Making peace with nature. An educational challenge for the 21st century

Abstract

Contemporary man, while declaring war against nature, has declared war to himself. We are exerting extreme pressures on our planet, driven by an unsustainable logic of consumption and production that amplifies inequalities and shows itself in all its gravity in the consequences of human migrations linked to climate change, in the energy crisis, in land consumption. Environmental issues are increasingly the reason and cause of armed conflicts or outright wars. Education, peace and sustainability represent an unbreakable trinomial, but in several respects a missed opportunity to reverse course. Guiding and accompanying human beings to responsibility towards the planet calls for pedagogy in promoting transformative and systemic processes to understand the profound relationship that connects humanity and the environment to read the complexity of time and the places we inhabit in an unprecedented way, cultivating values and perspectives to make a democratic and peaceful society blossom.