If the next generation is going to tackle — or successfully adapt to — the massive problems posed by a warming world, it will need to be both educated and inspired.

Those are the twin goals of the new Knowledge Action Network and digital platform UC-CSU NXTerra. Designed by teachers in the University of California and California State University systems, but available to instructors, students and concerned citizens anywhere in the world, NXTerra is a clearing house of accurate, up-to-date information for learning about the climate crisis.

With topics including climate change and religion, climate change emotions, consumerism and climate change, and even climate-change fiction (“cli-fi”), it provides ways of incorporating knowledge about this all-important topic into many fields of study. In addition, it offers concrete ways to turn concern into advocacy and action.

“We want to mobilize professors, so they can mobilize the next generation,” said Richard Widick, a visiting scholar at UC Santa Barbara’s Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies. “We want to help build an informed and motivated global citizenry for the dawning era of climate emergency.”

“Our goal is to empower educators and create material that will be useful to high school teachers as well as university professors — and to students as well,” added John Foran, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at UC Santa Barbara. “We want it to be a place where any member of the interested public can find at least something they can use.”

Click the link below to read the full article.