Introduction : Ethics and Education Special Issue: Education, the environment and sustainability

Kurzfassung/Abstract

One of the greatest challenges – if not the greatest – facing humankind at the beginning of the 21stcentury is arguably the state of our planet and, coupled with this, our relationship with the natural environment. Most, if not all, other concerns – however significant – are necessarily secondary in this regard. The human impact on the environment has been, and continues to be, enormous. Human population growth and advances in technological ability and control continue producing previously nonexistent environmental problems. What is at stake here is nothing less than the survival of the Earth in its present state, as being inhabitable, and therefore also human survival itself. At the very least, it is a matter of the quality and conditions of our lives, present and future. If this is correct, it follows that one of the greatest priorities – perhaps the greatest – of academic research, scientific, philosophical, educational and other, may be how to arrest and possibly reverse the present decline. There are difficulties, of course. The problem is not only climate change denialism, i.e. doubts that the diagnoses and prognoses are correct. Substantial philosophical and pedagogical questions also concern the articulation and definition of the approaches we human beings should adopt in response to the environmental predicament/s. Further questions are raised about the metaphysical and ethical foundations of our concern for our planet, and about educational and pedagogical implications. Should educational policy and practice, for example, be informed by a concern for nature and the environment for our (human) purposes? Or should we teach and learn for the natural environment in and for itself?