After watching several versions of UNESCO's official introduction videos to its Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project, a big question mark hovers over my head.
It is as if UNESCO is afraid to touch the real issue behind global climate change. For instance, this video starts off by introducing us to the dangers we face in the future, and then talks about how education can be a "powerful tool" to prevent these dangers. I agree wholeheartedly that climate change is a real issue (not a scheme laid out by propagandist scientists.) and that education is a powerful tool (not an impotent and abstract structure.)
The point at which the 'big question mark' appeared over my head comes at around 2:48 of the video. The narrator begins talking about how ESD "actually works." The example she gives is a program run by a rural school. The program involves: 1. discussing the issues; 2. saving the use of power on the immediate daily level (e.g. turn off the lights of the classroom during daytime); 3. plant trees in the school backyard; 4. publicly announce these projects via newspapers.
What is particularly striking is number 2 and 3 of this list. UNESCO appeals to such immediate daily actions as ways to solve the problem of climate change. The same idea is repeated in another video where a young Japanese girl is scolded by the narrator for wasting food. The accusation is typical: "with that food, we could have saved one life in another country for one day" etc. Again, the appeal is to improve our daily habits.
But is this really the product of thinking? Is this not rather an emotional conclusion, motivated by the emotional urge to "do something?" And is this not a way to satisfy our moral feelings by letting us feel the "immediate" effects of our "actions?" In short, this appeal to personal habits and immediate personal change only satisfies our subjective, narcissistic, and egoistic feelings.
It is well-known that energy use on the side of consumption is quite trivial compared to the massive problems caused by the process of producing goods. Despite obvious problems such as environmental hazards and human exploitation, we continue to produce goods with the same methods. Why?
This "Why?" is a question far more important than the other one, namely, "why do we, as consumers, keep our bad habits?" The question here is: why do we, as producers, continue to produce and distribute goods in unnecessary quantities through unsustainable methods? A good answer requires thought, because the reasons are not obvious and are with a history.
The desire to appeal to "immediate" solutions that "seem to work" can be blinding. Various authors have pointed out how such "immediate" alternatives often are based on unsound reasoning - see, e.g. Green Illusions. As perceptive authors note, the real problem is not individual, nor simply a matter of engineering and technology. Rather, the problem is political, since it is the political system which strongly motivates individuals to produce and sell goods in this particular fashion. It is also politics which motivates scientists and engineers to develop these particular technologies.
Why does UNESCO not emphasize this side of the problem? Why are the aforementioned "students" not encouraged to question the system of production?
To repeat, I do think that knowing about the problems of contemporary society is empowering, in that students can make conscious decisions concerning their own life style. The problem is, "life style" here is equated with activities of consumption. The real issue is, however, that of production. Students ought to learn, for example, what kind of business models might be sustainable. They also ought to learn how to support themselves financially if they could not find a job that satisfies the criteria for sustainable development. And what if even the production of seemingly "eco-friendly" items such as solar panels and energy batteries really were part of the problem? What if overproduction is itself the issue? In this case, students also need to think about how to design jobs for themselves, so that they might step out of this cycle of overproduction.
But even this is not enough. Again, it is important to note that individuals are powerless in the sense that altering individual lives, whether on the side of consumption or of production, really doesn't solve anything. Profit-based thinking itself ought to go out of the window at the institutional level. And so education also needs to teach students how to become institutional leaders, how to manage companies and states in sustainable ways. UNESCO makes scarce mention of these aspects in their videos. Which makes the question mark floating above my head swell even more.
