Articles
Learning and Active Citizenship for Sustainability
by Phil Smith
This is an adaptation of a paper written to shape a 2019 education conference on Learning, Citizenship and Activism for Sustainability. The conference was held by the NSW Australian Association for Environmental education. The conference was for educators and leaders – young and old – who work to help build a sustainable world.
Progress with sustainability education
A great deal of environmental education has occurred over the past 30 years in schools, community, and businesses. Most programs have focused on personal actions and change; this is important because it is a natural place to start when shifting practices and choices. These education programs have had successes. But still the environmental problems are growing and the relentless impacts of our activities are a real concern for the future. One could argue that the focus on the small has missed the big, and that the focus on the short term has missed the long term.
The world changes daily
Large corporations engage in high-powered negotiations with governments to get their way. Lobbyists, who work for these organisations, attempt to influence and shape government policies to ensure their employers make profits. They seek the removal of the ‘red tape’ or procedural steps designed to bring calm and precision to development processes. They push for the removal of ‘green tape’ which is designed to ensure environmental damage is minimized or not done. These lobbyists work to achieve profit, often at the expense of community, environment, and democracy. Around the world, advocates for ‘profit-at-all-costs’ are active every single day.
Let’s be clear. Large corporations often do not just:
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wait and hope that government policies work out in their favour;
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hope that other people will do their bidding for them; or
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accept that nothing can be done to get the policy shifts they want.
Here’s how Derrick Jensen (an international environmental activist and writer) sums up the global situation:
...the fact remains that if we judge my work, or anyone's work, by the most important standard of all, and in fact the only standard that really matters, which is the health of the planet, my work (and everyone else's) is a complete failure. Because my work hasn't stopped the murder. Nor has anyone else's. We haven't even slowed it down. It's embarrassing to have to explain why this is the only standard that really matters, but at this point embarrassment is the least of our problems. The health of the planet is the only standard that really matters because without a living planet nothing else is important, because nothing else exists. (Loaded Words, Orion, March/April 2012)
So let’s also be clear about this: neither lobbyists nor corporations make the decisions. Instead, governments do. It is governments that make policies and provide approvals and conditions. Education is important, but actions to protect or influence government policies and decisions are also essential. Sustainability is more than keeping a good household. We live not just in a house but in a community, region, country, world. We also live in a democracy. Being active citizens is one of the responsibilities we have when we live in a democracy.
Being an active citizen
Activism is varied and diverse, but its demands often have underlying universal themes of sustainability, social justice, equality, and well-being. At a personal level, being an active citizen can increase feelings of empowerment and connectedness; it can be a positive experience challenging something that is destructive to communities and environments.
Active citizens take action to effect social change. They do this in a myriad of ways and in a variety of forms. Sometimes they act alone, but mostly they work with others to enhance, promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, or environmental reform in order to make improvements in society. Activism exists on a continuum from direct action such as civil disobedience, protests, occupations, campaigning, rallies, street marches, boycotts, and demonstrations through to more conventional forms such as lobbying, meeting with Ministers, writing letters to politicians and media, internet activism, petitions, holding and attending meetings, and developing and promoting policy alternatives. These actions have had many successes in protecting rivers, forests, oceans, the atmosphere, communities, and other species.
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A dozen years ago, Paul Hawken highlighted the scale of community action that is occurring worldwide in his book Blessed Unrest (2007). He estimated that there were over one-million groups working towards ecological sustainability and social justice in the world. Hawken viewed this movement as a complex coalition of human organisations all working towards improving social issues. He observed that many of these people do not view themselves as activists or political, yet through their activism, they fight injustice and exploitation to work towards a better society. He described these groups as an expression of humanity’s immune system waking up!
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Into the future
Individual actions alone will not be enough to make the change we want to see – our society becoming more sustainable. Yet, individual actions model new and different ways of doing and thinking about how we live. They also provide the opportunity for collective action as individuals with similar ideas start to work together to generate change (like the banning the plastic straw). Collectively working as active citizens will generate new ways for our society to learn and grow into the sustainable society we need to live on our 1 planet successfully and in community.
Achieving sustainability is a process – a process with wins along the way. Wins such as renewable energy, reductions in resource use, increases in water quality, biodiversity protected, climate justice, social justice, and reduced levels of inequality. Government policies and approaches matter for each.
Learning and teaching about minimising our personal impacts on the planet must continue. Learning and teaching about how to live with the Earth’s natural systems must continue. These are important lessons, but we must also learn and teach how to work with others to ensure governments are accountable to their constituents and have strong, focused and deliberate sustainability policies in place.