Sustainable developers sometimes act like zealots. They believe that past patterns of land development are deeply flawed and unsustainable. They know climate change will place huge burdens on our industry and agriculture. They are confident that the ecological systems providing our life support services are dangerously degraded. They accept that traffic problems will be made worse by sprawling more roads and that we are already stretched thin trying to maintain our current, crumbling infrastructure. They see Earth as finite and our resources limited, and thus question whether a consumption-based economy is in our long-term interests.
To people that don’t share these beliefs, sustainable development communication and education programs can feel like propaganda.
Consider the following quote, from page iii of a 2003 EPA document titled Getting in Step, which was developed to help communities promote sustainable behaviors:
“Most people don’t realize that many of the things they do every day in and around their homes contribute to [problems]. Those individual behaviors need to be changed. Making a change from [these bad] behaviors to [better] behaviors will require education, enlightenment, and new attitudes. When people know, understand, and change how they do things, [the] problems can be solved.”
I inserted “problems” for “polluted runoff” and inserted “bad” for “pollution-generating” to make the text seem uncomfortably Orwellian and to illustrate how public education programs focus on changing behaviors. Allow me one more example, this time from the United Nations program focused on sustainable consumption and production:
Education, at all levels and in all its forms … will help build capacities for sustainable lifestyles at all levels of society. (Visions for Change: Page 74)
The authors explain the desired outcome from this education earlier in the same document:
Creating sustainable lifestyles means rethinking our ways of living, how we buy and what we consume, but not only that. It also means rethinking how we organize our daily life, altering the way we socialize, exchange, share, educate and build identities. It is about transforming our societies towards more equity and living in balance with our natural environment.” (Introduction, page 15)
Government funded programs with intentions to fix bad behaviors, change lifestyles, or manage demand understandably feel like big brother is doing more than watching. As I’ve blogged elsewhere, the values of sustainable developers differ from the values of tea partiers. Education of the types illustrated above may threaten the core values of people who champion individual autonomy, advocate “free” markets, and who believe the ultimate resource is not soil or oil but human ingenuity and American entrepreneurship.
Let me be clear: I’m not arguing against education for behavioral change to promote sustainability. In fact I’ve offered tips on how to do it better and I recommend resources such as Weathercocks and Signposts. I fall in to the camp of people advocating change. I believe the issues in the first paragraph are real and pressing.
The purpose of this blog is to drive home the point that sustainable development involves a tournament of values. Promoters of environmental education such as EPA and NAAEE are well aware of these concerns and go to great lengths to point out that “Environmental education does not advocate a particular viewpoint or course of action. Rather, environmental education teaches individuals how to weigh various sides of an issue through critical thinking and it enhances their own problem-solving and decision-making skills.”
Nonetheless, communities pursuing sustainable development must accept that they are engaging in difficult discussion about core values. Identities will be challenged. Traditions might need to change. Fundamental issues such as property rights and liberty are at stake. Tea Party charges of socialism and communism signal that some members of our communities feel core American Values are being challenged by sustainable development.
Therefore sustainable development efforts must proceed openly and with respect.
Ultimately which development trajectory we pursue is a political decision and citizens must engage in the tournament of values to persuade one another which future we want to develop. I continue to advocate sustainable development.