Poverty And Environmental Education

The UN Declaration on Human Rights has been fifty years old. A moment is needed to take stock and to look at the deficits which still exist in terms of human rights half a century later. The declaration of 1948 contains a comprehensive list of political, economic, social and cultural rights and aims at the protection of the freedom, equality, and human dignity of all human beings, irrespective of their race, gender, language or religion. Never before in history had there been such a far-reaching and solemn undertaking to protect each and every individual from all forms of oppression and deprivation. Two treaties adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 translate the ideas of the Human Rights Declaration into binding international law, and a High Commissioner for Human Rights, an office created as a result of the UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, has been put in charge of monitoring the human rights situation and coordinate UN action on it. Numerous human rights NGOs all over the world, most important among them Amnesty International, have established themselves as additional watchdogs to guard against human rights violations.

At a time when wild places everywhere are vanishing before our eyes, Charles Saylan and Daniel T. Blumstein offer this passionate indictment of environmental education—along with a new vision for the future. Writing for general readers and educators alike, Saylan and Blumstein boldly argue that education today has failed to reach its potential in fighting climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. In this forward-looking book, they assess the current political climate, including the No Child Left Behind Act, a disaster for environmental education, and discuss how education can stimulate action—including decreasing consumption and demand, developing sustainable food and energy sources, and addressing poverty. Their multidisciplinary perspective encompasses such approaches as school gardens, using school buildings as teaching tools, and the greening of schoolyards. Arguing for a paradigm shift in the way we view education as a whole, The Failure of Environmental Education demonstrates how our education system can create new levels of awareness and work toward a sustainable future.

The new millennium raised hopes for a better future for humanity through a new spirit of international cooperation. Participants at the United Nations Millennium Summit agreed on an ambitious agenda for international cooperation that singled out, among other issues, environmental protection and development as key objectives. The increasing degradation of our planet continues to emphasize the need to conserve and preserve natural resources. Yet with more than half of the global population still living on $2 dollars a day or less, there is also a glaring need for development initiatives to combat poverty. This book draws on contributions to the People and the Environment lecture series at Fordham University, organized in partnership with the United Nations Development Program Equator Initiative and The Nature Conservancy. The essays offer a wealth of fresh perspectives and strategies to promote both environmental conservation and poverty eradication. Reflecting a range of disciplines, issues, and settings, they cover four interrelated topics: the link between poverty reduction and the environment and encouraging integration of environmental management and development; environmental disasters, their impact on poor people and ways to prevent and mitigate their consequences; conservation knowledge and the role of information and education in sustainable development; and legal empowerment of the poor. Each part offers an overview of the theme and introduces the perspectives of leading experts and scholars--from the lessons of Katrina and the Tsunami to model agricultural policies for sustaining the environment while strengthening local economies. Demonstrating the roles the environment can and should play in poverty alleviation, the essays deepen our understanding of the some of the world's most difficult challenges--and provide a toolkit of ideas and techniques for addressing them.

Today the key socio-economic problem is large-scale unemployment spreading joblessness brings many other problem in its wake. It erodes national incomes and living standards, aggravating the already grindingly difficult job of promoting developmental and alleviating poverty. Joblessness also raises government budget deficits, increasing macroeconomic instability while soaking up investment for productive capital expenditure, education, training and relief aid. And joblessness ruins lives and communities by depriving people of the dignity and satisfaction that comes with earning one s keep and making a contribution to the well being of family and society.

This book has been written for general readership but more specifically for college and university students studying environmental education in the 8-4-4 education system. In eleven chapters, the following broad topics are comprehensively covered: Environmental Education as an academic and practical discipline; People, their activities, resources, and the environment; Legal aspects of the environment. Each chapter is complete in itself with relevant questions and an exhaustive bibliography. It is hoped that the topical questions in each chapter will enable students to have a clearer understanding of the subject. The bibliographies should be of great help to the reader who is interested in an indepth study of the respective topics discussed in the text.

This book addresses the changes in education practices, especially basic education, necessitated by the global challenges of climate change and sustainable development and in a context characterized by increasing poverty and inequality, migration and refugees. Written by a range of international scholars, scientists and grassroots practitioners from Africa, Latin America, Asia (India, China, Malaysia) and Europe, the individual contributions focus on education policies and child development in various social contexts. Case-based experiences from both developed and developing countries provide inspiration and shed new light on the fundamental changes needed to adapt existing school systems and teacher training to face the challenges of the future. In this regard, the need to empower children themselves is emphasized. All contributions are based on a Workshop hosted in November 2015 by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican entitled “Children and Sustainable Development: A Challenge for Education” and follow three other significant events on sustainable development in 2015, namely the publication of Laudato Si’, the Encyclical Letter from Pope Francis, the release of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the COP21 Conference in Paris.

Education in South Asia has a renewed agenda which can enable societies to leapfrog development that is sustainable such that the individual is prepared for his/her involvement, responsibility and commitment to local and global discussions of our common future. This book on South Asia will focus on initiatives under the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) umbrella and discuss the challenges, opportunities, issues and strategies in the countries of the region. It presents these initiatives of Environmental Education/ESD vis-à-vis the administrative, economic, social, cultural and ecological realities of each country at various levels of policy, planning, implementation and evaluation. The discussions in this book extend beyond formal education systems like schools, higher education, pre-service and in-service teacher preparation to community education and education initiatives conceptualized with the goal of sustainability. All initiatives will demonstrate how each country in its own pace contributing to move ESD from the periphery to the core of education initiatives.