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Education practices for sustainability
Education practices for sustainability
Approaches used in environmental education
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In recent history humanity has begun to fundamentally alter the functionality of the planet [1, 2]. The global capitalist market and its dominant neoliberal paradigm have driven a multitude of environmental issues [3, 4, 5]. Global climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, waste accumulation, and a loss of valuable ecosystem services are at the forefront of today’s environmental issues [1, 2, 6, 7]. Regardless of whether these issues are anthropogenic or natural, action will be required to maintain the world’s habitability [8]. Perhaps the most efficacious approach to these issues is to shift from the paradigm enhancing them. Thesis: Education reform at the primary level will allow for the sculpting of a paradigm with which the coming generations approach the world, and that paradigm must be one that values nature over economic growth.
Supporting argument 1: The problem is in the economic paradigm
Advocates of neoliberal policies proclaim that the efficiency of the market allows it to be the best allocator of prosperity [4]. However, a neoliberal market rewards behaviors that result in environmental degradation [4]. “The dominant economic paradigm rewards more instead of better consumption and private versus
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Additionally, EECE incorporates social ecology, which suggests that social stratification is the primary cause of anthropogenic effects on the world’s ecosystems [9]. Eco-early childhood education incorporates many activities, such as running, walking, and gardening, to further the children’s self-exploration and appreciation of nature and community [9]. Most importantly, is that EECE emphasizes adapting the curriculum to ecology, rather than simply including ecology as a subject [9]. In a short amount of time, an entire generation of South Koreans will have been taught in this
Cunningham, William P. Cunningham, Mary Ann and Saigo, Barbara. Environmental Science, A Global Concern. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY. 2005.
Nevertheless, this concern stems from a twisted notion: the present-day capitalist State might write up policies and treaties which are meant to ensure the salvation of nature as we know it, but still the situation keeps becoming worse. It is as if everybody comprehends, in the back of their minds, that the global capitalist system simply cannot remain at work indefinitely. That if it does, it will lead to the utter downfall of our current society. The idea stays buried, though — its disturbing echo becomes muffled by the bright lights of popular media and popular politics, which intend to turn us into commodified, inebriated, small, content citizens.
Such ploys seek to undermine any legitimate eco-consciousness in the audience, replacing it with rhetoric that is ultimately ambivalent toward the health of ecosystems, but definitively pro-business. These tactics assume a rigidly anthropocentric point of view, shutting out any consideration for the well-being of non-human existence; they seem to suggest that nature lies subordinate to our base desires. In addition to upholding the subordination of nature to business and leisure activities, this view establishes nature as something privately owned and partitioned (243), rather than something intrinsic to the world. Our relationship with nature becomes one of narcissism.
The justice oriented person is a chance to change the world 2017 “Every individual, activity and population has an impact on Earth, though their use of natural resources and ecological services and the generation of waste” (Benito Cao, “Environment and citizenship”, 2015, p. 217). However, this seemingly fundamental essence of the life of mankind turns into an ecological crisis of the present and future. To change the picture of the world we must proceed environmental injustices arm-in-arm with the social justice issues, which cannot be solved without the confirmation and engagement of each other. In case of an environmentally sustainable way, attending to social justice is a catalyst making people ado not concern only of
Ecological theory is environmentally based; it is based on everyone and everything that is in a child’s life. This includes parents, teachers, babysitters, neighbors and even other
According to World WildLife Fund, many ecosystems around the world are being destroyed, eliminating many plant and animal species that inhabit them (“Pollution”).
Environmental policy is often regarded as one of the main drivers of environmental innovation (Porter and van der Linde, 1995b). The adverse effects of most environmental problems resulted in environmental innovation being less market-driven and more regulatory motivated. Porter and van der Linde (1995b) advocate that environmental regulation may result in a win-win situation: pollution being reduced and profits increased. This argument is famously termed the Porter Hypothesis and is largely based on evolutionary innovation theory (Nelson and Winter, 1982). Nelson and Winter (1982) postulate that a firm’s innovative behaviour is hardly an optimisation process; rather it often follows rules of thumb and routines, due to the large uncertainties related to the success of innovation. Following Nelson and Winter (1982) Porter and van der Linde (1995b) assert that this argument is largely applicable to environmental innovation where firms are “… still inexperienced in dealing creatively with environmental issues.”(Porter and van der Linde, 1995b). Therefore, environmentally and economically favourable innovations are often unrealised due to inadequate information, organizational and coordination problems (Porter van der Linde 1995b). Therefore, in such a scenario, environmental regulation plays a critical role by forcing firms to bring about “economically benign environmental innovation” (Horbach, 2008). For example, the Catalytic Converter was developed following regulations to protect local air quality, and resulted in significant reduction in emissions of pollutants such as NOx and SOx from vehicles (Kemp and Foxon, 2007). Indeed, Porter and van der Linde (1995b) call for countries to adopt “innovation-forcing regulations” for envi...
Although, this solution offers a way to support the biodiversity through anthropogenic actions, there are complications that come along with this
Political ecology began in the 1960s as a response to the neglect of the environment and political externalities from which it is spawned. Political ecology is the analysis of social forms and humans organizations that interact with the environment, the phenomena in and affecting the developing world. Political ecology also works to provide critiques and alternatives for negative reactions in the environment. This line of work draws from all sorts of fields, such as geography, forestry, environmental sociology, and environmental history in a complex relationship between politics, nature, and economics. It is a multi-sided field where power strategies are conceived to remove the unsustainable modern rationality and instead mobilize social actions in the globalized world for a sustainable future. The field is focused in political ethics to refresh sustainability, and the core questions of the relationships between society and ecology, and the large impacts of globalization of humanized nature.
A human induced global ecological crisis is occurring, threatening the stability of this earth and its inhabitants. The best path to address environmental issues both effectively and morally is a dilemma that raises concerns over which political values are needed to stop the deterioration of the natural environment. Climate change; depletion of resources; overpopulation; rising sea levels; pollution; extinction of species is just to mention a few of the damages that are occurring. The variety of environmental issues and who and how they affect people and other species is varied, however the nature of environmental issues has the potential to cause great devastation. The ecological crisis we face has been caused through anthropocentric behavior that is advantageous to humans, but whether or not anthropocentric attitudes can solve environmental issues effectively is up for debate. Ecologism in theory claims that in order for the ecological crisis to be dealt with absolutely, value and equality has to be placed in the natural world as well as for humans. This is contrasting to many of the dominant principles people in the contemporary world hold, which are more suited to the standards of environmentalism and less radical approaches to conserving the earth. I will argue in this essay that whilst ecologism could most effectively tackle environmental problems, the moral code of ecologism has practical and ethical defects that threaten the values and progress of anthropocentricism and liberal democracy.
Public policy is defined by Webster’s as the “The basic policy or set of policies forming the foundation of public laws, especially such policy not yet formally enunciated.” The United States Government has many policies in the area of the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970 to help identify environmental problems in our nation, and to set policy on how to deal with those problems. Yet, with so much money spent by the government to deal with problems with the environment, it must be noted that problems still exist, even within the bureaucracy that was meant to help in the first place.
...dearly-held, unconscious collective assumptions may impede our chances for survival. Or, as Poliakoff, et. al., noted, “fundamental changes in technology are adopted… only when they provide real advantage” (810). Are human beings inherently selfish, or are they capable of rising above that? Will we use this power we have developed to help ourselves, or to attempt to help the world? “Why can’t we achieve a better balance between people, resources, and the environment? … The complete answers to these questions lie deeply within the complex realms of science, philosophy, religion, economics, and politics.” (170). The answers may be complicated. The truth is, industrialization has changed our relationship to the environment. It has enabled us to hurt it far more than any other species, but it has also given us the ability to help. The power of choice now lies with us.
In what ways has the distributive approach to achieving environmental justice been problematic in western nations?
Environmental philosophy tries to make sense of the unexamined values, assumptions and ideologies behind humanities treatment of the environment and, in doing so, aims at helping to elicit an effective human response to related issues (Curry, 2011). Environmental philosophy, has gone beyond being merely an academic pursuit, now requiring the world’s population take moral responsibility for the damages caused by their industrial advances on natural systems.
Environmental education has origins that date back to 1900’s as nature studies submerged participants in understanding wild places and the plants or animals that are found outside (Krasny and Monroe, 2015). As humans made greater impacts on the land and new environmental problems were created, the concept of environmental education changed in response to these new conditions. Often, audiences experienced nature by traveling outside communities to stereotypic wild lands. Recently, urban environmental education surfaced as a new approach to sharing nature with audiences--helping create meaningful experiences in nature by finding a greater value in urban areas as natural areas (Russ, 2015). There are many similarities and differences between the