The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week Four - “Shaping the Future”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Pamela Donaubauer, young professional, Switzerland

Moderating team: Pamela reflects on the environmental education and notes that sustainability, as a more abstract concept than other environmental issues, was not something that was taught. She agrees with Moira Barrientos and with María Laura Piñeiros: rethinking how we communicate to the masses is one way to move forward. In addition we must link nature conservation to personal well-being so that people feel more connected to the concept and are thus more willing to work towards change.

Pamela reflexiona sobre la educación ambiental, afirma que la sostenibilidad es un concepto abstracto que no se enseña en la formación formal. Concuerda con Moira Barrientos y con María Laura Piñeiros: repensar la comunicación con las masas es una manera de avanzar. Adicionalmente, debemos vincular la conservación de la naturaleza con el bienestar humano, así las personas se sentirán más conectadas al concepto y por lo tanto tendrán más apertura de trabajar en ello.

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I don’t think that the language of sustainable development is so outdated that it doesn’t reach young people anymore. I actually think it never has been up to date. Sustainability means a lot to me and to most of my friends, because we are interested in these issues. But when I think back, the first time I heard about sustainability was at university – and I only finished school in 1997, at a time where this term had been in use for years. This doesn’t mean we didn’t learn about environmental protection at school – we did! But a lot of it related to issues that were very concrete, that meant something to us. Forest dieback was something we could see on a daily basis. Waste separation was something that we actually could do. But the concept of sustainability was something far too vague to be taught at school. Therefore I think we really need to rethink how we communicate. If we want to change conservation from being an elitist movement (as stated by Moira Barrientos) to something that strikes the masses, we have to use a language and images that are easy to understand.

But this is not enough. Nowadays, the problems of the young generation in Europe are much different from 20 years ago. Whereas at that time global ideas such as peace, protection of the rain forest, and opposition to nuclear power set a whole generation in motion, today the problems of adolescents are much more related to their microcosm. Unemployment and badly paid short term contracts leave a lot of young people in a situation of constant uncertainty. Environmental degradation is not (yet) affecting them directly, not concrete enough and simply less important than that. That’s why we constantly need to link nature conservation to the personal well-being. And this needs to happen at school already using, as María Laura stated before, a positive language that allows children to value the kindness of nature.