“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” said South African leader Nelson Mandela. That was in 1990, before climate change was on most people’s radar. Can we apply Mandela’s prescription to climate, and if so, what are the best ways? Education experts Radhika Iyengar and Cassie Xu have teamed up to write Educating for Climate Change, a book that explores how to engage the public, from schoolchildren to graduate students and beyond. It’s the seventh in a series of primers from Columbia University’s Earth Institute that focus on practical sustainability issues. Iyengar and Xu sat down for an email interview about the challenges educators face and what they consider best practices for educating people of all ages about climate change. (Kevin Krajicek)