America, the Environment, and the Global Economy
Spring 1997-- Global Human
Ecology:
America, the Environment, and the Global Economy
Question for Discussion: How
should we educate people about sustainable development and the
need to solve the global environmental crisis?
Reading: Orr, pp. 61-95
Video:
Internet Sites and Documents:
Economic Growth and Equitable Human Development: The 1996 Human Development Report
The Real WORLD Resources Guide
Environmental History: Explore the Field
American Society for Environmental History Home Page
National Library for the Environment
Brown Center for Environmental Studies
Environmental Studies & Environmental Science Programs
Global Environmental Policy Research Tools
Sustainable Development Principles
Orr's larger argument is that the global environmental crisis can't be solved by technology and technical fixes, nor by economic reforms and market incentives, nor by government and public policy changes; it can be solved only by education and by changing our basic cultural assumptions about our place in the natural world and how we use the environment in living our lives. But Orr's concept of ecological literacy involves much more than this. Orr argues that we must critically examine and rethink the basic assumptions that organize our lives and societies. We cannot end the environmental crisis merely by putting in place environmental education programs in our schools. We must use education to help us change and rethink our values and how we live and organize our societies. Orr's understanding of ecoliteracy involves much deeper changes that merely learning about recycling, preserving energy, and conserving scarce resources. The challenge of ecological literacy involves changing many of the basic assumptions that most of us take for granted in our modern industrial civilization.
What are some of the basic cultural values that Orr argues are essential for ecological literacy and creating a sustainable society? Orr contrasts the values of modern industrial society with those of a ecologically literate society. In modern industrial society, we value materialism, consumerism, individualism, economic and political freedom, and individual responsibility for themselves. Educating for ecological literacy would challenge these assumptions. In a sustainable society, individuals must take responsibility not only for themselves but for the health of their community and the ecosystem they live; individuals must become stewards and caretakers not only for their family and communities, but also for the land and environment around them; individuals must learn to value and protect local cultures and communities and their environment; individuals must learn to understand the complexity of the environment and the societies they live in; individuals need to learn to value not only the present health of their communities and places, but their future health as well; individuals must be willing to make economic sacrifices in the present in order to preserve the health and sustainability of their community and place in the future; finally, individuals must learn to value the intrinsic worth and value of their communities and places. As you can see, ecological literacy would require major transformations in our individual and cultural values.
How do we move from our present lack of interest in the health, integrity, and future of our communities and ecosystems to a deep and abiding commitment to support, nurture, and restore the health of our communities and nature? This education just doesn't involve surface changes to our culture and values, it demands major fundamental changes. So how do we get from here to there? How do we manage the transition and change our fundamental individual and cultural assumptions?
Orr argues that such changes and major transformations must grow out of education and the process of civic renewal that creates ecological citizenship. Orr believes that the challenge is to "reinvent politics at the ecosystem level." Citizens working in their local communities to protect their environments, economies, cultures, and societies can begin to make these changes. But in order for the renewal of citizenship and individual participation and responsibility in local politics, Orr argues our society and government must disperse power from the national to the state and local levels. If individual can play a role in making their local politicians and communities responsible for the health of the environment and their local culture, then they can begin to feel more responsible for and directly involved in shaping their lives and local communities. Through education, local activism and civic responsibility, and through people taking real actions to protect and restore their local environments and communities, we can create a sustainable society.
For the Orr, the transition to sustainability involves teaching and encouraging "ecological competence." People must not only learn about their civic responsibility and their role in protecting the environment, they must be encouraged to actually take specific actions and work towards sustainability. Orr argues that ecological literacy must be taught as an applied subject, asking this question: "How should we live on the land in this place responsibly?" Ecological literacy and ecological competence involves changing the way we live and the way we act; it must involve real experiences and actions by citizens trying to protect and restore their local places and communities.
Orr concludes that ecoliteracy is "the quality of mind that seeks out connections, that is committed to stewardship, caring, active knowledge of, and practical competence" toward local environments and communities. Ecoliteracy involves prudence, humility, stewardship, and a deep and abiding respect for the natural world. Ecological literacy allows a person to read and understand the "vital signs of the planet and ecosystems." Finally, ecological literacy allows and encourages people to study and understand environmental problems in order to solve them.
Orr doesn't answer the question how we should reform the primary, secondary, and postsecondary schools to teach ecological literacy. Students argued that two good examples of failed education programs not to model an ecoliteracy program after are "the war on drugs" and the "AIDS education program." Though they have helped some students, they have not begun to address the larger problems of drugs and AIDS in our society. One of the major problems students argued was that the environment is not already included in the curriculum because we don't recognize the environment as important. Our industrial society tends to see itself as outside of nature, able to control and dominate the environment. So how do we make the health of the environment and ecoliteracy an important part of people's education? This is a critical question that is still unanswered.
Even if we succeed in adding ecological literacy to the curriculum it won't be enough. The problem is much larger than simply teaching about the environment. We have to make knowledge about the health of the environment and our place in it a part of people's everyday lives and actions. Some students observed that many young people see school learning as irrelevant to their larger lives, and they often don't use what they learn in their daily lives. So environmental education won't be effective if it merely becomes another part of the four "R's." How do we make ecological literacy and environmental education an important part of people's understanding and how they live their lives in their local communities and ecosystems? In order to do this, Orr suggest that we teach ecological competence and practical activities that people can use in their daily lives to help them protect and restore their local communities and environments. But in order to do this, we must make environmental education and ecoliteracy an important part of the life and activities of the larger community and society, not just a part of a reformed school curriculum.
Let's look for a moment at some of the environmental information and education sites on the internet to better understand the range of materials supporting ecological literacy on the web. See the The Real WORLD Resources Guide, National Library for the Environment, Environmental Studies & Environmental Science Programs, and the Global Environmental Policy Research Tools site. Clearly there are a number of excellent internet sites that provide valuable information about the environment and the interaction between human society and the natural world. But how do we integrate this knowledge and information into the lives of all Americans?
Orr hasn't addressed this larger issue. We might be able to add ecological literacy into our children's education, but how do we re-educate all the people who are beyond schooling? How do we educate and promote ecoliteracy to the vast majority of Americans who already have been educated? The problem of environmental education and ecoliteracy is a much bigger problem that Orr would have us believe. The challenge is to make ecological literacy and learning about the environment an important part of all of our lives, and only by doing so can we begin to create a sustainable society. Orr is right that the problem of education is the central unsolved problem in our collective efforts to protect and restore the environment and create a sustainable future. If we can't solve this problem, if we can't make ecological literacy a central part of our culture and society and people's everyday lives, then we can't solve the environmental crisis. Without environmental education and ecoliteracy, our modern industrial civilization will continue to threaten and destroy the global environment and by doing so undermine its future.