me.” This fails, because beauty is an idea that cannot be shown to have a correct answer. Geoff S
Agree with your comment. The problem is, the people who crave power can do a lot of damage to others along the way.
Sweet. That’s a very nice, concise logic train. Enjoyable. And I never did like Gloria; I believe she did catch the tire.
Do I hear reparations calling from off stage?
You do. What do you think all the climate crisis nonsense and conferences are about?
The (less than 10) major economies are expected to contribute “climate relief” funds to the rest of the world. Funny how so much of the rest of the world was once a colony of one country or another.
Do you think we can get Italy to pay compensation to the rest of Europe for the genecide committed by Gaius Iulius Caesar?
The climate crisis nonsense isn’t about handing over cash to grifters, that’s just another tool in the bag, along with net zero, decommissioning reliable power generation, etc. It’s about the downfall of Western democracy.
More to the point – at what point does the “development” of said countries show that they were better off under colonial rule than under the rulers that followed, which probably applies to most of them?
Starting with the “climate crisis” fallacy guarantees that ignorance masquerading as knowledge, a.k.a. intellectual slop, will follow. Such “higher education” is an oxymoron.
Such is the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) — mostly a bunch of liberal arts retards trying to create the useless “sustainability profession,” meanwhile running around their campuses sticking their noses into everybody else’s business — a bunch of busybodies.
I’ just trying to work out how one manages to colonize the climate.
Sure, it takes lots of govt money, of course!
When you figure that out, go to Venus and terraform it.
Once we colonize Venus, while there, we will have no concerns about indigenous knowledge requirements.
Madivanan might deserve a Masters in bafflegab.
Such people revel in their newspeak word salad.
The stupid… it hurts!
Marxism has never solved anything, and will not “solve” the imagined climate crisis. It’s not meant to though, it’s really the other way around, the “climate crisis” is merely the latest excuse to implement global authoritarian rule.
That various flavors of Marxism continue to gain favor is disturbing, though I doubt we will ever be rid of them unless a universal cure for envy is discovered.
If the university pseudo intellectuals would just learn from history, they would realize that they will be executed or imprisoned once they have served their intended purposes.
What was the name of the white pig in “Animal Farm”?
It’s just a scam to extract more money out of ‘Erasmus Mundus’.
The real Erasmus, author of ‘In Praise of Folly’ is having a laugh.
The primary aim of education is to destroy critical thinking so that the resulting empty vessels can be filled with woke dogma. Training new soldiers 101.
To spot a lefty, look for a planet sized ego and a pea sized brain. The bigger the brain started out the smaller it ends up after woke therapy. Academia anyone?
[“a planet sized ego and a pea sized brain.”]
Like Trump …
… thinks he’s a god, yet can’t remember what he said yesterday.
But it’s not all bad; To have winners, there have to be losers !! Trump loyalists who bought into the president’s stocks and crypto are now counting huge losses of about $ 7 billion, while the Trump family has reportedly made $2 billion from the same ventures. I wonder what that will do to the midterm ??
You’d rather have Cackles? More fixed elections? Fallout? I don’t care, really, about his money, I care about actions-those I watch. Not his wallet.
It seems like he/his family are profiting from your/public money.
Missed the point, did you? Well, no surprise there. I/we really don’t care about his money-not our problem. You want to worry about tax dollars going astray, look to the Democrats specifically, or any professional politician generally. In other words, so what? Trump is gonna be Trump and the problems he’s dealing with are much more significant than a few bucks here or there…look at Pelosi and so on…if anything, we need more DOGE saving taxpayers money.
Sophistry.
Diversion from the topic at hand into a divisive political offering.
You’re correct, Trump does use the Sophistry tactic all the time.
“Yep that’s the problem with the world – not enough Pedagogy.”
I am not sure I can agree with that lead in.
“Pedagogy: : the art, science, or profession of teaching
“especially : the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools”
It is the “decolonial” bias in the teaching methods that raise serious concerns.
This is a sister to the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in the sciences, especially “climate science.”
This is not intended to belittle indigenous knowledge, which is based on culture, lore, tradition, mythology, natural trial and error experiments, and the like, but also has given us the occasional “diamond in the rough.”
“Ultimately, this research project emphasises the work needed within decolonial climate action through teaching and learning. This is a mechanism that is often neglected in SDG 13. However, it is the tool that best advances climate education by moving beyond interventions that reproduce the assault on our climate and help us toward solutions that respond to climate resistance.”
OK, this seems to be the heart of her verbal diarrhea, so let’s unpack the stupid.
“Moving beyond interventions that reproduce the assault on our climate.”
LMFAO – So she is a champion of the very thing she supposedly is campaigning AGAINST – the “climate colonialism” where “developed nations” intervene to PREVENT DEVELOPMENT of said “developing” nations, cause that will involve the use of those nasty resources like coal, oil and gas.
And “ASSAULT on the climate?!” She needs to examine what a horror The Little Ice Age WAS…a WARMER climate IS AN IMPROVEMENT, not an “assault.” IF we had anything to do with improving it, we should be celebrating, not abusing ourselves about it!
“help us toward solutions that respond to climate resistance.”
Apparently, she thinks the rightful rejection of STUPID IDEAS that would NOT do a thing about her imagined “crisis” even IF it were valid is as irrational as she ACTUALLY is. Got that backwards bigtime sweetie!