Dilemmas in Environmental Education

People have told me to give learners the facts and that knowledge alone will be enough to trigger action. Others have told me that that approach has an extremely limited effect and that ‘information deficit’ is not the problem.

People have told me that it’s important to remain relentlessly positive, to help people imagine utopian ‘green’ futures where windmills, solar panels and organic farming have ‘saved the planet’. Others have told me that reassuring visions of the future are indulgent and simplistic and breed only complacency and surface level change.

People have told me to appeal to people’s self-interest values, to talk to them about financial savings, give them prizes and rewards, and show them how being green is good for their image or CV. Others have told me that that approach does far more harm than good and that we should stick rigorously to the activation and reinforcement of the compassionate values that people must hold to be important if we are to stand any chance of keeping them engaged once the budget for extrinsic rewards has dried up.

People have told me not to worry about changing my own behaviour and that we should frame the solutions as collective and political because without change at the macro level no meaningful change will ever be won. Others have told me that we absolutely must change at the micro level first, because calls for system level change made by people who are seemingly not prepared to change their own lives lack integrity (at best) and stink of hypocrisy (at worst).

People have told me that scientists should be neutral and rational in how they present information about the world and that their objectivity and lack of bias is critical in creating trust and buy-in. Others have told me that scientists should not restrain their emotions, that they are not robots and that they should communicate from the heart and make clear how they feel about the information they are passing on.

People have told me that fear is debilitating and that we should avoid scaring children and young people with catastrophic visions of a collapsed future. Others have told me that fear works, that it wakes people up and forces them to confront the sort of deep existential questions that stimulate profound shifts in attitude and behaviour.

People have told me that we should ‘save the planet’ at all costs and accept that there will be winners and losers as the world transitions to a zero carbon future. Others have told me that it must be a just transition, that human rights and social justice trump any climate or ecological concerns.

People have told me to use the phrase climate change, not global warming; and people have told me the opposite. People have told me that global heating and climate breakdown are the terms to use, others have told me that they are not urgent enough and that climate emergency is more appropriate.

People have told me not to mention climate change adaptation or carbon capture and storage because they sound like excuses for giving up on reducing near term emissions. Others have told me that we absolutely have to talk about adaptation because it is happening whether we like it or not, and that we have to talk about CCS, especially BECCS, because hardly anyone knows how vital they are to the Paris Agreement.

People have told me to be pragmatic and work with businesses and politicians, to praise them when they make even the most microscopic change to their policies or spending plans. Others have told me to continuously hold their feet to the fire, to call out their greenwashing and to refuse their bribes.

People have told me that environmental studies should be an option at GCSE and A-Level so that students have the opportunity to study it in depth. Others say it shouldn’t be hived off and instead be threaded through the entire formal and non-formal curriculum so that all education is education for the environment.