Envisioning futures for environmental and ...

Chapter 8 Future scenarios for sustainability education: the future we want? Helen Kopnina

Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Faculty Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2300 RB Leiden, the Netherlands; [email protected] / [email protected]

Abstract This contribution reflects upon the future of environmental education and education for sustainable development (EE/ESD) and the larger issue of sustainability. The three scenarios and corresponding EE/ESD approaches are discussed: the limits to growth (the great tragedy and demise); sustainable development and ecological modernization (hope and innovation); and the Anthropocene park (surrender to anthropocentrism). The future of education for sustainability is examined in the context of sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015. As the SDGs closely correspond with sustainable development and ecological modernization scenario, bringing into question whether the EE/ESD’s alignment with the SDGs is the ‘future we want’, or the future we need, or the future we are going to have anyway. Keywords: Environmental education, future scenarios, sustainability

Introduction The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, the so-called Rio+20 or Earth Summit 2012, was held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The document produced, The Future We Want (UN 2012), identified a range of sustainable development challenges, including the right to water, energy, health, decent jobs, and food security; the need to address gender inequalities and poverty; and the imperative of protecting planetary ecosystems. The document recognized the need to improve the institutional framework that supports sustainable development. At the following United Nations conferences, renewed accent was placed upon social and economic objectives, outlined by a set of Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs (UN 2014, 2015). These goals, incorporated into the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, include fighting poverty, promoting better health, P.B. Corcoran, J.P. Weakland and A.E.J. Wals (eds.) Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education 129 DOI 10.3920/978-90-8686-846-9_8, © Wageningen Academic Publishers 2017

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reducing mortality, as well as addressing sustainability challenges including climate change and biodiversity loss. One of the central concepts outlined in the SDG’s is ‘sustained and inclusive economic growth’ (UN 2015). At the close of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD 20052014), environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) have remained the main vehicle of transferring knowledge and skills to achieve transformation to sustainable society (Huckle and Wals 2015). As Huckle and Wals (2015) have noted, in order to address sustainability challenges we need to teach our students to link unsustainable consumption to the structures and processes that shape consumer capitalism. The focus needs to be on the role of the global consumer/citizen in persuading governments, regulatory institutions, NGOs and business to take action, but also to realize barriers to change, with associated power of economic, political and cultural elites that control production and support dominant discourse of ecological modernization (ibid, p. 499). Some critical authors have also noted that sustainable development is largely anthropocentric and ignores the urgency of environmental problems through the discursive politics of social and economic sustainability dictated by neoliberal ideology of equitable economic growth (Bonnett 2015, Derby et al. 2015, Kopnina 2012, 2013, Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2015). The emerging critique of sustainable development in EE/ESD is often directed toward normative definitions and approaches in the field of sustainability (Pipere et al. 2015), promoting more plural rather than monistic ethical approaches (Kronlid and Öhman 2013, Öhman and Östman 2008). Appreciation of the challenge of elimination of a dichotomy between pluralistic education and normative or goal-oriented education geared towards addressing sustainability concerns calls for reflexive social learning (LotzSisitka et al. 2015, Wals 2012). However, EE/ESD research and practice are not explicitly directed against anthropocentrism. In a democratic and plural society, educators might want to teach for environmental sustainability. Others might teach for economic development without regard of nonhuman species. Since this volume seeks to leverage speculative inquiry to imagine how nascent ecological developments might transform the field of environmental education, and if the SDGs are going to ‘inspire’ ESD, the SDGs import in relation to education needs to be assessed. In line with Wals’ call to restrict the tendency of ‘anything goes’ relativism (Wals 2010), this chapter will support a position that dealing with dire environmental predicament requires social engagement, as well as urgent measures (Wals 2015). This necessitates ‘choosing sides’, rather than merely supporting academically balanced and safe openness of perspectives, neutrality and balance.

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Chapter 8: Envisioning futures

I shall argue in this chapter that we need to be more engaged with land ethics, ecological justice, animal rights, and deep ecology – something to which I collectively refer to as ‘ecocentric positions’. This chapter will also expand upon the future scenarios. I shall discuss three future scenarios presented in the articles entitled Future Scenarios and Environmental Education (Kopnina 2014) and in Three Ways to think about the Sixth Mass Extinction (Cafaro 2015). These scenarios are presented in the context of ecocentric positions and the SDGs.

The future scenarios Philip Cafaro (2015, p. 391) discusses different ways of conceiving of environmental crisis in general and of extinction in particular. In the dominant conception, extinction is seen as a loss of resources for people, as it is articulated by The Brundtland report (WCED 1987). This context implies that even quite valuable resources may be liquidated if doing so will further human well-being, and if alternative resources can be found (for example, by substituting biodiverse rainforest for palm oil monocultures). However, Cafaro argues that this framework fails to capture the injustice of extinguishing myriad of other forms of life. In the alternative conception, being able to end the current mass extinction, but failing to do so, makes us guilty of interspecies genocide. The three future scenarios in EE/ESD described in Kopnina (2014) are aligned with Cafaro’s ethical concern. These scenarios are the limits to growth; sustainable development and ecological modernization and the Anthropocene park. The first scenario describes the great tragedy and demise, meaning the catastrophic environmental collapse predicted by the report of the Club of Rome, Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972). Sustainable development and ecological modernization leans more towards optimism, hope and innovation in treating environmental problems as a challenge to be solved by economic, social and technological development (WCED 1987). The Anthropocene park scenario speaks of what an environmental sociologist Eileen Crist has referred to as a civilization whose greatest threat is ‘not its potential for self-annihilation, but its totalitarian conversion of the natural world into a domain of resources to serve a human supremacist way of life, and the consequent destruction of all the intrinsic wealth of its natural places, beings, and elements’ (Crist 2012, p. 149). The SDGs closely correspond with sustainable development and ecological modernization scenario (Kopnina 2016). The central concepts outlined in the SDGs are ‘sustained and inclusive economic growth’, ‘resilience’ and ‘adaptation’ (UN 2015). A typical example of the oft-repeated aim is ‘inclusive and sustainable industrial development … together with resilient infrastructure and innovation’ (http://tinyurl.com/zcemdk4). This is to be achieved by education to promote Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education

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‘inclusive and equitable economic growth’ (http://tinyurl.com/zvbu6mh). Clearly, ‘interspecies genocide’ is not the language of the SDGs. The critics have observed however, that ‘sustainable economic growth’ is an oxymoron (e.g. Kopnina and Blewitt 2014, Washington 2015). The SDGs’ objectives of ‘ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all’ are likely to make protection of the planet impossible given the fact that ending poverty and ensuring prosperity is currently associated with global dissemination of unsustainable industrial production systems and consumer culture (Crist 2012). As Hansen and Wethal (2014) have emphasized, economic growth and consumption in the rich countries is far from abating and developing countries are eager to emanate this ‘progress’ without serious reflection of what this means for the planet in the long term. Growth strategies pursued in developing countries stimulate the ‘catch-up’ with the rich countries as the overriding goal (Hansen and Wethal 2014). It was argued that instead, we need a radical overhaul of current production system, including an uncompromising transition towards circular economy and cradle to cradle systems of production (e.g. Kopnina and Blewitt 2014, Washington 2015). In terms of social sustainability, critics have emphasized that promoting economic development is not likely to address the underlying causes of social inequalities, which are related to the transnational politics of competition in global markets and industrial capital (Rees 2010, Wijkman and Rockström 2012). Also, the terms ‘underdevelopment’ or ‘development’ prominent in the SDGs are neocolonial as they semantically imply that the poor communities or even entire nations are inferior to ‘developed’ ones and need to emanate the higher stages of development exemplified by the superior nations (Black 2016). In terms of ecological justice, economic development privileges human welfare over concerns with other species, not only undermining our own human resource base, but the very chance of other species’ evolutionary unfolding (Cafaro 2015, Crist 2012, Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina 2015). As will be further elaborated on in this chapter, the SDGs are unlikely to lead to greater social equality and economic prosperity, but to a spread of unsustainable production and consumption to all corners of the globe, continuous economic as well as population growth that has caused environmental problems in the first place, and non-abating commodification and objectification of environment and its elements. Thus, educators and researchers need to reflect whether EE/ESD’s alignment with the SDGs is the ‘future we want’, or the future we need, or the future we are going to have anyway.

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As Lysgaard et al. (2015) have noted, adding environmental perspectives and then the troublesome idea(l) of sustainability to the already disputed topic of ‘education’, has made for neither clear waters nor smooth sailing, particularly in policy circles. Is the SDGs vision of sustainability something that we all (or the majority of us) share? I assume that most of us, environmental educators and researchers, converge on some idea as to the future we want – a vague but nonetheless inspiring notion of a just society in which everybody can prosper. But I can only speak for myself. The future I would want for EE/ESD and for humanity in general is aligned with Cafaro’s (2015) realization: environmental sustainability requires both practical and ethical engagement on behalf of nonhumans. In order to counter unsustainability, humanity would need to end human population growth, as well as industrial expansion, set aside sufficient lands and waters for other species to flourish over the long term, and create economies based on sustaining a limited number of people in comfort, rather than endlessly more people in luxury (Cafaro 2015, p. 386). This would require nothing less than a radically engaged education based on ecocentric positions (Bai and Romanycia 2013, Kahn 2010, Kopnina 2012, 2013, Kopnina and Gjerris 2015, Orr 1992, Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina 2016).

Ecocentric positions Three movements in environmental ethics have played a major role in challenging anthropocentrism: animal liberation, land ethics, and deep ecology (Yamauchi 2002). The animal liberation is related to animal rights movements (e.g. Singer 1977). As outlined by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), animal rights denotes the philosophical belief that animals should have the right to live their lives free of human intervention, and call for the abolition of the use of animals in science; dissolution of commercial animal agriculture and elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping. The land ethics positions all living beings, including humans, as part of biotic community (or ecosystem, or habitat, with all its elements, including humans), and it is the integrity of the entire interconnected web of relationships that deserves the highest moral priority (Leopold 1949). Similar to the land ethics, deep ecology emphasizes the integrity of biotic community supporting intrinsic value of nature (e.g. Naess 1973). In educational practice, deep ecology was noted by Glasser (2004) to shine a brighter light on the gap between our attitudes and our generally unsustainable actions and policies. In relation to the outlined scenarios, deep ecology and land ethics are opposed to the anthropocentric park scenario as domesticated and ‘thoroughly denatured’ (Crist 2012) planet undermines the integrity of biotic community. Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education

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By contrast, shallow ecology, sometimes referred to as strong anthropocentrism or pragmatic environmental ethics (Norton 1984) is concerned with maintaining natural elements and ecosystems for human material benefit. Pragmatic ethics is based in the assumption that anthropocentric or ecocentric motivations, represented in plural ethical approaches, achieve the same ends as human selfinterest leads to environmental action, as in the case of fighting pollution (see ‘convergence theory’ by Norton 1984). Deep ecologists criticize this conversion theory, arguing that anthropocentric motivations can only make a positive contribution to the environment in situations where only humans are negatively affected, leaving species that do not contribute to human welfare unprotected (Crist 2012, Katz 1996), supporting the Anthropocene park scenario. It appears that the SDGs are largely congruent with strong anthropocentrism, shallow ecology and pragmatic positions. In accepting conventional ‘sustainability’ based on inclusive growth, resilience and adaptation, as formulated by the SDGs, ecocentric position can be seen, at best, as one of many possible perspectives, rather than a unique position that radically contests dominant assumptions. In fact, the argument about monistic ethics can be turned on its head as any shade of anthropocentric ethics can be said to be monistic as it is based on a single-species interests (e.g. Dobson 2014). As it turns out at the age of the Anthropocene, non-human species are neither well-adapted nor resilient, judging by the current rate of habitat destruction and species extinction. In the anthropocentric formulation, ‘sustained and inclusive growth’ does not include the flourishing of non-humans. For example, while this volume emphasizes ‘ecological violence and environmental injustice that occurs on spatial and temporal scales… most often against the world’s poorest peoples’ (editors, in this volume), we also need to consider what Crist (2012, p. 147) unambiguously calls genocide: I use the word genocide here in its literal sense: the mass violence against and extermination of nonhuman nations, negating not only their own existence but also their roles in Life’s interconnected nexus and their future evolutionary unfolding. This planet-wide holocaust is marching on virtually unabated, despite its extensive and decades’ long documentation, driven by the life-ways of both the world’s rich and poor, and most especially by their Faustian economic partnerships. The ongoing and escalating genocide of nonhumans is shrouded in silence, a silence signifying disregard for the vanquished.

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In this sense, human chauvinism is the most virulent strand of anthropocentrism, which fosters pernicious enslavement of the global non-human world (Crist 2012). It is in the context of deep and shallow ecology, animal welfare and animal rights that the future directions in EE/ESD can be framed.

Ecocentric perspectives in education The promising directions include eco-literacy (e.g. Orr 1992), animal rights (Gorski 2009, Kopnina and Gjerris 2015) and eco-justice (Kahn 2010) perspectives in education. These promising directions are illustrated by conservation education (e.g. Norris and Jacobson 1998), outdoor education (e.g. Sandell and Öhman 2010), education for deep ecology (e.g. Glasser 2004, LaChapelle 1991), post-humanist education (e.g. Bonnett 2015), and education that fosters indigenous knowledge of nature (Baines and Zarger 2012). Perhaps more congruent to the SDGs objectives is the animal welfare movement, which relates to the living and dying conditions of animals as they are kept and killed by humans, based on the assumption that humans are morally entitled to the use of animals (Peters 2016, p. 10-11). While animal rights are more categorically opposed to instrumental use of animals, the objective of animal welfare is to mitigate animal suffering while preserving their economic use by humans (Peters 2016). If animal rights and deep ecology are unacceptable in current society or university curriculum at this time, animal welfare concerns are more ‘mainstream’ as they are not opposed to the sustainable development and ecological modernization scenarios. Animal welfare does, however, to a certain degree challenge anthropocentrism as it expresses empathy for nonhumans beyond instrumental interests, becoming salient, for example, in relation to farm animals’ suffering in concentrated animal feeding operations (Crist 2012). Educational programs of the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) are instructive. Over sixty years, both of these organizations are involved in education that combines the dual focus on animal rights and welfare as well as general ecocentric stance. Taking on board both ecocentric philosophies and cross-cultural sensitivities, Spannring (2016) has pointed out a number of ways in which animals and animal suffering can be addressed in EE. Within the interspecies paradigm in EE, one issue is the inclusion of species that are traditionally considered in interdisciplinary engagement, such as companion pets, farm animals as well the so-called invasive species that tend to be overlooked in EE (Spannring 2016). This requires a combination of different types of ecocentric ethics approaches, including animal liberation, deep ecology and land ethics with their different units of study (individuals, species, habitats) within the overarching consideration for all Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education

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living beings. Another area to be expanded is borrowing from practices and ideas from ecocentric cultures. The more informal educational settings, especially in non-Western countries, offer unique examples of indigenous learning (e.g. Black 2016). Indeed, the ecocentric views and the concept of interdependency among all living things are well represented in the literature related to indigenous paradigms (e.g. Kopnina 2015). In order to avoid surrender to anthropocentrism through the Anthropocene park scenario, education can draw upon all these multifaceted reserves, making EE/ESD relevant for environmental sustainability and animal welfare on the global scale. Spannring (2016) states: Within an anthropocentric society the choice for a biocentric approach is highly unlikely as long as this dominant paradigm is not deconstructed and linked to the environmental and animal ethical problems. So the call for a serious and sustained attention to anthropocentrism and speciesism is an invitation for our whole community of environmental education researchers to keep ‘moving [our own] margins’ (Russell and Fawcett 2013 in Spannring 2016, p. 12). This chapter fully supports this call. The issue is that without committing to concrete objective of striving towards environmental sustainability, the somewhat amorphous democratic learning may lead to support conventional aims of social and economic sustainability (such as the SDGs) without realising the robust anthropocentric bias that permeates much of supposedly plural approaches to sustainability. Instead, plural approaches represented in broader cultural contexts (Spannring 2016), including indigenous learning (e.g. Baines and Zarger 2012, Black 2016, Shoreman-Ouimet and Kopnina 2016), as well as notions embracing inclusive pluralism that represents nonhuman species as part of the earth’s community (e.g. Dobson 2014) are recommended. I side with critical authors who have argued that EE/ESD should challenge existing norms and try to shape values and behaviours of future citizens towards countering the urgent environmental problems (e.g. Bai and Romanycia 2013, Quinn et al. 2015). As formulated by Wals (2015), what should really drive us, as educators, is the moral obligation to leave the earth behind livable not only for future generations, but also for other species.

Conclusion: choosing sides and taking a stance I do not believe that merely criticizing anthropocentrism as an abstract concept, or as a monistic, normative construct, reaches deep enough. Open, plural, and mixed ethical approaches tend to assume that somehow the broad social and ecological 136



aims will be served by plural perspectives, without realizing that pluralism is still limited to human beings and does not embrace multispecies inclusive pluralism (Dobson 2014). In my vision of the future of education for sustainability, I would recommend teaching students how this type of anthropocentrism can be overcome, both ethically (by adopting a deep ecology perspective, embracing ecological justice and animal rights, etc.) and practically (by learning to address very difficult questions associated with human population growth and consumption). In the context of planetary citizenship, when all species have a right to their own ‘sustainable development’, ecocentric ethics represents the most plural and ‘democratic’ perspective of all earths’ citizens (Kopnina and Gjerris 2015). Returning to Quinn et al. (2015) reflection that EE should challenge existing norms and try to shape values and behaviours of future citizens towards countering the massive environmental problems we are causing, we need to reorient education towards education for nature. This is a far cry from what the SDGs are about. Yet, such re-orientation towards pro-active sustainability learning may yet open another scenario for the future. As formulated by Crist (2012, p. 150), this future will include ‘connected and thriving wild places, with a richly textured biogeography, with domesticated Earthlings not chained to a sickening industrial ‘food’ system, with horticultures healthy for people and friendly to wildlife, with human denizens not living in terror of the specters of hunger, war, and rape, and with the world’s oceans allowed to rebound into a semblance of their former largesse and beauty’. Yet, this future will not come easy as it will require re-orienting our priorities and our education towards concrete goals oriented against the internalized logic of neoliberalism and towards the resolution of uncomfortable questions about population growth, increase in consumption, and equality of humans and nonhumans. Thus, we need to do away with the idea of ‘sustained and inclusive economic growth’ and turn towards education for the planet.

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