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In this paper, we explore how principles of economics courses prepare undergraduate students to think about climate change. We collected a comprehensive list of twenty-seven introductory economics textbooks in the United States and analyzed their coverage of climate change. Our finding shows that not all texts touch upon climate science, and a small subset deviates from the scientific consensus on the human causes of climate change. All texts conceptualize climate change as a problem of carbon emission’s negative externalities and the preferred market-based solutions, such as emission trading and Pigouvian tax. Besides externality, some authors include various useful points of engagement through GDP (Gross domestic product) accounting, economic growth, collective action problems, cost–benefit analysis, and global inequality. In the end, we provide suggestions for economics educators to innovate the current introductory curriculum to better cope with the climate crisis.

Sociology has been slow in responding to the challenge of climate change. In this conversation, we advocate adding more climate change content to Introduction to Sociology courses. To support our arguments, we present data from a content analysis of the top 11 best-selling introductory textbooks in the United States, demonstrating that environmental concerns are usually relegated to the end of books, which provide little (and sometime errant) content. Climate change gets even less attention, and there has been little change to textbook content over time. To correct such deficiencies, we suggest instructors free climate change from its current position as “a subfield of a subfield” and interweave the issue with all content areas in the curriculum. Our conversation concludes by considering how climate change can be featured in the curriculum of introductory courses as well as in the pedagogies presented at the introductory level.