Diminishing footprints: exploring the local and global challenges to place-based environmental education

Abstract

An efficacious response to the ecological crisis requires a thorough examination of our material entitlements and a willingness to reduce our ecological impact by diminishing current levels of consumption. Drawing on the example of air pollution in China, I present a case for the reduction of consumption and impact as a worthy outcome of place-based environmental education. I consider the challenges that place-based educators face in initiating a reduction in collective impact among its constituents, which stem from theoretical assumptions about the link between the local and the global, and the influence of non-local socio-economic forces. Because the current planetary situation complicates the task of the place-based educator, and one’s investment in place may be assailed by trans-national forces, I forward ecological virtue ethics as a complementary form of environmental education, which in conjunction with place-based education, can serve to promote a reduction in consumption and impact among local communities.