Green Frontiers (Environmental Educators Dancing Away from Mechanism)

Environmental education has reached an interesting crossroads. There has never before been such media attention on hard-to-grasp issues such as climate change, nor has there ever been such scientific understanding and agreement about the varied aspects of the environmental crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and the health effects of human-made toxins and pollutants. In addition, there has never been so much high quality research within environmental education, with new journals flourishing in Canada, Australia, and South Africa to give just a few examples. Yet, despite all this knowledge and attention, there has not been a significant shift in the way the economy operates, the way governments govern or the way people live. Consumption of resources continues to increase and these patterns continue to be closely correlated with levels of waste, pollution, environmental ill health, and social injustice. This book showcases the work and thinking of environmental educators who are concerned about the residual mechanism within their field, the guiding symbol of the web of life in all its dynamism notwithstanding. The notion of web recognizes interaction between all elements in a system but falls short of recognizing the flow of the whole through the system and its parts. The notion of dance is used here to convey this fundamental, yet oft overlooked, dimension to wholeness.