David W. Orr
It is widely assumed that environmental problems will be solved by technology or one sort or another. Better technology can certainly help, but the crisis is not first and foremost one of technology. Rather, it is one within the minds that develop and use technology. Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Post-Modern World, 1992.
David W. Orr is professor of environmental studies and politics and chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College. In 1979, he cofounded Meadowcreek, an environmental education center in Fox, Arkansas. He is also the author of Earth in Mind: Essays on Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect; Ecological Literacy, and many Articles. In 1933, he received the National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation.
Ultimately . . . the ecological crisis has to do with how we think and with the institutions that purport to shape and refine the capacity to think. Ibid.
. . . from newspapers, journals, and books the following "random" facts recently crossed my desk: Ã Male sperm counts worldwide have fallen by 50% since 1938 and no one knows exactly why.
à Human breast milk often contains more toxic substances than permissible in milk sold by dairies.
à At death human bodies often contain enough toxic chemicals and heavy metals to be classified as a hazardous waste.
à Fungi have declined throughout the world and no one knows why. The same is true of populations of amphibians worldwide even where the pH of rainfall is normal.
ÃFrom mining and manufacturing, U. S> industry according to Paul Hawken in The Ecology of Commerce, creates some 11.4 billion tons of hazardous wastes each year. Ibid.
The ideal of the broadly informed, renaissance mind has given way to the far smaller idea of the academic specialist. Ibid.
The goal of education is not the mastery of knowledge, but the mastery of self through knowledge&endash;a different thing altogether. Ibid.
. . . liberal arts institutions have not been vigorous enough in their response to the rapid decline in the habitability of the Earth. Ibid.
As we approach the year 2000 the vital signs of the Earth are virtually everywhere in decline. The big numbers are working against us: population growth, the extinction of species, deforestation, desertification, soil loss, acid rain, toxic substances, and the possibility of rapid climate change. Ibid.
To some, such a response to the challenges of the twenty-first century appears to be utterly unimaginable. To others, however, it looks a great deal like what Winston Churchill once called an "insurmountable opportunity." It is an opportunity to revitalize and enliven curriculum pedagogy. Ibid.