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Key Takeaways
- Duke University has launched a comprehensive three-year plan to integrate climate change education across all disciplines.
- Critics, including climate policy experts, argue that this initiative may be costly and ineffective, questioning the actual impact Duke's carbon footprint could make on global climate change.
- Some experts also express skepticism surrounding the urgency of addressing climate change, emphasizing that historical natural climate variations should take precedence in academic focus.
Duke University plans to incorporate climate change across the entire university, according to its latest strategy report.
Duke Climate Commitment released its three-year plan recently.
The plan promises to “[m]aximize reach to student populations by embedding interdisciplinary, intersectional content across core, first-year and large enrollment courses and programs,” including with its nursing school.
Other academic disciplines will also be pushed to teach about climate change, according to the report.
“Enhance humanities, social sciences and fine arts scholars’ engagement in climate and sustainability research,” is one of the listed goals.
The report “defines the vision and sets forth actionable goals for the Duke Climate Commitment across five interconnected pillars—Education, Research, External Engagement, Sustainable Operations and Community Partnerships.”
The commitment “is a profound expression of who we are and what we value,” Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability Toddi Steelman stated in the report.
A key goal includes net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The College Fix twice reached out to Steelman for comment via email but received no response in the past several weeks. Additionally, The Fix attempted to contact the other members of the Climate Commitment Advisory Council via email for further comments with no response.
A private university, Duke’s government relations office reports $649 million in federal support across research, student aid, and health reimbursements.
However, some experts have questioned the purpose of Duke’s approach.
H. Sterling Burnett told The Fix via a media statement the goals are “costly but ultimately futile efforts to impact climate change[,]” pointing out that “Duke’s carbon footprint is so small even if it went carbon negative, or net zero, it would have no impact on the climate.”
Burnett is the director of climate and environmental policy at the Heartland Institute.
He put the issue of climate change into a broader perspective.
“The Trump administration rightly sees climate change — the global efforts to get Western countries to decarbonize quickly — as a scam that hurts America while boosting our economic and geopolitical competitors,” Burnett said. “Duke should keep this in mind as [its] programs are undergoing scrutiny by the administration.”
“Duke may be the largest or most prominent University to claim to have reached carbon neutrality but it didn’t lead.” Burnett said. “At least nine other universities or colleges — mostly small liberal arts schools claim their operations are carbon neutral.” This list includes Colby, Bowdoin, and Middlebury Colleges, among others.
Burnett called these efforts “expensive foolishness,” that are “taking away from the universities’ core mission of turning out an educated population” by “actively making students stupider — catering to their fears of climate[…] rather than fostering the ability to think critically and question the causes and consequences of [climate] change.”
Other climate experts questioned Duke’s goals.
“The slight (2.3 degrees F) warming the earth has experienced got underway about 250 years ago and marked the end of the Little Ice Age,” Bonner Cohen told The Fix via email. He is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research and has written and testified to Congress about environmental issues.
“Manmade CO2 emissions did not start rising until the mid-20th century, and thus did not cause a warming that had already been underway for two centuries,” Cohen said.
Cohen said society and the university should have other concerns.
“No effort by Duke or any other university to achieve net-zero emissions will have the slightest effect on the climate,” Cohen said, since “we live in an interglacial period and should be grateful for it.”
“The real climate change future generations need to worry about is the next Ice Age, which will come with something approaching mathematical certainty in a few thousand years,” he said.
“In the meantime, Duke should concentrate on the important business of winning football and basketball games.”
