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Always insightful and a born provocateur, Hunter Lovins has a an article entitled “Climate Literacy- An imperative for survival” that is part of the Climate Neutral Campus Report from the Prresidents’ Climate Commitment. Never one to mince words, Lovins, who heads Natural Capitalism Solutions based in Hygiene, Colorado, comments on the 212 representatives who voted “no” on the Waxman-Markey bill, she writes:
….as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason- treason against the planet. To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken in the latest climate research. The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected. Ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate.
Then she ups the ante:
If climate deniers are guilty of treason, so are universities who fail to ensure that all graduates grasp the definitive scientific consensus that if we fail to act immediately to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, we are risking the survival of the human race.
Noting the potential for “a ‘perfect storm’ of food shortages, scarce water and high-cost energy ” before 2030, perhaps as soon as 2020, she suggests:
To avoid catastrophe within these time frames, it’s too late for K–12 education. Our present leaders-in-training must be equipped with the tools to articulate the challenges at hand, and to propose and implement solutions. In an increasingly perilous social, economic, and environmental climate, “proper training”-the presumptive role of higher education-means equipping students with not only this core literacy, but also with the skill sets necessary to tackle these drivers.
While I disagree with her assessment that it’s too late for K-12, it is hard to disagree with her conclusion:
Higher education faces the same challenges confronting all institutions on a planet in peril: deliver the solutions that are vital to survival or become irrelevant. Will academia rise to this and demonstrate that its resilient, forward-thinking foundations are intact and capable of shaping a sustainable future? Or will it remain reactionary, siloed in its disciplines and content to parade
medieval traditions?
In the same report, David Orr writes in “Redefining Higher Education For Now“ a reflective overview of environmental education over recent decades including carbon neutrality and sustainability programs in higher education. Noting “civilization would cease to exist in anything resembling its present form” if present emission trends result in what an MIT study found is a 90 percent-plus probability of a warming between 3.5˚–7.4˚C by the year 2100, Orr notes our current efforts to prepare young people for the future are lackluster at best.
The National Wildlife Federation, for example, concluded in its Campus Environment Report: 2008 that between 2001 and 2008, “the amount of sustainability-related education did not increase and may even have declined.” That conclusion is supported by poll data that consistently show significant percentages of the public, including college graduates, to be ignorant and confused about the fundamentals of ecology and science in general.
I’m sure many of you recall Orr’s words from his seminal 1992 book Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World
The crisis of sustainability, the fit between humanity and its habitat, is manifest in varying ways and degrees everywhere on Earth.It is not only a permanent feature on the public agenda; for all practical purposes it is the agenda . . .Sustainability is about the terms and conditions of human survival, and yet we still educate at all levels as if no such crisis existed . . .
