Practicing and Teaching Sustainability under the Shadow of Multiple Hegemonies.
The latest report of the International Panel of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has concluded that biodiversity collapse is imminent, and the status quo is no longer an option. The IPCC 1.5°C report has also demanded drastic action to avert runaway climate change. Simultaneously, almost half the world‘s population continues to live on less than $2.50/day and UNICEF estimates that 22,000 children die daily due to poverty, even as the rich get richer! The decline in environmental and social indicators has been largely attributed to the economic model of capitalist development. A reliance on economic bottom-lines, the desire for efficiency and commodification of everything is leading us into a downward environmental spiral. What do we do as practising environmental researchers and teachers to understand this multi-dimensional and interconnected global crisis; a crisis that is clearly anthropogenic? Does the idea of Anthropocene help us understand the roots of the crisis, or do terms such as Capitalocene and Technocene highlight them better? Does sustainability science provide a way forward?
