If we hope to make the world a better place and pass a healthy environment on to our children, we must start by educating ourselves about the environment. This ongoing essay explores the meaning of ecological literacy. It’s now cool to be green – big companies “go green”, cities “go green”, all sorts of surprising people go into “greener than thou” raps. Schools have required lessons on rain forests, water cycles and recycling.
But we are still growing increasingly out-of-touch with the natural world, especially when we look at the impact of “progress” and “a strong economy” on environmental systems.
2 responses so far ↓
urbanministrygarden // January 14, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
One challenge is understanding an enormously complex and interlinked collection of problems and opportunities.
A reasonable starting point is to develop at least a basic set of “ecological literacies”. No one can hope to understand all environmental questions in detail, but at least we can work to make sure we have the basic science straight.
We also need to know who the influential thinkers and players are, and what they say.
Finally, it doesn’t hurt to know which environmental issues have the biggest impact and pose the biggest problems in Charlotte, as well as local environmental assets especially worth knowing about
Roger Coates // January 31, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
One of the Green Sanctuary churches I’ve contacted has established a Green Corner on the GS program’s page of the church’s web site. Each month an eco-literate congregant writes a page or two about a selected enviro topic, gradually adding to the stock of eco-literacy within the congregation. I understand that the S J / GS team also hosts eco-policy forums (debates) on issues where differing values intersect (e.g., urban development vs. enviro protection). Talk about making the overall issue come alive!