Statement on Sustainability and Peace Educational & Implementation Strategies
Interdisciplinary Round Table on Climate Change and Energy.
Wasan Island, Muskoka, Ontario. September 13 - 16, 2007
By Julia Morton-Marr.
Email: ihtec@3web.com Website: www.ihtec.org
Chair, Science for Peace Working Group on Peace and Sustainability Education.
Founding President, International Holistic Tourism Education Centre - IHTEC and the International School Peace Gardens.
NB: This is not an academic paper although it could be developed into one if it is thought to be needed. It is for discussion at the Round Table only.
Peace and Sustainability Education for CCERT.
What kind of sustainability and peace education must be developed to include the planet as “The Economy”?. If education is seen as part of the paradigm shift for climate change and energy, then whatever is to be implemented as curriculum must be delivered to all schools around the world at the same time, so that the effect is immediate.
Climate Change and Educational Global Dimming
The global IQ may be dimming as a result of our carbon based energy use and the current climatic changes. Earth’s citizens are currently in a ‘war based economy’. So will a ‘peace based economy’ using alternative energies such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, and water energy, change the paradigm of a war industrial society to a peaceful sustainable society? How will it heal and prevent further planetary destruction? The International Holistic Tourism Education Centre - IHTEC has been working on some solutions, one of which is the role of the International School Peace Gardens www.ihtec.org which has been developed to give alternative curriculum for positive action in communities at each local school.
1. Vision: Sustainability Education has two major roles:
a. Firstly to teach how to clean up the mess that has been made, and secondly, how to teach how to never create the same crisis on planet earth again. Young people need a message of hope and something positive that can help them make the transition from the “entitlement generation” to
a “sustainable and peaceful generation”.
b. Introduce the International School Peace Gardens curriculum globally.
c. Invite Tim Grant of “Green Teacher” to publish the outcomes for implementation.
Carbon Based Factory Schooling to Home Schooling.
If carbon energy use has been the major cause of climate change, then how has educational curriculum perpetuated this paradigm? The spinning jenny prompted the manufacture of threads for weaving, that prompted the need for schools. The industrial era has extracted and facilitated young people out of their homes for eight hours daily and legislated compulsory from 6 - 16 years old, in preparation for work in factories. Early curriculum was only from Grade 1 - 7 where advanced mathematics was taught in Grade 7 in the early years. School to Work transition, has always been the theme for education in schools, even though Universities consider that education is for life, which in reality education is for feeding the GNP and the growth of a war based capitalist society. Only the brightest students of elite families, have progressed to further education, which was not available to most until the late 20th Century.
2. Vision: Home Schooling.
a. A return to small home schooling or small community schools would reduce CO2 emissions from the massive use of school buses, and encourage walking to school.
Capitalism's Growth and Economics
Marilyn Waring’s video “Who’s Counting” from her book "If Women Counted & Sex, Lies & Global Economics" identified the "UN System of National Accounts" as a major part of the global problem. This accounting system interacts with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It evolved out of Britain during WW2 written as a brochure by John Keynes and Richard Stone called "The British National Income and how to pay for the War". Keynes and Stone were asked to rewrite and expanded their document for the inception of the United Nations. Before any country can be a member of the United Nations they must agree to participate in the UN System of National Accounts. This is what has created "The Culture of War" which only accounts for money. Waring found that there was no value for ‘peace, women, children, unpaid work, the environment, and leaves out the value of 1/2 the population on the planet and the planet itself’. So if we wish to build a ‘Culture of Peace’ and slow global IQ dimming, we need to begin with the UN.
3. Vision: Economics
a. Introduce at the United Nations level a new International system “Accounting for Peace & Sustainability” as the “United Nations System of National Accounts” that includes all that has not been accounted for in the past ‘peace, women, children, unpaid work, the environment, includes the value of 1/2 the population on the planet and the planet itself.” This will ensure that a global paradigm shift occurs.
b. Educate through schools, colleges and universities, Helmut Burkhardt’s “Substance Accounting” which includes the losses as a negative, not a positive GNP.
c. Fully implement the Canadian initiative of “Measurement of Well Being” by Mike Nickerson who coordinates the 7th Generation Initiative.
d. Ensure equal representation in all sectors of life of Women and Men, as in the United Nations Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Oct 2000. Include equal boys and girls in all decision making, within the education curriculum.
e. Educate men to encourage these changes.
Environmental Integrity and Community Health
Many thousands of humans have ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ with malfunctioning immune systems. Researchers such as Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Women’s Healthy Environmental Network (WHEN), have produced two films “Exposure: Environmental links to Breast Cancer” and “Toxic Trespass” a film about children's health and the environment. Both promote and prove that the environmental crisis is causing health risks. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, International Institute for Concern for Public Health, has documented many of these concerns in “No Immediate Danger - Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth”, and “Planet Earth - the latest weapon of war” along with Marion Odell who has created a series of slide shows available on the web. In mega cities in Toronto, Mexico, and China, the visible air pollution, along with climate change plus the weather manipulation, is affecting students at work. Colin Soskolne, School of Public Health University of Alberta, has worked with the World Health Organization on internal air quality. Schools are places of mold, polluted air from CO2 emissions, that cause environmental health problems.
The human impact of the use of oil and it’s manufactured results, follows a linked pathway to destruction. All of these need to be addressed. From the factory to transportation, from trade and exchange of food, to the increase of populations globally, increasing CO2 emissions (buses and cars delivering students to schools) and ozone depletion, and then the related chemical industry (including oil as carbon monoxide produced in traffic jams) which also affects the global population’s health and educational IQ. These same chemicals are used in medical drugs such a Ritalin for ADD, which is basically speed, which gives you dopamine to change the brain chemistry. Chemicals are also excreted into the ground water, rivers and then into the oceans, and are also used in the war industry as weapons. These chemical are all are polluting the children’s brains and causing global dimming.
Biodiversity on Planet Earth is in crisis, says Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Bio-logical Diversity.
4. Vision:
a. That positive bio-diversity based curriculum be included in all curriculum for sustainability and the prevention of future wars. The Planet first style curriculum with human responsibilities before human rights.
b. Teach responsible protection of the “Global Commons” wherever humans are on planet earth. (Q. What affect could this produce?)
c. Involve the military in planting forests supporting biological diversity in every area of the planet.
Societal Integrity: TV & Media
The work of Rose Dyson, Citizens Concerned Against Violence in Entertainment (C-CAVE) on the effects of violent media & video games, although supposed to be seen as entertainment, are affecting young people’s minds. This is fully discussed in her book "Mind Abuse". Young children from 3 years old can use a ‘Game Boy” for hours. This reduces their physical activity and increases obesity. Educational research has identified that school achievement increased when daily physical activity was introduced into schools. Music study can increase the brain’s growth.
5. Vision:
a. That ‘by-laws be written internationally, similar to the one first introduced at the municipal level in the Province of Quebec, which ultimately led to the development of legislation effective throughout the entire province, banning advertisements to children 13 years and under on the basis of research showing harmful effects’ Rose Dyson by email.
b. That music and the arts be reintroduced into curriculum, where it has been removed. Physical Education must be daily for all students.
Illiteracy
Canada had a national committee (1995 approx) looking into illiteracy and found that over 1 million students (I think from memory) who left school were illiterate. The Government never published this report and closed the committee.
6. Vision: Increase literacy especially in sustainability and peace education.
Technology
Most schools have computers and there is a push for poorer countries to have cell technology with access to web based access. Even if home schooling is not possible, there will be a greater need for life long learning to use web conferencing technologies such as Talking Communities (created by the blind association for people with handicaps) and iVisit.com so that new societies solving environmental concerns can communicate and share their achievement. IHTEC is doing this now.
7. All school teach how to use web based communication technology for life long learning and sharing internationally, to reduce CO2 emissions.
Curriculum Changes
The culmination of the discussion points above, point to the need for important curriculum change, for energy and climate change. However over the last 20 years, there has been continuous curriculum change. There is no doubt that this change has affected teachers minds and caused student confusion.
8. Vision: Curriculum Changes
a. However it is seen that curriculum change and implementation is vital to the planet and society’s health the during the “UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development” that the existing curriculum will need to be modified to include peace and sustainability education.
b. All teachers are re-trained in peace and sustainability education.
c. That public education is vital as an agent of change.
d. That all university and college students have a compulsory course in peace and sustainability education.
e. That all university courses need to be reviewed and re-written towards a “Culture of Peace” and focused on Climate Change.
f. That girls and young women are fully included and know their role in sustainability.
Population
The culmination of the above discussion, has indicates that there will be a loss of biodiversity, which also will also increase of species infertility. This in turn will reduce the population on the planet.
Conclusions
So will a new energy source stop climate change, prevent resource depletion, economic poverty and war? So how will we change from the outcome of the existing “Culture of War” to a “Culture of Peace”,
where ‘peace’ is seen as ‘going to war’; where ‘peacebuilding’ is ‘reconstruction’; where ‘peace keeping’ is a tool for implementing ‘democracy through war’; where the rubric “Responsibility to Protect” gives heads of state permission to go to war, with the outcome as a reduction of population?
As we are now in the 6th Extinction, surely continuing in the current educational paradigm, will be the downfall of an intellectual civilization on planet earth.
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