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Page added on May 1, 2015
Let’s prepare for a world of change
WITH global population set to pass 8 billion in just a few years there are some tough choices to be made, says May East
I think HG Wells had it right when he said that we are in a race between education and catastrophe. For the environmental educator David Orr this race will be won when we create an educational framework that fosters ecological imagination, critical thinking, independent thought and a greater awareness of the interdependence of all life.
The international community has been confronted with some blunt questions
Over the next 15 years, the world population is expected to increase by 1.1 billion so that, by 2030, the global economy will need to support approximately 8.4 billion people. “Globally, two billion babies will be born, each reaching school age, each needing access to high quality education” warns the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division.
The past two years have seen a flurry of activity with governments, UN agencies, a cross-section of civil society, business and – most importantly – millions of people from around the globe engaged in shaping a global sustainable development agenda for the years beyond 2015. The 1.8 billion young people around the world represent a dynamic, informed, and globally connected engine for change. Integrating their needs, rights to choice and voices in the new development agenda will be a key driver for its success. They are key the torchbearers for a future where no one is left behind and we live within the ecological limits of the planet.
There is a growing consensus that sustainable development begins with education – but what sort of education? Would Paulo Freire’s invigorating critique of the “banking” model of education – which regards students as mere receivers of education, devoid of creative impetus – prevail? Or would we follow Orr’s suggestion and start challenging educators to equip our students with the practical skills, analytic abilities, philosophical depth and moral wherewithal to reshape the human presence in the world. By this, I mean, an education that replaces the extractive consumer economy with one that eliminates the concept of waste, uses energy and materials with great efficiency, and distributes wealth fairly within and between generations. I also mean, an education that makes quality of life, rather than open-ended economic growth, the focus of future thinking.
A recent released Unesco Education for All Global Monitoring Report proves education has the potential to transform development. The analysis provides fresh proof that investing in education, especially for girls, alleviates extreme poverty through securing substantial benefits for health and productivity, as well as democratic participation and women’s empowerment.
More specifically, education is one of the means by which we can deliver the 2015-20130 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) currently under final negotiation. One of the SDG targets is to “ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development”.
In designing and implementing the new sustainable development agenda, the international community has been confronted with some blunt questions. Are we content merely with re-shuffling the deck or are we prepared to initiate a major overhaul of the total system and accept responsibility for the consequences of decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to co-exist.
An old biblical reference warns about the dangers of pouring new wine into old wineskins, else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled. The question for us is slightly different: will we continue to pour considerable quantities of old wine into the new bottle of global change, or are we brave enough to re-educate ourselves and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity?
19 Comments on "Let’s prepare for a world of change"
Davy on Fri, 1st May 2015 7:47 am
Yee Haa, more population BAUtopium hopium this time with a numb nut population stink tank. It is too late for any mitigation of population in a nice way. The only way to rebalance population is with consumption. A rebalance of consumption will force population rebalance. This will not be nice in fact it will be ugly, painful, with excess deaths over births.
Here is some of the hopium of a false reality:
Article said: For the environmental educator David Orr this race will be won when we create an educational framework that fosters ecological imagination, critical thinking, independent thought and a greater awareness of the interdependence of all life. Our educational framework motivation is more consumption for the most part. Education is a dead end for his nice hopium. I wish it were true but it just ain’t so.
Article said “Over the next 15 years, the world population is expected to increase by 1.1 billion” I forecast half that growth because the economy and the oil sector will be far into demand and supply destruction in 5 years. Consumption will be rebalanced by economic and geological reasons. Climate may enter the picture too. Global conflict not out of the question. There is absolutely no positive that point to 1BIL more people. Food productivity is stalling and water stress is everywhere. Ecosystems are crashing and in decline. Come on smell the stink folks.
eugene on Fri, 1st May 2015 7:49 am
My read is we are well into a “world of change”. There’s an old saying something like “closing barn door after the horse is out”. We should have started long, long ago. But is talking about it now makes you feel good, have at it. Personally it was “ah shit” time yrs ago.
marmico on Fri, 1st May 2015 8:06 am
If 74 mb/d of oil could support 6.5 billion population in 2004, then 80 mb/d can support 8.5 billion population in 2030.
Peakoilers fail to grasp conservation, substitution and efficiency gains.
The average 1970 U.S. Joe Sixpack or Jane Chardonnay spent $0.36 per gallon on leaded gasoline to be mobile for 15 miles per gallon at an hourly wage of $3.40.
The average 2015 U.S. Joe or Jane spends $2.50 per gallon on unleaded gasoline to be mobile for 30 miles per gallon at an hourly wage of $20.60.
Do the arithmetic.
John D on Fri, 1st May 2015 8:17 am
‘Sustainable development’, ‘Green growth’… oxymorons designed to ease our consciences as we plunder the planet.
paulo1 on Fri, 1st May 2015 8:20 am
I spent 17 years teaching all grades and most subjects both rural and town. This is out of an almost 40 year work life starting with my own company putting in lawns and cleaning up construction sites at age 13. I always get a kick out of these articles that decree education will solve future problems. A kid gets mauled by a dog? why….teach dog safety in elementary school. Kids getting fat at home with poor food choices and screen time…why, simply increase school PE blocks and teach nutrition. Home doesn’t provide growth direction or wise choices?…schools will fix it with some health, consumer ed, or drug course. How about job search skills? well, you get the idea.
Now, we have trashed the planet from the first denuded forest and/or chunk of coal burnt and education is ‘The Answer’, of course.
Unless you call ‘the school of life and hard knocks’, education, this is just one more ivory tower dickhead that doesn’t have a clue about change or people. If we can’t learn about the environment and how we live from drought, Katrina, or Fukishima, is there really any hope of pro-active change through education? We all know shooting heroin is risky, then why do people still do it? Sheeeeit, a huge amount of people don’t even know how to cook a nutritous and basic meal. What about the hundreds of millions of folks that live in mega cities? The environment to them is something on some channel they flip past in order to get to lip sync battles or dancing with the stars. What on earth is the ‘environment’ to them? Central Park pictures? An over-crowded subway or mall?
I don’t think there will be another 1.1 billion people by 2030. Environmental change and resulting social disruption is starting to descend upon us right now and will only accelerate in the next few years.
The most consuming country in the world is debating whether or not schools can even teach natural selection without including ‘intelligent design’ for God’s sake. That same country is still debating the right of a women to choose an abortion, with some prominent politicians not even allowing the idea of incest or rape to enter the dialogue. The Country, almost all countries, measure prosperity and opportunity with ‘growth’, nay, the terms are synonomous. This is a land that is festooned with armed militias and a movement that is stuck defending the right to have auto-matic weapons, and believes that there is a conspiracy to promote ‘One World Govt’. This is a Country that has a pretty firm foundation on school vouchers in addition to all of the above. http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/school-choice-vouchers.aspx
And this ‘environmental educator’ expects the Govt. to impose a new curriculum and/or way of teaching that will fix the environment and life as we need it to be?
Hah ha hha ha ha.
Davy on Fri, 1st May 2015 8:20 am
E-CON-omist BAUtopium hopiun porn at its finest from the resident corn Marmi. Marmi, if you will acknowledge diminishing returns to these efforts “Peakoilers fail to grasp conservation, substitution and efficiency gains.” I will acknowledge the possibility with luck your 8.5BIL anti-Malthusian position.
Open your eyes and smell the stink.
marmico on Fri, 1st May 2015 8:35 am
More word salad prattle from the Ozark Mountain Arsonist.
Davy on Fri, 1st May 2015 9:23 am
Just trying to be friendly Marm. Extremist can always moderate. You and I are extremist. The difference is I admit it and you deny it.
GregT on Fri, 1st May 2015 11:24 am
“Do the arithmetic.”
Very good Marmico, from the perspective of a child in grade five. In reality, the problem is far more complex than you appear able to grasp.
Lawfish1964 on Fri, 1st May 2015 12:39 pm
“One of the SDG targets is to “ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’.”
I just threw up in my mouth. What a bunch of horse hockey. Yeah, that kumbaya education crap will solve the fact that we’re pushing toward 8 billion people on a planet that can maybe sustain 1 billion.
JuanP on Fri, 1st May 2015 3:30 pm
Depending on your level of understanding, “Sustainable Development” is either an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms. Either way it is not possible!
I do disagree with Davy and Paulo on the prospects for further population growth in the coming decade or two, I think this monster has too much inertia and will not be stopped that easily. I think it is quite possible that population will keep growing significantly for a long time and, as usual, I hope I am wrong and you guys are right. All you have to do is look at Africa, the ME, or the past for examples of people breeding like rabbits under horrible circumstances.
While I have no doubt that mortality will increase significantly in the future, I fear that natality and the number of children per woman will increase at the same time. At some point the population will crash, but that moment may be a long time coming, longer than most imagine. I know it seems counterintuitive.
JuanP on Fri, 1st May 2015 3:36 pm
By the way, as of today we are 7,240 million, increasing by around 80 million a year. I am NOT getting in front of the population train.
apneaman on Fri, 1st May 2015 4:51 pm
I think this commenter from over at Robertscribblers blog sums up the situation and our response to it quite accurately.
Robert Thankyoufornotbreeding Atack / May 1, 2015
“It amazes me how many people on these so called aware of climate change issue blogs, don’t understand that 400ppm CO2 and god knows how much CH4/CO2e etc there is (???) equals the end of humans/mammals. ‘we’ are not going to stop emitting the ten Gt per year of whatever, and we are not capable of extracting enough CO2/CH4 out of the atmosphere to make one bit of difference.
Any discussion on how we could cycle or light bulb our way out of this is just childish wishful thinking, we all need to bloody grow up and face the reality of what we face.
Most of you know what 400 ppm CO2 has meant in the past, and this time around we have done it with something like 9,800 years in change faster than anytime in the past.”
Happy happy joy joy
22after.com
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/permafrost-carbon-feedback-to-blow-carbon-budget-faster-than-we-would-expect/#comment-39682
apneaman on Fri, 1st May 2015 7:27 pm
AGW Amplified Drought is Increasing its Destabilization of Countries Around the World
“Amid a continuing drought and persistent, intense heat waves afflicting South America, Venezuela is another developing country in the cross hairs of anthropogenic global warming. Like its neighbor Brazil, the country’s electrical needs are heavily dependent on hydropower which provides roughly two-thirds of demand. In recent days temperatures have climbed to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, making 2015 the hottest year on record for Venezuela in the last 60 years and forcing its citizenry to crank up their air conditioning. In response to a stressed electric grid, the government is now rationing electricity in order to avoid further blackouts.”
“Free-market ideologues believe Venezuela’s energy crisis is solely a problem of ‘isms’, socialism vs capitalism, and the improper pricing of commodities, but in a world of ecosystem collapse and resource scarcity, no type of ism that runs a fossil fuel-based civilization is going to work. Capitalist carbon man is incapable of monetizing the true value of the earth’s ecological systems because he operates within an economic paradigm that forces him to externalize costs at every turn, leaving the eco-costs of burning ancient carbon to present and future generations.”
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2015/05/01/agw-amplified-drought-is-increasing-its-destabilization-of-countries-around-the-world/
American Idiot on Fri, 1st May 2015 10:13 pm
There is no future. I’m just glad I don’t have any kids. Just imagine what kind of world they will be left with.
apneaman on Fri, 1st May 2015 10:44 pm
American Idiot, there is so a future. It’s just not the one we were sold.
apneaman on Fri, 1st May 2015 10:47 pm
Has Globalization Jumped the Shark?
A funny thing happened on the way to Neoliberal globalization utopia:
” …[G]lobalization…was supposed to act like a rising tide, lifting all boats in poor and rich countries alike. Buoyed by hundreds of thousands of new assembly line jobs courtesy of multinationals in emerging nations, the middle class would swell, which in turn would propel higher local consumption. More factories would be needed to meet the demand, further raising local standards of living and handing the largest non-domestic companies a vast and enthusiastic new customer base. Meanwhile, in the United States and Europe, consumers would have their pick of inexpensive items made by people thousands of miles away whose pay was much lower than theirs. And in time trade barriers would drop to support even more multinational expansion and economic gains while geopolitical cooperation would flourish”
http://hipcrime.blogspot.ca/2015/04/has-globalization-jumped-shark.html
roman on Sat, 2nd May 2015 1:24 am
Government ‘ducation is useless for retards and geniuses. You shouldn’t have the right to breed if you are not mentally, physically or genetically fit.
GregT on Sat, 2nd May 2015 2:29 am
So in your mind’s eye Roman, who do you believe had the right to determine whether your parents could breed or not? Or is it only you who thinks that they were mentally, physically or genetically fit enough for you to exist? Kind of a bizarre statement wouldn’t you agree?