Author, Consultant & EducatorI was a full-time primary teacher for 15 years before becoming a head teacher for the following two decades. In that time, I promoted the twin causes of environmental education and sustainability, which formed the central ethos of my schools. I'm now a freelance education consultant, specialising in curriculum and leadership and helping individual schools to link sustainability with school improvement more generally.
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When I relinquished primary school headship after twenty years, it was tempting to think that I deserved to sit back, potter in the garden and do some part-time school Improvement consultancy to pay for extended out of season holidays.
Wasn’t managing two schools situated in very challenging circumstances for the past two decades, something that ‘entitled’ me to an easier life? The key to why I chose to sweat over a hot laptop to produce this book can be found in the realisation that I’m entitled to nothing. Why? Because my life to date has likely taken much more out of planet Earth’s biosphere than has been replenished. This is starkly illustrated by ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ which each year creeps earlier and earlier. This marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. |
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I think of my numerous foreign holidays by plane and the hundreds of thousands of miles I’ve driven. This is compounded by my consumption of processed food with high carbon and water footprints, living in energy thirsty houses and lazily using cheap products procured from ethically dubious sources. I also wince about the amount of single-use plastic I’ve used and how many cheap electronic devices and articles of clothing I’ve discarded without thought of how they were manufactured and disposed of.
All this is nothing compared to having two children brought up in one of the most prosperous areas of the world and requiring vast planetary resources. I’m as guilty of obliviousness, self-justification, obfuscation and denial of my personal responsibilities towards our planet as the next person. Like many I’ve also put environmental concerns into a box marked ‘To Be Dealt With Later’ whilst carrying on regardless. Like many others in ‘developed’ nations, I’ve felt a misplaced feeling of entitlement to my spoils as if this was the natural way of things. |
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Having had a background in Environmental Education, I was aware earlier than most of today’s headline ‘environmental problems.’ This led me to put sustainability increasingly at the heart of my work, while endeavouring to pursue a ‘low impact’ lifestyle. But, as you can see from my past accumulation of over-consumption, I’m not preaching from an ivory tower of smug virtue. I sometimes did my best, but hindsight has shown me that it wasn’t good enough.
Suddenly the distant deadlines for action of my youth have come uncomfortably close, along with a sinking feeling that some have passed. So, it’s all too apparent that the social and economic activities which are depleting planetary resources at an alarming rate need to change course as we enter the uncertainties of the geological Anthropocene Epoch. |
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This shows that like asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions, humans are radically and detrimentally changing the bio-chemical make-up of the planet.
Another strong motivation for writing this book is raw fear and this has been enhanced by having a young daughter who is now 6 years old and might well be alive at the end of the century. Way before this, by the time she’s an adult, environmental tipping points may well have been reached (some say they already have) and I literally fear for her life and those of her generation, let alone those coming later. She may inherit some material advantage from my estate, but this will literally be worth nothing if our civilisation crumbles due to the biosphere being finally unable to bear the burdens human beings place upon it. |