Selby, D. (2006). The Firm and Shaky Ground of Education for Sustainable Development.

Selby, D. (2006).  The Firm and Shaky Ground of Education for Sustainable Development.  Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 30(2), pp. 351 - 365.  Retrieved on September 18, 2010 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098260600717471

Narrative

"There was a large clearing in the forest, a large open area from which many footpaths led off in many directions.  The people were disputatious.  Some argued the merits of taking one footpath, some the merits of taking another, and yet others the merits of taking a third.  They milled around in a confused and contentious mood.  Then they discovered what looked like a broad, firm and easy path that all might take, where all kinds of folk could walk together shoulder to shoulder.  Many hurried towards it, relieved that their arguments could be brought to an end.  In a sigh of collective relief, few were disposed to enquire whether the path was really heading in the right direction and whether the undemanding way it seemed to offer might discourage the further seeking and exploration of alternative pathways.  Even fewer bothered to ask whether going down the path would really be good for the forest and its inhabitants" (pg. 2).

The Firm Ground

Selby states that the strategy and planning done for tomorrow (i.e. future generations) is based on projections of today.  Sustainable development achieved priority status at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 1992.  Under key principles one, three and four of Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development, humans are at the center of concern but ecological development must be allowed to ensure sustainable progress.  Both nonformal and formal learning integrate through culture to stabilise local environmental issues.  Reaffirmations were made at the World Summit in Johannesburg, 2004 where a proposal for a Decade for Sustainable Development (DESD) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at their 57th Session held three months later.  The DESD began in March, 2005 with key guiding values for ESD:

1. respect for the dignity and human rights of all people throughout the world and a commitment to social and economic justice for all;
2. respect for the human rights of future generations and a commitment to intergenerational responsibility;
3. respect and care for the greater community of life in all its diversity, which involves the protection and restoration of the Earth's ecosystems; and
4. respect for cultural diversity and commitment to build locally and globally a culture of tolerance, non-violence and peace.

Within the United Kingdom, DfES was launched in 2003 and by 2005 the HEFCE had developed and published a draft proposal to support a framework for strategy and action across curricula, teaching, learning, and estate management in higher education.

Selby asks how ESD became so popular, so quickly.  As a global development it has provided some structure though critics suggest it is wallpaper.  Selby proposes that within the given circumstance, the amorphous concept allows for innovation that leads to constructive action - a theme "vague and diffuse enough to enable everyone to invest in it with their own meanings" (pg. 4).  He uses metaphorical terminology, such as 'the North' and 'the South', to categorise the division between environmental lobbyists and ecological developers.  Since global decolonisation, development has been in the name of social justice, and in the political correctness of concessions.  Establishing a system for developmental discourse has imbued progress with Western values, further alienating the reality of global consumption from ideology.  Representatives of both Northern and Southern culture collaborated to jointly form a framework that encompassed developmental goals based on the hegemony of Northern culture.  A parallel forum, the Rio International NGO Forum, produced guiding principles based on holistic environmental management for the development of communities:

1. Principle 1: environmental education is not neutral but is value-based.  It is an act of social transformation;
2. Principle 9: environmental education must recover, reflect and use indigenous history and local cultures; and
3. Principle 16: education must develop an ethical awareness of all forms of life with which humans share this planet, respect all life cycles and impose limits on humans' exploitation of other forms of life.

Long standing suspicion of others' efforts at ESD are drawn from distrust that the end objective has not been analysed.  Integrating economic improvements with environmental protection and justice has resulted in a range of socially active interest groups from North and South willing to negotiate differences through collaboration.  Selby proposes that ESD supporters have the potential to form a confederation amongst educators to discuss development; human rights issues; human welfare; and, the environment.

With the advent of ESD, environmental education has moved from its original domain within the sciences.  As such, teachers have more opportunity to include various lenses (e.g. political, economic, and social) as a point of entry into ESD.  Selby firmly states that ESD is founded upon solid ground that has captured and sustained interest globally, bringing diverse focus-specific interest groups together.

Narrative

"So, many forsook the narrow paths and took to the broad path.  But is the path proving as firm as was hoped?  Is it realising its potential as a way forward?  Is it benefiting the forest and the trees?

Lingering in the forest clearing are folk who have concerns about the broad path.  Their concerns vary.  Some know what 'development' without the qualifier 'sustainable' has meant, and continues to mean, and worry if 'sustainable development' will really be very much different.  Some - environmentalists and ecologists in particular - worry that they have taken a broad path without the interpretation abilities and markers required to make sense of the path.  Others worry whether the song of sustainable development can really capture the song of the Earth; whether it has been worth losing the turns, complexities and irregularities of the many paths they used to tread.  Yet others worry whether the idea of 'sustainable literacy', much vaunted by ESD advocates, is a sufficient and appropriate educational response in the light of the global environmental crisis and global crisis in the human condition" (pg. 5).

The Shaky Ground

Sustainable Development as Oxymoron

Despite numerous attempts to define sustainable development, the concept remains open to interpretation and perspective.  Dobson argues that sustainable development has been framed by economists who categorically state that sustainable development is about the conservation of development, and not the preservation of nature.  It is proposed that this view is not one that requires a material reduction of living standards, nor does it appear to abate economic progress.  The approach uses resource management to curtail intense use, or seeks new measures to increase natural capital.

While environmental and ecological activists bemoan diminishing resources, economists are actively supportive of implementing alternative greening measures.  Critics argue that ecological sustainability is not only about measurements, but about "beauty, awe, enchantment, reverence and sense of wonder" (pg. 6).  Selby refers to Jickling who states that there are some things that are to be considered in spite of measurements (e.g. not an exact science).  The difference between economists and ecologists is that economists have envisioned a positive and sustainable future which allows them to adapt and design for tomorrow, while ecologists and ESD teachers are debating who should lead.  Worster wrote in 1995 "I fear that in partnership it will be 'development' that makes most of the decisions, and 'sustainable' will come trotting along, smiling and genial, unable to assert any firm leadership, complaining only about the pace of travel" (pg. 7).  Selby states that rendering cultural, spiritual or personal development as reasons to challenge this discourse would be marginalised.

He instead suggests that we view sustainable development as sustainable growth to further clarify this discourse.  Selby discusses the concept as sustained growth within a limited time frame, with general consensus in identifying location.

The fears felt by some eco-theorists and environmental educators are value judgments based on the perceptions of a Western culture heavily dependent on materialism and obsession.  Rigby suggests that 'development' does not mean the automatic acceptance of these attributes and makes the distinction between weak and strong memes.

Alternative terminology is appearing - 'education for the development of responsible societies', 'education for sustainability' and 'education for sustainable futures' have been adopted in favour of sustainable development.  Whatever it's called, Sterling indicates that the focus should remain on whole systems thinking rather than in mechanistic, managerial or transmissive practice.

Sustainable Development as Denial of Intrinsic Value

Selby proposes that much of the controversy surrounding environmental ethics concerns the reasons for wanting to save nature.  Potentially, it may have more to do with identifying cures for human malaise rather than the intrinsic value nature presents.  He reminds us of Principle 1, and argues that worldview is primarily ego- and technocentric.  Selby proposes that the perpetuated view is of nature as a resource (i.e. a.k.a. natural capital or ecosystem services).

The concept of sustainable development therefore, can be interpreted as the ability and capacity of humanity to manage the future of the planet.  Even as educators accept Gaia, an autonomous self-regulating conscious entity, they are equally attracted to human endeavour.

Education for Sustainable Development as Lacking in Thematic and Epistemological Breadth

ESD has often been presented as a complete and holistic experience, when in reality the domain is still in formulation.  Most arguments stem from the fact that there are educators who don't believe that education should have a determined outcome, and who instead suggest a range of possibilities be made available for student evaluation and subsequent choice be the determining manifestation of action.  It is possible that there is a lack of concrete definitions due to potential "instant fossilisation" of key understandings (i.e. ideology trapped under microscopic inspection).  Selby indicates that it is a source of concern that so many government policies are initiated based on a report archived more than nineteen years ago, to address current issues.  The HEFCE support the document stating that a high level document such as the Bruntland had produced a concise and flexible model with multiple points of entry that would only warrant further discussion at some later date.

A training perspective suggests there is a predetermined and achievable goal to education, especially valid as economic and technical progress is in the process of transformation based on sustainable development.  Meanwhile, Selby ponders academia's choices - if sustainable development concerns the issues that challenge the very nature of human existence, then ESD may seem a reasonable and justifiable response.  Education has always been linked to desirable outcomes (e.g. linking HIV and venereal disease with unprotected sex).  Structuring a framework that is flexible enough to withstand challenges and individual determinism achieves the objective of academic goals and alleviates some of the pressure felt by educators who don't know where to begin.  A list of philosophies derived from public voice on sustainability offers popular challenges to students who lead ethically sustainable lives.  Included are:

• animal liberation philosophies, which claim that animals have rights, and offer a philosophical basis for the claim;
• bioregionalist philosophies, which call for humans to live simply and convivially within the place they have inhabited since birth or, if they have moved, reinhabited, i.e. through conscious processes have become native to;
• deep ecology, which calls upon us to think deeply about the human-nature relationship and to renounce the anthropocentrism of much of our thought and behaviours in favour of biospherical egalitarianism;
• ecofeminist philosophies, which, running counter to the thinking of many deep ecologists, identify the problem as patriarchy rather than anthropocentrism, and argue that oppression and exploitation of women, minorities, peripheral groups and nature are mutually reinforcing as well as intersecting in their dynamics;
• environmental justice theories, which identify environmental problems as social justice problems whenever class, race/ethnicity and gender are significant factors in determining who experiences the effects of, and who controls the causes of, environmental degradation; and
• social ecology theories, which argue that environmental degradation is the outcome of inequalities and injustices within human society and that, if the latter are properly addressed, environmental degradation will go into reverse.

It is proposed that by placing these philosophies under sustainable development, nature's value increases.  Systematic degradation leads to a moral paradox, infusing the situation with delusional attributes that has negative impact on sense-making for students.  "We stunt the potential of the broader fields of environmental ethics and philosophy by an over-concentration on sustainable development and sustainability that, by definition, do not in and of themselves lead us to consider what we may need or want to know about beauty, culture, the spiritual and life purposes" (pg. 11).

It does not take much to understand the emphasis on sustainable literacy as:

• an holistic understanding of the need for transformation, individually and collectively;
• having comprehensive knowledge and skills to activate situation monitoring to engage in behaviour commensurate with sustainable development;
• the wisdom to recognise and reward decisions and actions that favour appropriate measures for sustainable development.

Selby indicates that the issues raised in these definitions relates to the need to have closure in understanding the objective goals of ESD.  The term 'literacy' is arbitrary and obscure, as historically it has meant the ability to read and write.  Is it widely accepted to acknowledge literacy as a multimedia, semiotic experience?  Is 'text' a metaphor for the environment/culture/society?  Selby notes that the definitions listed previously refrain from active engagement with environment/culture/society, observing tongue-in-cheek that neither is there instruction on identifying and reading the meaning of trees, biophysical phenomena or ecosystems.

Selby links 'literate' with 'literal' and wonders about the emotional attachment the term 'sustainable literacy' engenders, and how it may differ from the attachment we have to the words 'awe', or 'wonder', or 'beauty' that are typically associated with nature.  Selby takes comfort in Jane Austen, declaring "definitions and conceptions are too much about sense and not enough about sensibility" (pg. 12).  When we adjust our perspective of environmental sensibility to fit our aspirations for sustainability, additive dimensions increase holistic understanding of epistemology.  Initially, these dimensions feel counter-cultural as they were long abandoned by modern practice.

Education for Sustainable Development as Falling Short of its Promised Scope

Selby feels that within ESD, several aspects relating to learning have been under represented.  Furthermore, discourse on peace and social justice is inflammatory to current advocates of ESD.  The voices of indigenous peoples extol the virtues of sustainable living, but are unheard in Northern discourse.  The South, proponents of non-accumulative sustainable living, are similarly disregarded.  Selby proposes the examination and validation of alternative methods of knowing.

Discourse on:

1. probable futures - futures that are likely to pass;
2. possible futures - visions of the future that are inclusive of countercultural infringement; and
3. preferred futures - based on given ontological belief

has not drawn from existing models of future representation that enable students to reflect on their own version of a possible and sustainable future.

Sustainable Development as inheriting an Outdated 'Orderliness' Conception of Ecosystem

Early scientists developed a structure for understanding the comprehensive meaning of ecosystems that make sense of a 300 year old mechanistic worldview.  From this perspective and holistic understanding of the nature nurture debate, humanity can realise its own potential to guide an integrated pedagogy of economics and social progress in balance with the harmony of nature.

Equilibrium and disequilibrium, caused by fluctuations in weather conditions (e.g. tsunami), is nature's gentle reminder and regulation of the balance.  Selby proposes that investigation into 'education for ephemerality', 'education for elusiveness' and 'education for ineffability' is warranted.  Ethics that promote the intangible quality and pureness of feeling that is associated with belonging and tenderness.  Transformation is the enactment of integrated processes and goals to relinquish control in the face of transience and maintain focus.  To captivate the hearts and minds of poets in the aftermath of the industrial revolution, sustainable development requires the unification of spirituality and the sciences.  Holistic knowledge comes from utter acceptance of the absolute, the lived experience.  It is the very transience of nature that inspires awe and appreciation for beauty.

Narrative

So some stayed in the clearing bemused and troubled.  Were their worries big enough and deep enough to avoid the broad path?  Should they look for an alternative path that would be more congruent with what they valued?  Or, should they be pragmatic, join the throng on the wide path, and seek every opportunity to make gains even against the give and camber of the path?

Some wrestled and wrestled in their minds with what to do.  But the application of reason was not enough.  Others smelt flowers, watched the busy-ness of insects, the silk of a butterfly's wing (the flap of which could touch off a weather cataclysm thousands of miles away) and touched the smooth bark of beech and the rough bark of oaks.  Feeling the flow of life through themselves and what they witnessed, they declared that the key was to embrace a fundamental change in our attitude to nature based not on what we can extract from her but on what we can learn from her.  Her lessons of cycles, flows, networks, partnerships, diversity and, yes, unpredictability, uncertainty and turbulence can and should infuse both the curriculum and process of our learning and teaching, as well as the way our learning institutions work.  As long as we are sure that our way is deeply informed by the dynamics and processes of nature, we can walk the firm and shaky ground of any path.


Choose Not To Fall

Jickling, B. and Wals, A. E. J. (2008). Globalisation and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable development

Jickling, B. and Wals, A. E. J. (2008).  Globalisation and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable development.  Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(1), pp. 1 - 21.  Retrieved on September 18, 2010 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220270701684667


Globalisation and neo-liberalism
Development in the corporate world has instigated changes that have had a ripple effect around the world.  Government and corporate strategy are inextricably integrated meaning that a rise in ideologies which are embedded in commerce supports our networks of communication.  It is these corporate-centred ideologies that heavily influence and significantly correlate to the reforms required in education.  Jickling and Wals identify corporations that sponsor institutions of education by donating teaching aids designed to embed product awareness.


Gough inspires all by seeking means to sustain local culture in favour of mass homogeneity.  The World Bank are known for introducing educational formats that produce knowledge workers who sustain local markets.  It can be said that education and corporations are looking for a sustainable partnership.


Organisations are adapting to environmental demand by developing and sustaining social awareness of ESD.  Entities that are governed by people, planet and profit (i.e. Triple-P bottom line).  Organisations are developing customised programs for human resource in order to achieve this objective, and have created an external examining body to ensure standards are maintained or surpassed (e.g. ISO14001).  Education for environmental support systems relies on subsidies to fund research and serves as an example for institutions that have value, a presence and benefit society.


Jickling and Wals investigate how ESD as captured by UNESCO indicates their rise in power to be successor of environmental education.  Concerns lie in the integration of globalisation and neo-liberalism that transcends mainstream education.


Converting environmental education to education for sustainable development
Waks proposes that globalisation has steered a way forward for transformation in subject matter, pedagogy, technology, COP, and delivery.  While there are difficulties and challenges, supporters keep faith that good change comes from the stimulation of tension and uncertainty.  UNESCO programs (e.g. Education for All, MDG, ESD) are regarded as opportunities for sustainable change.


Much has happened since ESD was introduced in 1987 culminating in sustained effort to transform an educational system that educates for sustainable development.  Jickling and Wals observe that critics have been waylaid by the lack of buzzwords in Resolution 57/254 that have been a source of comfort to many.  As with many researchers, the authors note that a lack of discourse has led to incomplete definitive descriptions that reveal the broadness of concept. Without widespread acceptance of legitimate interpretations, rejection of proposals is to be expected.  A lack of clarity in direction leads to confusion and hostile activity.  Instead sustainable reform should be regarded as new packaging for environmental education at national level.


The dysfunction and potential source of resistance to the development of sustainable policy stems from the considerable amount of pressure on people who teach to restructure professional practice in order to contribute towards ESD.


Jickling and Wals have identified anomalies associated with UNESCO and IUCN and their agenda for sustainable development.  In establishing their understanding of the problem, the authors present heuristic practice that evolved as part of their learning process.


Anomalies
Jickling and Wals understand diversity through policy that either follows, or is followed, by innovation.  Policies on lifelong learning and aptitude are sourced from national level debate and are thought of as policy that leads innovation.  Similarly, ESD is nationally driven thus the authors propose this as the reason for resistance to change.  Workshops and seminars facilitate thought provoking exchanges that are discursively additive.


Leading questions were asked of participants of the ESDebate (e.g. should ESD be abolished?).  More than half the respondents affirmed that ESD should be abandoned.  Jickling and Wals' analysis of this reaction suggests there may be confusion about the purpose of ESD as it relates to environmental education.  Critics view ESD as a form of bullying that educates and redirects behaviour towards a single objective.  Their locus of reasoning lies in individuality and diversity that directs output towards self-reflection and determination to create an established individualistic path towards better living.


Furthermore, Jickling and Wals state that there is no global heuristic that will serve as a model for the planet, for ESD represents a multi-level and trans-dimensional concept that is interpreted and re-interpreted through national and international holism.  "Democracy depends on differences, dissonance, conflict, and antagonism, so that deliberation is radically indeterminate" (pg. 6).  Conflicts reveal mounting pressure in the exploration of ESD as individuals place different levels of significance upon the Triple P and 3E (i.e. efficiency, environment, equity).  Tension is a prerequisite to learning.


Jickling and Wals track the events of the 2002 World Summit where little to nothing was said about ESD and the focus remained on how to prepare education for sustainable development, how to set benchmarks and standards, and how to build control mechanisms that assess progress.  The Summit necessitated participants to start implementing, instead of using the time ineffectively talking.  Critics propose failure in this approach as educators may only be capable of creating an illusion.  Instead, educators should be seen as agents moving towards a globally driven economy.  Jickling and Wals acknowledge the discomfort surrounding the ESD agenda.  They draw attention to other transitions occurring as a result of global agendas.


Education and sustainable development: suitable alliances?
While some see ESD as an opportunity to infuse individuality through personal sense-making, with the potential to highlight areas under-represented in curriculum, others maintain an anxiety stemming from chronic analysis of ESD ideology.  Sauve has interjected a soothing analysis of the patterns in environmental education and concludes that ESD is only one agenda out of the fifteen that environmental education is nurturing.  Agenda 21 is a pragmatic approach to adapting to the "global political agenda" (pg. 7).


Multiple entry points in ESD allow self-reflection to discern ambiguity through individual perspective.  Reflection points include the way in which education is perceived, and how it is portrayed; the definition of an educated society; and the role the individual expects to play.


Conceptions of education
The aims for ESD cannot be discursively debated until the concept of education has been explored.  Tension emerged when scholars analysed 20th century theory and its dominant tendencies, and noted that new perspectives were developing towards the close of the century.  Tension was caused by opposing views concerning the nature of education.  Jickling and Wals suggest we think of education as "transmissive" (pg. 8), meaning that skills, knowledge and values are transmitted to students.  Participants are steered towards a committed objective via a closed learning process that affords bi-directional communication between master and apprentice.  From a transmissive perspective, education is a tool through which to deliver messages to open minds and examples can be found in government, industry, and special interest groups.


Some research analysts prefer to view education as more transactive and transformative with a distinct sympathy for social constructivism and cognitivism.  Social networking shapes learning through translational learning and diversity of cultural perspectives.  Education that leads to transformation is open and self-directed.  Delivery of static knowledge is the platform used to integrate individual knowledge with group knowledge, making tacit knowledge explicit in the curriculum and in students.  Therefore, environmental education defines the perception from which individuals view the world.


Jickling and Wals state that education concerns not only social reproduction but about transcending social norms and behaviours without resorting to dictating alternative lifestyles.


There exists debate whether social reproduction or transformation is part of education and is reflected in the educators professional attitude.  By placing social reproduction in context, individuals maintain participation levels and arguably demonstrate a responsible and committed attitude born of obedience and deference.  Whereas social transformation is an expression of education that facilitates and requires active participation in community decision-making processes, displaying democratic processes that lead to more than electing governments.  The more varied and diverse an individuals' network is, the more stimulation there is to respond to.


Democracy should be regarded as the balance of an individual and her sense of belonging to the community, that instills the value of culture and autonomy.  Therefore, Jickling and Wals propose that integration of ESD and deterministic or exclusive cognition cannot be reconciled with international policy statements. Instead the authors envisage that educated citizens live democratic practice within a nurturing society which is similar to many others, but represents a unique local flavour.


The heuristic Jickling and Wals propose is based on a two-axes structure that frames and reframes perspectives on ESD.  While they acknowledge that a two-axis heuristic cannot capture a comprehensive view of the breadth and depth, it serves its purpose as an analytical tool.


Big Brother sustainable development
Quadrant 1 of the two-axes structure represents the authoritarian and hierarchical element of ESD, and which Jickling and Wals state is achieved by control to eliminate deviants.  Consistent and unambiguous standards (e.g. ISO 14001, ISO2007, IFOAM, FSC) are adhered to implicitly to sustain direction.


Education is used for implementing a set strategy, the standards for which correlate to ideologies that represent a segment of society.  However, such arbitrary measures meet with resistance from environmental educators who interpret education altogether differently.  "While education can also be thought of as a process that can enable social transformation (as would, for example, be described in varying degress in Quadrant IV space), critics find it anathema that education should serve such pre-determined ends" (pg. 12).


Indoctrination brings its own issues.  Implanting ideology is counter-productive in education for personal development, as transformation is the result of holistically training minds to develop analytical skills and insight rather than narrowing focus to content.  Jickling and Wals argue that some educators supported by global standards (e.g. UNESCO, IUCN) who rationally propose adopting ESD as "it conforms to the aspirations of many non-educators who set policy agendas and control funding opportunities" (pg. 13).  As Agenda 21 has inter-government approval, educators have implented the agenda as support for their own cause to address ESD.  From this perspective Jickling and Wals argue the Fundamental Programme Principles of the newly developing University of the Arctic may also be regarded as authoritarian, and thus deterministic.  "While 'sustainable development' is a social construct that warrants study, it may not be so important that it should be elevated to the status of privileged doctrine" (pg. 13).  


With a view to transformation, deterministic doctrines are inclined to generate resistance to ESD.  Therefore allowing personal diversity as a means to sustain and maintain sense-making, identity, and developmental progress, creates naturally occurring overt personal behaviour supportive of ESD.  Reflexion is stimulated by a multitude of perspectives.  Transmission is more readily accepted as a result of preparation and clear, bi-directional understanding of objectives.


Dobson's research in 1996 revealed more than 300 definitions to the term sustainable development.  Jickling and Wals state that after a decade of combining research there are more meanings with more divergence than was previously recognised by transdimensional organisations (e.g. global organisations, non-governmental organisations, national governments) suggesting that it may be neither desireable, nor possible to create one single understanding.


Furthermore, Jickling and Wals state that this perspective can only be realised if goverments and their affiliations provide environmental leadership.  In addition, epistemic values that underlie the notion of governments projecting visionary direction generate skepticism that may be the result of prior incompetence and miscommunication.


While it may be easy to  denounce transmissive and deterministic goals, much of the literature available is written by people who have themselves been educated in this manner and is viewed as the foundation of experience for those committed to transformation and reformation in pedagogy.  Individuals who were challenged by the structure of a system.


Limited freedom - freedom bounded by sustainable development
Quadrants II and III create the space for new meaning and active citizenry.  Freedom has a framework that encompasses the language of ESD that some may agree with, yet Jickling and Wals suggest it may be a false freedom.


Very often educators are persuaded to work from these quadrants for pragmatic reasons.  Governmental support funds the educational objective, and the sustainable development agenda lacks coherent definition leading to questionable and/or unstable characteristics that may be ignored.  It is the characteristics that go ignored that become the most problematic, Jickling and Wals argue, as a false consensus meant for global readership creates divergence and obfuscates contextual differences.  When characteristics are revealed, orientation towards ESD may lead to transformative learning specifically through existentialism.


Discourse represents the reflexion and care that bonds segments of society who look for common terminology with which to debate environmental issues compassionately.  Different or parallel views causes dissonance which stimulates learning.  Jickling and Wals view the dispute as an exercise in observation.  Emerging knowledge is not restricted to high socio-economic regions and the potential for anyone to present sound arguments is at hand.  Failure to do so may result in Orwellian conditions.


To understand the paradox of sustainable development, it is necessary to know that range of thought must be diminished and this is accomplished by measuring the positive and negative of meanings and creating personal balance adjusted and reflected in overt behaviour (e.g. war=peace).  Hence diversity can be viewed as a measure slightly off balance from personal standard.  The significance of knowing diversity reveals the substance of personal good and wrong, therefore it may become impossible to counteract what is socially and temporally unacceptable.


The following examples serve to highlight the authors' concerns.  In Northern Canada there is ongoing controversy between two groups in the community.  One task force protects the ecological balance of natural wildlife, and the other developed to uphold the right to mine to address unemployment and related issues.  While the cause for both groups lay in sustainable development for the community, public backing created two different and opposing representations of the meaning.


Similarly, ESKOM, South Africa's electricity supply board seek projections for the future that take account of supply an demand, however Price proposes that organisational focus is on energy production rather than on Earth.  Ideology is contradicted and the premise of dominion is subjugated.


Research in developing terminology to cover current awareness of sustainable development has been almost exclusively undertaken by the private sector.  Jickling and Wals wonder how influential the economic sector has been in guiding ecological perspective for a sustainable future; and why governments and leaders of industry support sustainable development despite confusion in meaning?


Chomsky, author of Manufacturing Consent, reveals the diversionary tactics (e.g. FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon, Tour de France) governments use to distract the public from issues.  With critical public scrutiny averted, government generates breathing space required for analysis and problem solving.  It is proposed that sustainable development is a similar diversion.


Research on structuring ESD by Smyth proposed the need for educators to come together to discuss the action that sustains the concept, without the need for labeling, unanimously agreed upon that best captures the commitment and imagination of a potential future for education.  Smyth was interested in developing communication skills that represent the depth of maturity conveyed in respectful dissensus between warring factions (e.g. environmental educators vs. advocates of ESD).


Scott states that choice within ESD is free of government policy so that educators and educating bodies have the freedom to structure their work within the framework of their own conceptions, trials and successes.  It is not an option to do nothing he states, and shows concern for schools who ignore ESD.  His top four responsibilities undertaken by educators are:

1. To facilitate learner development in order to make sustainable development have personal meaning;
2. To understand that diversity at microcosmic dysfunction is also felt at macro level;
3. To sustain interest and demonstrate effective learning principles through bi-directional communication; and 
4. To encourage learners to maintain situation awareness, individually and socially, and to keep options open.

Enabling thought and action: beyond sustainable development
Quadrant IV projects a future based on active citizenry and suggests possibilities that extend beyond sustainable development which should be seen as part of human evolutionary processes.  Concepts that form part of current discourse are all stepping stones for guiding future direction.


Smyths' interest in language reveals the need to incorporate a sense of inclusivity when communicating, and for environmental learning to accept sustainability so that we can acknowledge it as a social construct and not as the objective or end-play for education.