Relieving Modern Day Atlas of an Illusory Burden - Abandoning the Hypermodern Fantasy of an Education to Manage the Globe - Renouncing Planetary Education for Sustainable Development

Oct 15, 2026

A rigorous critique challenges planetary education for sustainable development as built on untenable assumptions about a sustainable future. Drawing on perspectives across philosophy, sociology, geography, anthropology, psychology, pedagogy, and biology, the work argues that applying this ideology throughout education worsens humanity’s problems. Evidence and testimonies show perverse impacts on child development and the erosion of diversity across people, cultures, places, practices, and languages, while calling for urgent reconsideration of the education prescription.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Critique of planetary education for sustainable development

Assumptions behind the “education for a sustainable future” idea

Perverse effects on development and diversity

Questioning the role of schools in innovation and social reform

A dystopia within utopia and global monoculture risks

Relieving Modern Day Atlas of an Illusory Burden: Abandoning the Hypermodern Fantasy of an Education to Manage the Globe1 Tom Berryman, Montréal, Canada Abstract The core of this article is a vigorous critique of planetary education for sustainable development and, emerging from this critique, a restatement of some alternatives, which compensate for the excesses of such globalized education. Drawing from a variety of perspectives—philosophy, sociology, geography, anthropology, psychology, pedagogy, biology and others—it is argued that the idea of an education for a sustainable future is founded on untenable assumptions. Contrary to contentions by promoters of sustainable development, who claim that the application of this ideology in all of education is the ultimate solution to humanity’s problems, evidence and testimonies are provided that suggest exacerbation of these problems. Examples of such perverse effects are described with respect to child development and preservation of diversity in people, cultures, places, practices and languages. Résumé Le cœur de cet article est une vigoureuse critique de l’éducation planétaire en matière de développement durable et, découlant de cette critique, la reformulation de quelques options de rechange pour compenser les excès d’une telle éducation. À partir d’une variété de perspectives – philosophique, sociologique, géographique, anthropologique, psychologique, pédagogique, biologique, notamment – il est argué que l’idéed’une éducation en vue d’un avenir durable est fondée sur des hypothèses insoutenables. Les promoteurs du développement durable prétendent que l’application de cette idéologie à toutel’éducation constitue la solution définitive aux problèmes del’humanité. Les preuves et les témoignages suggèrent plutôt une exacerbation de ces problèmes. Des exemples de ces effets 50 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 4, Summer 1999 pervers sont rapportés au sujet du développement de l’enfant et de la préservation de la diversité des personnes, des cultures, des lieux, des pratiques et des langues. We have all been exposed to discourses about the failures of environmental education to save the world. Since it hasn’t fulfilled its promises, we must urgently act to avoid catastrophe. Accordingly, environmental education must be changed. I wish to question the assumptions underlying such a diagnostic and question the new prescription. More specifically, I question the idea that schools be the main source of innovation and adaptation where an army of pupils will be trained to build a sustainable future. I do not, however, question the importance of schooling to accompany the youth’s development of varied and numerous skills needed to face our predicament. I question the idea that schools be places in which to reform society, places to begin and implement radical changes—though I don’t question the need for radical changes in society. I question the allegations that environmental education, by focusing too much on the stories of ecology and natural sciences, has missed some important and essential aspects—though I don’t deny the essential need to integrate and hold together a variety of stories. I question the charges, sometimes laid, that we have been too local and too centred on nature, charges that our educational practices have been too reflexive and not actively enough involved. In fact, it could well be that we have generally not paid enough attention to our local nature, our local history, and our local people and have been too centred on relatively inaccessible global problems. It could very well be that we suffer from a useless and tiring form of hyperactivity. Using the words of José Ortega y Gasset, Karl von Maltzahn (1994) notes how we tend to forget “the mute things which are all around us” and how “we walk blindly among them, our gaze fixed on remote enterprises, embarked upon the conquest of distant schematic cities”(p. 100) Accordingly, my hy

FAQs

What is the main argument against planetary education for sustainable development?

The document argues that it rests on untenable assumptions and that evidence suggests it can exacerbate humanity’s problems rather than solve them.

What kinds of negative effects does the article discuss?

It describes perverse effects on child development and on preserving diversity across people, cultures, places, practices, and languages.

How does the author question the prescription for changing environmental education?

The author questions the underlying diagnostic assumptions and the new prescription, including the idea that schools should be the main source of innovation for building a sustainable future.

Oct 15, 2026

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