11 - Why “the environment” can be a misleading myth (2020)

Summary

This article was written as a blog for SEEd, a UK national NGO advancing and supporting sustainability and environmental education. Some years ago, I had the realization that “the environment” does not exist – if we mean by that something that is detached from ourselves. Of course, it is a useful word but so often it conveys the sense of something separate. The term “the environment” is meaningful and useful in everyday employment, but it tends to perpetuate the sense of dissociation, of the duality of people and environment, or economy and ecology.

So this made me think about how language influences perception, and vice-versa – and how sometimes language limits rather than enhances our understanding. Dualism is one of our powerful “thought habits” of which we are often not aware (see Chapter 12). The idea of a participative world in which we are unavoidably immersed and entangled seems a much truer reflection of reality, and is consistent with an ecological worldview. These thoughts are briefly worked through in this article.

The blog was published with a complementing teaching activity from Linking Thinking (Sterling et al. 2005) – a teaching pack which introduces systems thinking and perspectives. The activity encourages learners to reflect critically on the common term “environmental issue” and note that this label is a construction that may well oversimplify a more complex and multifaceted problem or set of issues. This teaching material is available to download from the source shown below. There is more about systems thinking in Chapter 14.

This is a slightly edited version of the original blog.

I see myself as an environmentalist. And have done so ever since my early teens – which was a long time ago. So why would I be writing a blog with such a title? On the face of things, perhaps it seems a bit contradictory – a little sacrilegious even – amongst fellow greenies.

I was prompted to write because of the England Chief Inspector of Schools’ recent statement, on launching Ofsted's (Office for Standards in Education) Annual Report. She worried there were efforts to “commandeer” schools and the curriculum to cover worthy social issues, including environmental causes and tackling racism. Well, that view probably needs an additional blog response, but it's what she said next that bothered me.