The increase in species extinction risks through time is well established, and there is no slowing in the rate of population declines globally⌠. Biodiversity loss is being experienced across all Earthâs major biomes⌠. In the oceans, overexploitation of fish stocks is leading to fisheries collapse, warming is destroying coral reefs, and habitat destruction of coastal systems, such as mangrove forests, exposes communities to greater risks from erosion and extreme weather events. Marine plastic pollution is a major and growing threat to biodiversity. In freshwater systems, agricultural and chemical pollution, including increased nitrogen input, results in toxic algal blooms and a decline in drinking-water quality; invasive species are spreading through waterways; and freshwater species are declining at a faster rate than those in any other biome. In the terrestrial environment, rising temperatures are converting grasslands into deserts, and unsustainable irrigation has turned drylands into inhospitable, toxic landscapes unsuitable for wildlife or agriculture.
We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.
To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.
The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.
Such is the impact of human activity on the global environment over the last two centuries that some commentators (following Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer, 2000) now speak in terms of us entering a new geological epoch: the âAnthropoceneâ. This era, initiated by the Industrial Revolution, is one where humankind is taken to overwhelm important elements of the pre-existing natural order, hence exiting the largely benevolent (from a human point of view) Holocene period and entering a new era in which the development of the geological and biophysical environment increasingly is determined by human behaviour. It is held that this is an epoch in which the socio-ethical rather than simply the geo-biophysical determines environmental conditions: human decisions have become a geological force, leaving an irreversible imprint in the planetâs rock and ice strata and atmosphere (Olvitt, 2017). For example, âtechnofossilsâ such as plastics and concrete, and unique concentrations of lead, nitrogen, phosphorous, and carbon dioxide associated with fertilizers and the burning of fossil fuels are now globally evident in anthropogenic deposits (Waters et al., 2016).
The espousal of an Anthropocene era directs attention to three key features of our current situation. First, this is a period in which long-established natural processes, rhythms, and cycles are being progressively disrupted such that there is the potential for them to break down altogether. Hence, this is an age where old certainties can no longer hold, and in many respects new certainties â beyond that of radical change â are extremely hard to establish. Second, nonetheless, impetus is given to a perceived need for humankind explicitly to take responsibility for, and to attempt to manage, processes that formerly were determined through ânatural causalityâ. Third, so far human interventions in nature have frequently resulted in unforeseen and undesirable consequences, and, in overall terms, have led to the aforementioned widespread degradation. Hence, this reframing of the superordinate context for environmental issues in terms of an Anthropocene epoch foregrounds a number of interesting â and urgent â epistemological and ethical considerations. Broadly conceived, these include how to establish a serviceable knowledge base for understanding likely outcomes of decisions on a global scale and how to establish a global environmental ethic â both philosophically and practically. There are good reasons for believing that current (Western) ethical codes are not equipped to deal with this challenge (see, for example, Postma, 2006; Bonnett, 2012), and given the wide range of socio-economic, cultural, and geographical contexts to be accommodated, consensus over what is to be considered ârightâ and âgoodâ in such an epoch will be difficult to achieve. As Lausanne Olvitt (2017) has noted:
The sheer scale of human action and its intergenerational consequences in the Anthropocene marks a definitive shift in ethical life.
In sum, the idea of an Anthropocene era is useful in drawing attention to the scale, and to some extent the character, of the environmental challenges that now face us. Many of these will be considered in more detail in later chapters. But an important caveat needs to be voiced about allowing the idea of the Anthropocene to frame our thinking on environmental matters. While highlighting the global scale and significance, and likely irreversible effect of human activity on the environment, it is worth noting the towering anthropocentrism that runs through the idea of an Anthropocene epoch. It casts our perceptions of our current habitation in geological time in highly human-centred terms â maybe to the point of a self-aggrandizement that continues to set us above the importance of the processes of nature in which we are embedded. It will be argued that there are contexts in which this elevation of the significance of human agency can be deeply misleading and counterproductive.
At this point, it will be helpful to say something about idea of nature that is central to the themes to be developed in this book. The idea of the Anthropocene draws attention to both the idea of a geological timescale and the significance of human actions in nature. On a geological timescale, talk of âsaving the planetâ becomes otiose. Whatever we do or do not do, nature in this broad sense will continue. The climate will change, species will come and go (including very possibly Homo sapiens). Indeed, all life will eventually become extinct as, now on a cosmic scale, it seems that the Earth will become devoured by its dying sun. The point is that viewed on these grand timescales, everything is in a state of flux, and that is the natural order. While this perspective is sometimes useful as a curb on humanistic hubris, the sense of nature that informs the current work is chiefly that of the current state of the biosphere; furthermore, its underlying concern is with states of the biosphere that are consistent with human flourishing. To be sure, there are greatly differing interpretations of nature and human flourishing to be had within this broad perspective, and it is the task of this book to elucidate, refine, and evaluate some of the most important ones insofar as they have a bearing on education and its ecologization. But, given some of the criticisms of anthropocentrism that run through my account, it is necessary from the start to acknowledge this one fundamental sense in which all the views discussed are either implicitly or explicitly anthropocentric. Henceforth, when I speak of âanthropocentrismâ, I will be referring to it in some stronger or more exclusive sense than that of a concern for states of the biosphere that are in some broad sense consistent with human flourishing.
The failure of current policies: the case of sustainable development
Whether or not the idea of an Anthropocene era is helpful, it is now widely accepted that much environmental degradation has resulted from the burgeoning of modern societies that have adopted materialist models of development, and the three key points identified in the preceding section remain salient. In this context, it is understandable that some notion that purports to combine the idea of ongoing development with ideas of avoiding and redressing harmful environmental outcomes would be seen as an appropriate â and attractive â response to the environmental degradation that now besets us. Hence, the notion of sustainable development has arisen, and for over three decades it has played a central role in orientating responses to the growing acknowledgement of a serious environmental crisis. It will be helpful briefly to recap something of its history and character.
âSustainable developmentâ is a political term that was first introduced in The World Conservation Strategy (IUCN et al., 1980) and perhaps was given its most influential articulation with the publication in 1987 of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Brundtland Commission, 1987). Here sustainable development was defined as âa development that meets the needs of the present generation without jeopardising the ability of future generations to meet their needsâ. This definition was widely taken up and was consolidated as an educational concern at the Earth Summit Conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 attended by delegates from over 170 countries and whose centrepiece agreement was Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992). This included the proposal to introduce sustainable development (SD) into the educational programmes of signatory nations. Thus, it found its way (at least notionally) into the core curriculum of many nations, giving rise to the idea of education for sustainable development (ESD) that was lent further impetus by the decision of the UN General Assembly in December 2002 to launch the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005â14. While further examination of these ideas will be the subject of the next section of this chapter, it is clear that both SD and ESD represent a policy for dealing with environmental degradation from the point of view of whatever are taken to be human needs, and in this sense they are essentially instrumental in character. And in seeking to bring about particular practical outcomes thought to serve human welfare, as they gain currency, they have the potential to affect educational practice on a broader scale than might initially be apparent. As this wider connection with education is an important part of the backcloth to understanding possible future directions for, and implications of, ESD, I would like here briefly to provide further illustration of some of the issues raised by this instrumental orientation.
First, in the context of education, a clear tension can arise between the focus on inculcating behaviours that are considered to contribute to sustainable development (such as recycling and energy conservation) and broader educational goals associated with developing the critical judgement and autonomy of pupils. For example, suppose that after due consideration, the personal judgement of a pupil leads them to reject the prescribed practices. What should be the schoolâs response? It is understandable that the pressure of what feel like official ecological imperatives might push teachers/institutions into accepting behaviour modification as an overriding goal. But what will this response communicate about the schoolâs conception of its underlying values and purposes, and the seriousness with which it respects the value of pupilsâ ow...
