The Biden administration seems to support increased academic engagement with the climate crisis

It looks like the Biden administration is taking an interest in how colleges and universities respond to climate change. At least that’s a conclusion we can draw from this University World News account of a recent speech by John Kerry, the current and first American Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

Kerry was addressing the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities, a group focused on academic-civic engagement. He first spoke to climate justice at length on various points, according to Nathan Greenfield, then turned to higher education, where he envisioned two roles for the academy in the climate crisis, beginning with the physical nature of a campus:

The first is being a role model. Dormitories and other buildings must be refitted so that heat is not wasted. Food services should prioritise purchasing that minimises transportation. University and college fleets should be electric.

(This is a topic I cover in the second and finals chapters of Universities on Fire.)

Then Kerry went further. In his view, higher education should boost student and faculty involvement with the climate crisis:

It is the role of universities to ensure that their graduates are “public citizens” who not only vote but also hold to account US Congress which, as he put it, “is not reflective of the urgency that needs to be applied” to climate change.