Cultivating the Ecological Conscience: Smith, Orr, and Bowers on Ecological Education Page: 11
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Given the state of the world all this is very problematic. Because anthropogenic
environmental degradation and resource depletion are creating the conditions for severe
economic and social decline Smith believes that currently we confront "a critical moment."21 If
we fail to confront the growing crises of diminished economic opportunity and environmental
destruction the inevitable result will be the breakdown of both nature and society.22 Smith
expects conditions during the twenty-first century to spawn changes in society and political
economy "at least as revolutionary" as those that generated the modern age.23 A good deal of
what we are now accustomed to, he writes, including our political systems and even capitalism
may go by the wayside as present-day institutions demonstrate their inadequacy to the task of
reacting to "a world that no longer matches the assumptions upon which modernity is based."24
Those assumptions, a list of which will be familiar to any committed environmentalist,
are the source of the ecological crisis.25 Some of the most important of these beliefs, which
underlay industrial civilization and are mostly taken for granted, include: a mechanistic
conception of both society and the universe, the reliability of objective rationality, the
controllability of nature, the viability of personal independence on the one hand and centralized
sociopolitical control on the other, and a permanent increase in the standard of living.26 What is
more, on the personal level, "greed, hatred, and self-delusion have become dominant factors in
Environmentalists: The Role of Nonformal Education," in Ecological Education in Action, p. 209.
21 Smith, Education and the Environment, p. 10.
22 Ibid., pp. 8, 10.
23 Smith, "Schooling in an Era of Limits," p. 57.
24 Ibid.; Smith, Education and the Environment, pp. 9- 10.
25 Gregory A. Smith, "The Petrolia School: Teaching and Learning in Place," Holistic Education Review 8 (1995):
49; Gregory A. Smith, "The Greening of Pedagogy: Reflections on Balancing Hope and Despair," Holistic
Education Review 9 (1996): 44.
26 Smith, Education and the Environment, p. 20; Smith and Williams, "Introduction," in Ecological Education in
Action, p. 11.11
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Hoelscher, David W. Cultivating the Ecological Conscience: Smith, Orr, and Bowers on Ecological Education, thesis, December 2009; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12133/m1/16/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .