This week: climate change education scarce in Latin American universities, the region increases its social media use, Colombia-Venezuela border woes continue.
Latin America’s disregard for climate issues is cultural
Despite empty gestures in last week’s U.S.-hosted climate summit, Brazil continues to be regarded as a country which has all but abandoned the climate agenda under President Jair Bolsonaro. But the problem is by no means restricted to Brazil, as a recent study published by Chilean researchers shows. Upon analyzing the curricula of health courses in 161 Latin American universities, researchers found that climate change and environmental health courses were only scarcely introduced by the region’s higher education institutions.
- Between 22 and 41 percent included courses on environmental health, and only one university offered a specific course on climate change.
- In 2019, the World Health Organization found that 11.9 percent of countries had developed national curricula to train medicine, nursing, and psychology students on the impacts of climate change.
- In a list of the world’s top universities in terms of climate action, flagship publication Times Higher Education only included nine Latin American institutions.
Why it matters. Considering the massive impact climate change causes on human health, this could weaken the important...