GEM Director's Commentary
Issue: Spring 2005
Victor D. Phillips, PhD
GEM Director
Diamonds and Red Skies beyond Ivory Towers?
GEM helping real people meet real needs
A tsunami strikes. On December 26, 2004, a strong tsunami devastated coastal regions of the Indian Ocean with horrific loss of life and property. This natural disaster, due to a tectonic earthquake cracking the sea floor, has resulted in much death, destruction, and misery. In response, there has been an immediate outpouring of care and help by the international community to restore infrastructure and living conditions and bolster hope for millions of survivors. This calamity is, of course, not the first such unpredictable, uncontrollable natural disaster experienced by humans in that area of the world or in other regions. People will rebuild and get on with their lives as best they can, resilient in their suffering and heartache to move onward in starting anew.
A clarion calls. A week later on January 1, 2005, a New York Times op-ed piece was published, “The Ends of the World as We Know Them,” by Jared Diamond, winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Focusing on manmade environmental and societal problems rather than natural disasters, Diamond presents a moving, earth-shattering call to action that all of us would do well to heed. Offering insights from lessons of history why some past societies failed to persist, he challenges us to:
- take environmental problems seriously (destruction of the natural resource base that sustains societies).
- avoid bad group decision-making (failure to solve or even to perceive the problems that would eventually destroy society such as conflicts of interest and pursuit of short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival).
- avoid insulating the elite from broad societal problems (blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions).
- be willing to re-examine long-held core values, when conditions change and those values no longer make sense (we have believed we live in a land of unlimited plenty, and so we practiced unrestrained consumerism, but that's no longer viable in a world of finite resources—we can't continue to deplete our own resources as well as those of much of the rest of the world)
In hope, Diamond asserts that we have a detailed chronicle of human successes and failures at our disposal to chart a sustainable course. He asks, “Will we choose to use it?”
Another clarion calls. Earlier in the spring of 2004, Gus Speth, Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, former President of the World Resources Institute, former Director of the United Nations Development Programme, and Co-Founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, published a new landmark book, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment. Using the metaphor of the sailor’s red sky at morning prediction of impending storm, he also warns us that the 21st century may be the beginning of the societal endgame unless people take charge in a real environmental movement to reverse the damage and restore resiliency of nature to sustain humans and other life forms on Earth. In hope, Speth offers an eightfold way to a sustainable world. Will we hear?
More clarions call... (
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Of course, others have raised the alarm to mend our ways in a rapidly changing world, noting that the rate of change and impact of human activity is outpacing our planet’s capacity to sustain itself—to maintain integrity and resiliency of life support functions. In the 20th century, many scholars including Rachel Carson, whose public cry in her 1962 book, Silent Spring, to wake up and stop ravaging the environment with synthetic chemicals, have made valiant and noble efforts to raise awareness through eloquent and gripping scholarly pronouncements. From roots in Wisconsin, Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac published in 1949 called for a land ethic to re-connect people to nature. Another Wisconsinite, Gaylord Nelson, who served as Governor and U.S. Senator, was the father of Earth Day, which was initiated in April 1970 and has been celebrated worldwide annually ever since to promote global awareness and action for sustainability.
A series of strong efforts by scientists, diplomats and leaders of the international community of nations has occurred in the last fifty years. Among these are the U.N. World Food Conference in Rome and the U.N. World Population Conference in Bucharest both in 1974; the 1969 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the USA and USSR, the World Meteorological Organization’s 1979 World Climate Conferences in Geneva, the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Many of these and other calls to action have emphasized equity and access to improve the human condition as well as environmental integrity worldwide.
Is anyone listening? Are we deaf, blind, dumb…or just greedy and jealous? Despite these well-informed, passionate efforts, people and the environment continue to suffer increasing hardship and degradation. Apparently, our current societal efforts in educating about sustainability are not reaching enough people rapidly enough and taking appropriate societal action is not happening sufficiently to change course. We are failing. At some point soon, we need to treat our environment as if our lives depended on it; we need to build bridges of basic, shared human and societal values that connect us all and with the environment that sustains us all (these ideas are hardly revelations or novel concepts through the ages).
Where we must go in the future as university educators—beyond ivory towers.... ()
As educators, most of us believe firmly that “Education is the key to success.” If we define success in terms of a sustainable future, then we feel strongly that education will enable society to design and secure this goal. Education will make it happen, right?
Let me shout a resounding and affirmative ‘YES’! I believe that the fundamental lesson that educators offer learners is hope, followed by informed action to make a world of difference. However, notwithstanding our “best” efforts to educate people to build a sustainable future, this goal remains elusive and obscure. Crushing poverty and overpopulation, lack of clean drinking water and food, lack of sanitary living conditions and shelter, environmental degradation, terrorism and war, and other serious issues cast doubts that cloud the future. What’s wrong; why haven’t we been more successful? Are the wrong lessons being taught? Are teachers not teaching the lessons well enough, or are learners not learning the lessons well enough? Are not enough teachers and learners participating in the lessons? My guess is that the answer is ‘yes’ to all of these questions, too.
Still, I cling ever strongly to the premise that education is the key to building a sustainable future—but a different education from that which is widely practiced today in most schools and universities worldwide. I am an eternal optimist who believes that educators are the special people charged with instilling hope and a positive ‘can-do’ attitude in learners who can change the world. Learners are agents of change for creating a future they can envision and move to reality. The responsibility of educators is to spark creativity, instill hope and empower people to act in enlightened self-interest for their families, neighbors and communities.
How do we move beyond the ivory towers, with urgency toward a more sustainable future for all?... ()
Moving beyond ivory towers. First, still within the walls of academia, we need to embrace sustainability curricula and implement sustainability measures in campus operations to demonstrate sustainability leadership and action on the hallowed ground of our own backyards. Then, we need to see and act upon the bigger picture to help build and participate proactively in current global networks via the Talloires Declaration of universities committed to sustainability, UN Millennium Development Goals Implementation Plan, UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development, the World Bank’s Global Development Learning Network, and other such international initiatives to connect us together in common cause.
Dam removal and bridge building. Concurrently, and more importantly in my view, we need to lower the drawbridges of our ivory towers and race out with our students to embrace local communities with real world problems in urgent need of solutions. We must remove the dams of isolation, inaccessibility, and intellectual retrenchment and act to empower citizens as agents of change now in their local communities to create their own solutions in culturally appropriate and locally acceptable ways. We need to “operationalize” lofty policy goals into concrete, tangible products and services at the local level one neighborhood, one farm field, one stream segment, and one factory at a time. We need to act with our strong, participatory involvement to help innovative initiatives in sustainability by universities, non-governmental organizations, citizen groups, and local governments succeed at the grassroots level.
Onward over the bridge. Diversity of thinking leads to innovation and creative solutions in a democratic society with freedom of expression and protection of individual and minority rights. International education promotes exchange of new ideas and multicultural awareness that stimulate diversity of thinking. With pressing global challenges before us, building intercontinental learning bridges for diverse cultures is essential to bring people together working locally to achieve common human and societal goals.
Core human values and actions to implement sustainable development must reflect locally relevant and culturally appropriate visions for a world that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Sustainable Development 1987). Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General, has stated, “Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that sounds abstract—sustainable development—and turn it into reality for all the world’s people” (United Nations 2001). Sustainable development goals should provide the greatest good for the largest number of people for the longest time.
GEM helping real people meet real needs. The Global Environmental Management Education Center (GEM) is just one example of many excellent and exciting international educational enterprises acting as catalysts of change to instill and act upon hope for the future. GEM and its partners around the world are bridging cultural divides, engaging and celebrating diversity of thinking, and pioneering and applying practical learning methods and technology to solve natural resource problems by linking faculty, students, and citizens worldwide. GEM’s sustainability efforts are measured by the “triple bottom line” of environmental integrity, economic viability, and social equity.
Helping real people meet real needs locally in their communities is GEM’s passion. GEM staff and students are agents of change working side-by-side with people who want to build a sustainable future. GEM and its local partners in the USA and overseas transform sustainable development policy into practical results on the ground in one field, one stream, one farm, one factory, one village at a time. This fresh, innovative service learning and social entrepreneurial approach to the educational enterprise reaches out to help empower people to make a world of difference in their neighborhoods. Beyond ivory towers of traditional university introspection, GEM’s active engagement in the real world moves the sustainability agenda forward locally and globally
Some examples of GEM’s helping real people meet real needs... ()
Some examples of GEM’s helping real people meet real needs:
- Training and working with HIV/AIDS patients and their families in Kenya to install low-cost, low-maintenance square-foot gardens for augmenting nutrition
- Conducting K-12 teacher exchanges and cultural immersion experiences in conservation and environmental education in Puerto Rico, and planned for China, Mexico, and East Africa
- Monitoring water quality by trained citizen volunteers and demonstrating healthy watersheds in local communities in Wisconsin, Costa Rica and South Africa
- Informing “smart growth” comprehensive land use planning decisions by citizens and local governments in rural counties of northern Wisconsin, Mexico and South Africa
- Introducing green energy demonstration projects and enhancing energy utilization awareness and education of students on campus and for the public through online virtual kiosks of energy usage accessible via Internet
- Empowering indigenous people and women in microenterprise development and human capacity building in local communities of Kenya, China and Mexico
- Conserving biodiversity, cultural diversity and indigenous values of Native American peoples in Wisconsin and minority peoples in China and Mexico through hands-on ecotourism, sustainable agriculture and agroforestry for rural development projects at the village level
- Building interpersonal experiences and friendships between American students and citizens overseas through practical field-based and community-based internships and applied research projects via the GEM Student Ambassador Program
As the ultimate investment in security in a troubled world, let this be the time for all educators to inspire and empower learners everywhere to build a sustainable future. In the New Year 2005, best wishes for helping make a world of difference, a world of peace and hope. GEM welcomes students and partners who are passionate about helping real people meet real needs. Can you hear the clarion calls of Diamonds and red skies beyond ivory towers?
Best regards,
Victor D. Phillips
GEM Director
