The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week One - “Global Challenges to Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Gayle Hudgens, Advocate for Sustainability

Moderating team: Gayle Hudgens draws attention to the UNESCO report: “Educating for a Sustainable Future; A Transdisciplinary Vision for Concerted Action.” She emphasizes the interrelations among sustainability problems and the need to develop a new perspective rooted in the values of sustainability . making education the key to creating a sustainable future.

Gayle Hudgens cita un reporte de UNESCO: “Educando para un Futuro Sostenible: una visión transdisciplinar para acciones concertadas”. Ella enfatiza las interrelaciones entre los problemas de la sostenibilidad, otorgándole a la educación la llave para crear un futuro sostenible.

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I want to bring to everyone's attention an excellent, yet almost a decade old, report by UNESCO entitled: “Educating for a Sustainable Future; A Transdisciplinary Vision for Concerted Action.” (EPD-97/CONF.401/CLD.1. November 1997). Original: English. Also available in French and Spanish. It should be required reading for everyone who is passionate about sustainable societies. You can read the report here:

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_a/mod01/uncom01t05s01.htm

What I find relevant at this time is related to our recent discussions around ethics and values. In Part V, the report considers "Ethics, Culture and Equity; Sustainability as a Moral Imperative." It offers several ethical principles (and much more detail than I share here):

--The 'ethic of time' (my interpretation: This is urgent folks!)

--Complexity as an ethical issue (Our world is really complex)

--Continuity: the ethical link between past, present, & future

Further, this part of the report addresses other relevant topics: Culture and Sustainability, Towards a Common Ethic, and Education, Ethics and Change.

Given the problems we have discussed (over-population, consumption patterns, poverty, disease, degradation of eco-systems, mass extinction, climate change, etc. etc. etc.), it is "even more essential to get our thinking right: to see the interrelations among these problems and recognize the fundamental need to develop a new perspective rooted in the VALUES OF SUSTAINABILITY. It is this need which makes education the key to creating a sustainable future." (my emphasis).

The changes required for getting on the sustainable path include, among other items, the upgrading of our perceptions and values. The report states in Part V.103:

"Ethical values are the principal factor in social cohesion and, at the same time, the most effective agent of change and transformation. Achieving sustainability will depend ultimately on changes in behavior and lifestyles, changes which will need to be motivated by a shift in values and rooted in the cultural and moral precepts upon which behavior is predicated. Without change of this kind, even the most enlightened legislation, the cleanest technology, the most sophisticated research will not succeed in steering society towards the long-term goal of sustainability. Education in the broadest sense will by necessity play a pivotal role in bringing about the deep change required, in both tangible and intangible ways."

If you have not read this report, carve out the time to do so. It will be rewarding!

Finally, in terms of over-arching values, I would like to share the two premier values that came from the collaboration of the Founder of The Natural Step and his colleagues:

--human life and dignity, and

--continued life on Earth

The first value means that we revere human well-being, fairness, and justice as societal goals. The second value champions the value of life and life-supporting systems in their own right and not merely for the support of human society.

In my view, we must do more than pay lip service to these values and ethical principles; we must actually put them into practice!