Science Education, Overconsumption, and Survival on a Finite Planet
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v3i1.49Keywords:
Science education, overconsumption, education abroadAbstract
In my view, technological progress has raced ahead of social progress. At the press of a few buttons, we can talk with people all over the world, before we have mastered the art of communicating with the person who lives next door. We are racing faster and faster from parking lot to parking lot. We struggle and strive in order to sink into a couch and watch other people live on the other side of a plastic screen. We buy more and more objects to fill the void left by not building our lives around relationships. The nuclear family has become the ideal purchasing unit. The modern cathedral is the shopping mall and the road to hell is paved with good inventions!
Perhaps the most dangerous invention we have ever come up with is a group of experts who all share the same value system, because it is difficult for anyone in that group to challenge the shared value. Indeed, the danger is in the fact that the shared value is invisible. It is not easy to question the way we see the world: our paradigms. We do not notice the lens we see through until it cracks or clouds a little.
Downloads
References
Clark, M.E. (1989) Ariadne’s Thread. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Bumb, R.R., W.B. Crummett, S.S. Cutie, J.R. Gledhill, R.H. Hummel, R.O. Kagel, L.L. Lamparski, E.V. Luoma, D.L. Miller, T.J. Nestick, L.A. Shadoff, R.H. Stehl, and J.S. Woods (1980) Trace Chemistries of Fire: A Source of Chlorinated Dioxins. Science 210: 385-390.
USEPA (1994) Health Assessment Document for 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro-dibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD) and Related Compounds. Volumes I, II, and III. Review Draft. EPA/600/BP-92/001a,b,c.
USEPA (1994) Estimating Exposure to Dioxin-Link Compounds., Volumes I, II, and III. Review Draft. EPA/600/6-88/005a,b,c.
DeVito, M.J., L.S. Birnbaum, W.H. Farland, and T.A. Gasiewicz (1995). Comparisons of Estimated Human Body Burdens of Dioxinlike Chemicals and TCDD Body Burdens in Experimentally Exposed Animals. Environmental Health Perspectives 103: 820-831.
Pluim, H.J., J.G. Koppe, K. Olie, J.W. v.d. Slikke, J.H. Kok, T. Vulsma, D. van Tijn, and I.J.M. de Vijlder (1992). Effects of Dioxins and Thyroid Function in Newborn Babies. The Lancet. 339:1303.
Huisman, M., C. Koopman-Esseboom, V. Fidler, M. Hadders-Algra, C.G. van der Paauw, L.G.M. Th. Tuinstra, N. Weisglas-Kuperus, P.J.J. Sauer, B.C.L. Touwen, and E.R. Boersma (1995). Perinatal Exposure to Polychlorinated Biphenyls and Dioxins and Its Effect on Neonatal Neurological Development. Early Hum Dev. 41:111-127.
Colborn, T., D. Dumanoski, and J.P. Myers (1996). Our Stolen Future. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Connett, E. and P. (1994) Since the 1980’s a Minimum of 280 Proposals to Build Municipal Waste Incinerators in the U.S. Have Been Defeated or Abandoned. Waste Not. #283-294. Canton, NY.
Durning, A. (1992). How Much Is Enough? New York: W.W. Norton and Co., p. 21.
Eliot, T.S. (1961). Selected Poems. London: Faber and Faber.
Blumberg, L., and R. Gottlieb (1989). War on Waste. Washington, DC: Island Press, p. 267.
Hawken, P. (1993). The Ecology of Commerce. New York: Harperbusiness, p. 131.
Kostyniuk, B. (1991). Cartoon. Adbusters Quarterly. 1.4 rear cover.
Schumacher, E.F. (1989). Small is Beautiful. New York: Harper and Row (1989 edition), p. 14.
Athanasiou, T. (1996). Divided Planet. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., frontispiece.
Daly, H.E., and J.B. Cobb, Jr. (1989) For the Common Good. Boston: Beacon Press.
Douthwaite, R. (1992). The Growth Illusion. Tulsa: Council Oak Books.
Korten, D.C. (1995). When Corporations Rule the World. West Hartford, CT.: Kumarian Press.
Roberts, W., and S. Brandum (1995). Get a Life! Toronto: Get a Life Publishing House.
Mazrui, A. (1986). The Africas: The Nature of a Continent. (TV series). Washington, DC: WETA and BBC.