4 - Planetary primacy and the necessity of positive dis-illusion (2019)

Summary

I wrote this paper very much with the Earth in mind. We are now in the Anthropocene epoch where human activity is radically changing and destabilizing Earth systems. The article was a response to an invitation to contribute to an American journal's special issue on “Learning Foundations and Practice of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals”. Whilst I touch on the SDGs, I took this opportunity to “step back”: why are we in such a state globally that we need to implement the SDGs? What brought us to this point – where now scientists are talking about growing existential risk? I look briefly at the history, and argue that humanity needs to engage in mass “re-cognition” towards a relational or participative consciousness.

I introduce “positive dis-illusion”, a potent concept which implies recognizing and reframing the modern Western worldview, in such a way that ecological principles can flourish as the basis of moving through and beyond multiple crises. Since I wrote the article, it seems to me that clear evidence of multiple crises – and especially those linked to what is increasingly called global heating – is bringing about mass dis-illusion with old frameworks and assumptions. A task of education is to help ensure such dis-illusion is indeed positive, so constructive change is enabled.

The article underlines that the health of the Earth and planetary systems has to be paramount to assure the future. Hence the need for “planetary primacy” and for economic systems that work within that imperative, that is, within the limits of the ecosphere. Education itself is hardly mentioned, rather this chapter complements Chapter 1 by outlining past and current critical aspects of social and environmental change with which education is challenged to engage.

We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it.

Tanya Steele, WWF UK Chief Executive, 2018 (Grooten & Almond 2018)

It is sometimes helpful to apply hindsight to generate insight and foresight. It was 47 years ago that the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on the Human Environment commissioned a report, Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, to inform its proceedings.